The Wit and Wisdom of Frank Zappa

Who you jivin' with that cosmic debris? Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.
You can't run a country by a book of religion
Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon
Of foolish rules of ancient date
Designed to make you all feel great
While you fold, spindle, and mutilate
Those unbelievers of a neighboring state.
Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 nuclear powered pansexual roto-plooker....and you're gonna have to pay for it.
He was in a quandary...being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own steaming desires... uh.. the guy was a wreck
And now....you are going to dance...like you've never danced before!
Bring the band on down behind me, boys.
Not a speck of cereal.
Nothing but the best for my dog.
You drank beer, you played golf, you watched football - WE EVOLVED!
It looks just like a Telefunken U-47!
Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
They're serving burgers in the back!
Jazz is not dead...it just smells funny.--Beebop tango introduction
I have a message to deliver to the cute people of the world...if you're cute, or maybe you're beautiful...there's MORE OF US UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS OUT THERE THAN YOU ARE!! So watch out.
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
You're an asshole! You're an asshole! That's right! You're an asshole! You're an asshole! Yes yes!
Number one ain't you... You ain't even number two.
We could jam in Joe's garage, we didn't have no dope or LSD, but a coupl'o'quarts o'beer, would fix it so the intonation, would not offend your ear.
So, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, if you go for all these fairy tales, that "evil" woman convinced the man to eat the apple, but the apple came from the Tree of Knowledge. And the punishment that was then handed down, the woman gets to bleed and the guy's got to go to work, is the result of a man desiring, because his woman suggested that it would be a good idea, that he get all the knowledge that was supposedly the property and domain of God. So, that right away sets up Christianity as an anti-intellectual religion. You never want to be that smart. If you're a woman, it's going to be running down your leg, and if you're a guy, you're going to be in the salt mines for the rest of your life. So, just be a dumb fuck and you'll all go to heaven. That's the subtext of Christianity.
Who are the brain police?
This is the exciting part. This is like the Supremes see the way it builds up? Feel it?
A prune isn't really a vegetable... CABBAGE is a vegetable...
Here's one for mother
Only thirteen, and she knows how to NASTY
ARE YOU HUNG UP?
Diamonds on velvets on goldens on vixen On comet & cupid on donner & blitzen On up & away & afar & a go-go Escape from the weight of your corporate logo!
Don't it ever get lonesome?
Eddie, are you kidding?
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe.
Never try to get your peter sucked in France.
Kill Ugly Radio
I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.
Help! I'm a rock!
Another day, another sausage...
I want a garden!
Don't mind your make-up you'd better make your mind up.
A drug is neither moral nor immoral-it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole. -- The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 17.
It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice- there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. -- The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 9.
On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standars of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole.--from the liner notes of Freak Out.
Great googly-moogly - you're gonna do it too!
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom,
Wisdom is not truth,
Truth is not beauty,
Beauty is not love,
Love is not music
and Music is THE BEST
Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read. -- Chicago Tribune, January 18,1978.
Gee, it's so hard to find a place to park around here.
Playing guitar is like fucking--you never forget it.... Unless you're really, really stupid.
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.
If classical music is the state of the art, then the arts are in a sad state.
Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short, cloth neck ornament, currently in resurgence.
Don't cry... Gotta go bye bye... Suddenly die die... Cop kill a creep! Pow pow pow
Modern music is a sick puppy.
Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
Most people wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit them in the ass.--As quoted in WHOLE GRAINS, an early 1970's book of quotations
I figure the odds be fifty-fifty I just might have some thing to say.
The person who stands up and says, "This is stupid," either is asked to `behave' or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful "Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!"
The more BORING a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being GOOD PARENTS--because they have a TAME CHILD-CREATURE in their house.
The worst aspect of `typical familyism' (as media-merchandised) is that it glorifies _involuntary_homogenization_.
Gail has said in interviews that one of the things that makes our relationship work is the fact that we hardly ever get to talk to each other.
The language and concepts contained herein are guaranteed not to cause eternal torment in the place where the guy with the horns and pointed stick conducts his business.
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
I like having the capitol of the United States in Washington, D.C., in spite of recent efforts to move it to Lynchburg, Virginia.
He [Barney Frank] is one of the most impressive guys in Congress. He is a great model for young gay men.
Children are naive -- they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.
It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of OUR NATIONAL STUPIDITY.
Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.-- The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 8.
Nuclear explosions under the Nevada desert? What the fuck are we testing for? We already know the shit blows up.
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.
Star Wars won't work. Star Wars won't work. The gas still gets through; it could get right on you. And what about those germs, now? Star Wars won't work.
Washington, D.C.: a city infested with statues -- and Congressional Blow-Boys who WISH they were statues.
Thanks to our schools and political leadership, the U.S. has acquired an international reputation as the home of 250 million people dumb enough to buy 'The Wacky Wall-Walker.'
Stupidity has a certain charm--ignorance does not.
The real question is: Is it possible to laugh while fucking?"
The single-child yuppo-family that uses the child as a status object: `A perfect child? Of course! We have one here--he's under the coffee table. Ralph, stand up! Play the violin!'
Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system DISGUISED as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a- government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.
In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has--to put it mildly--a fatal design flaw.
A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians. --The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 8.
From the time Mr. Developing Nation was forced to read _The Little Red Book_ in exchange for a blob of rice, till the time he figured out that waiting in line for a loaf of pumpernickel was boring as fuck, took about three generations. ... Decades of indoctrination, manipulation, censorship and KGB excursions haven't altered this fact: People want a piece of their own little Something-or-Other, and, if they don't get it, have a tendency to initiate counterrevolution.
If it sounds GOOD to YOU, it's bitchen; and if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty.
The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we have tolerated the last eight years?
Lord have mercy on the people in England for the terrible food these people must eat. And Lord have mercy on the fate of this movie and God bless the mind of the man in the street.
Interviewer: "So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?" FZ: "You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?"
If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they'll gonna murder you in your sleep....--As quoted in WHOLE GRAINS, an early 1970's book of quotations
I'm not a man for all seasons but I'm doing something right. --Frank Zappa during the Senate PMRC hearings.
There is no hell. There is only France.
"Conducting" is when you draw "designs" in the nowhere - - with your stick, or with your hands--which are interpreted as "instructional messages" by guys wearing bow ties who wish they were fishing.
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma--like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball--I find this unfathomable--but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon.
Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder.
Politics is the showbiz of industry.
Let's just admit that public education is mediocre at best.
Without deviation from the norm, 'progress' is not possible.
The last election just laid the foundation of the next 500 years of Dark Ages--From 1981
Look, just because you have got that fuckin' thing between your legs it doesn't make any diference. If a girl does something stupid I am going to call her just as I would a guy.
A world of sexual incompetents, encountering eachother, under disco circumstances... Now can't you do songs about that?
A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules,often with the assistence of unsuspecting musicians.
There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it.
fuck that! when did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children?
Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
Life is like highschool with money.
Information doesn't kill you...--Senate Hearing on "Porn Rock", 1985 during an exchange with a Born Again Christian.
Where ever you're going, don't walk the first. If you do, people will think you know where you're going.
A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a licence to behave like an asshole.
Flatulence can be cruel!
Speed: It will turn you into your parents.--1970 public service announcement regarding drug (namely, speed) use
Sopranos!? That's why God made the rocket launcher and grenade!--Zappa & I were talking about the difficulties of getting good performances of music each of us write. I asked him if had had as many problems with sopranos and I had had. That was his response!
No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to. --The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 9.
I got to drive him around Columbus Ohio in April 1984 for the week he was at Ohio State participating in the 1984 National Conference of the American Society of University Composers. We spent lots of hours together during that week and stayed in touch thereafter. -- E. Michael Harrington
There were 45 men in the jail cell, the toilet and shower had never been cleaned, the temperature was 110 degrees so you couldn't sleep night or day, there were roaches in the oatmeal, sadistic guards, and everything that was nice. -- Zappa 1969 interview This had happened during the days of Studio Z in Cucamonga (1963). Frank was released on bail (his father took out a bank loan to pay for it). Frank had been busted for "conspiracy to commit pornography, " after making a silly recording of suggestive sexual sounds (giggling edited out) for someone who had asked him to provide a "special" tape recording for a stag night. That someone turned out to be Detective Willis of the San Bernadino Vice Squad. Their conversation was recorded by a hidden microphone and this was used as evidence at Zappa's trial. More info from "ZAPPA - A Visual Documentary by Miles", Omnibus Press, 1993, ISBN 0.7119.3099.6
Winos don't march.
Reporter: This is a personal thing, I think that if you wanted to make top ten hits and sell millions of records, you could. Frank Zappa: Yeah, but who wants to go through life with a tiny nose and one glove on?
I was writing all kinds of positive and negative canons and weird inverted this and retrograde that and getting as spaced- out mathematically as I could and I was going "Wait a minute (laughs), who cares about that stuff?" I had always liked rhythm and blues so here I was stuck between the slide rule and the gut bucket somewhere and I decided that I would opt for a third road someplace in between. -- From an 1972 interview to Martin Perlich. On giving up writing serial music.
It is always advisable to be a loser if you cannot become a winner.
I knew Jimi (Hendrix) and I think that the best thing you could say about Jimi was: there was a person who shouldn't use drugs.--From the second of two FZ interviews which were transcribed from an imported CD called "The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk". Conducted sometime in early to mid 1984.
Sometimes you got to get sick before you can feel better.
The emotion of every player is the most important thing, what stands behind this chord or tone. If you leave that out, the music does not touch you.--Interview from Keyboard June 1980. He outlined his expectations of keyboardists, and discussed plenty of other topics pertinent to the keyboard chair in his band
It's better to have something to remember than nothing to reget...
Why do people continue to compose music, and even pretend to teach others how to do it, when they already know the answer? Nobody gives a fuck.
If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.--From the Real Frank Zappa book.
A mind is like a parachute. It doesnt work if it not open.
You've got to be digging it while it's happening 'cause it just might be a one shot deal--From Waka/Jawaka
There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved.--Zappa on the Tonight Show, C.A. 1988
Heaven would be a place where bullshit existed only on television. (Hallelujah! We's halfway there!)--Television. Sometime probably in 1988. The Real Frank Zappa Book p. 234
Don't expect anything,don't expect fun, don't expect friends.. if you get something...it's a BONUS
Golly, do I ever have alot of soul!!--A reference from "We're only in it for the money" regarding his ability to strum, sing dance, and make merry fun all over the stage!
Shoot low, they're riding Shetlands--European Zappa distributors Music For Nations on the occasion of some anniversary of theirs.
Everyone in thes room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself--Live at the Circle Star, from 20 Years on the Road, when notified there were "cops in uniform" in the audience.
Children are naive-they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble. -- Zappa expressing his opinion pertaining to raising a child. He was saying that institutions such as schools and churches, which have the power to control and brainwash your child, are totally over rated, and shouldn't always be recognized as a genuinely good thing.
The ONLY thing that seems to band all nations together, is that their governments are universally bad....--F.Z. in German television interview
If we can't be free at least we can be cheap.
Whoever we are, whereever we're from, we should have noticed by now our behaviour is dumb, and if our chances are expected to improve, it's gonna take a lot more than trying to remove, the other race, or the other whatever, from the face of the planet altogether--Dumb All Over, You Are What You Is
Nobody looks good bent over. Especially to pick up a cheque.--Guitar Magazine 1984
The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just keep your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.--Playboy Interview, April 1993
When we talk about artistic freedom in this country We sometime lose sight of the fact that freedom is often dependent on adequate financing.
If you want to get laid, go to college, but if you want an education, go to the library.--Quoted in the Pittsburgh Press in the summer of 67.
A lot of things wrong with society today are directly attributable to the fact that the people who make the laws are sexually maladjusted.--from "I Seem To Be a Verb" by R. Buckminster Fuller, 1970.
The gorilla is on an island,eats bananas and has a good time all day long. He plays out there in the bushes. Some Americans find out about the gorilla and they hear how BIG he is - you know.They're very impressed with the size of the beast. So they catch the gorilla & they stick him in a boat & bring him back to the US. They show him off to everybody & make a bunch of money. ...Then they kill him !--The song King Kong.1968 tour Wisconsin.
Well, you know I've been here many times, and only certain hours of the day when I'm here am I asleep; the rest of the time I'm actually awake.--I have a filler on a dat with zappa being interrogated by a couple of swedish fans/state officers(who knows)...in which they are arguing over the pornographic contents of his work. he tells them he has been spying on them, and claims that their porno industry is bigger than that of the US. it's pretty funny. btw- this is from thew '88 tour.
I can gross out anybody in this room.--Said during a concert at Mount Holyoke College in the early 1970s.
Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement. --I saw this in an email .sig at someone who sent in a comment to "Elephant Talk"- the King Crimson email newsletter.
Outdoors for me is walking from the car to the ticket desk at the airport--Regarding secondhand smoke in "The Real FZ Book"
My music is like a movie for your eear
Here I stand hoping against hope that it's a chick with a low voice--At a concert in Beloit, Wisconsin 1968 or 69 a guy in the audience yelled out, "Eat me Zappa".
Don't clap for destroying America. This place is as good as you want to make it.--Zappa introduced "Billy the Mountain" by revealing that Billy and Ethel took a vacation trip across the united States, destroying it in the process. This was Zappa's response to the applause and cheers from the audience. Cleveland Colliseum, 1971
If it can be conceived as music, it can be executed as music, and presented to an audience in such a way that they will perceive it as music: "Look at this. Ever seen one of these before? I built this for you. What do you mean, 'What the fuck is it?' It's a goddam ETUDE, asshole."
This is a really nice place. Don't fuck it up.--Chrysler Hall, Norfolk, Virginia in the Spring of 1984. A very genteel place to see fine compositions performed live. Usually the opera folks hang out there.
The whole Universe is a large joke. Everything in the Universe are just subdivisions of this joke. So why take anything too serious. -- In September 1992 on SFB 3 when he gave an interview about the Yellow Shark.
You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.--On a postcard from Rykodisc
Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school system as a whole qualifies.--Discussing the state of the education system in America - Playboy magazine, April 1993.
We haven't got'em whipped on this one yet. You got a bear by the tail here, uh? Jeezis!--Bill of Rights ground into 'hoopla' by a woman (presumably a senator's wife). from sleeve MOP -1985.
There are fourty people in this world, and five of them are hamburgers. -- It was in a book of "Rock quotes" that I read in college, 10 years ago. None of the quotes were put into any context. Or is this a Beefheart quote?
If something goes wrong and you tend to smile it away, then you have someone to blame.
Drop out of school, before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts...--Quoted from an article on FZ in the June 1995 issue of "SLUG" magazine. Article titled "Zappa behind the Sneer. I think the magazine may be a local (Salt Lake City) publication.
Never stop until your good becomes better, and your better becomes the best.
Now imagine a Moebius vortex inside a spherical constant, and you've got my cosmology.--1992
The people of your century no longer require the service of composers. A composer is as useful to a person in a jogging suit as a dinsoaur turd in the middle of his runway.--from the Them Or Us The Book
THE VERY BIG STUPID is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D Department. -- from The Real Frank Zappa book.
For my taste, these solos (of some 50s blues guitarists) are exemplary because what is being played seems honest and, in a musical way, a direct extension of the personality of the men who played them.--January 1977.
We play the new free music, music as the absolutely free, unencumbered by American cultural suppression
It's not pretty, also you can't dance to it.
There's no single ideal listener out there who likes my orchestral music, my guitar albums and songs like 'Dyna- Moe-Humm.'
It's all one big note.
Ladies and gentleman, watch Ruth. All through the show, Ruth has been thinking...Ruth has been thinking? ALL THROUGH THE SHOW???--17 November 1974, Philadelphia
We'll get back to the wimp, and his low-budget concepshum of personal freedom, in just a moment--Thing-Fish.
You can tell what they think of our music by the places we are forced to play it in. This looks like a good spot for a livestock show. -- April 1968, Chicago, Mothers of Invention open for Cream
I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better.
Interviewer: The notion of a "guitar solo" has preconceptions based on it; people automatically refute it because it's supposed to be self-indulgent or "for musicians." It's almost like things become iconographic and somehow lose their value for outsiders. Zappa: Well, who's fault is that? That's what _writers_ do. Musicians don't do that. The average person doesn't sit around thinking about "iconographic problems of a guitar solo."--Interview for Musician magazine, by Matt Resnicoff, November 1991. Reprinted in July 1995 Issue.
Consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph. - - In an interview with Joan Rivers who had just asked him why he gave his children such odd names, Frank gave the reply above.
I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to.--Frank was talking about his music from the Yellow Shark.
I never set out to be wierd. It was always the other people who called me wierd.--To the Baltimore Sun, October 12, 1986
I don't want to spend explaining myself whole my life. Either you get , or you don't!
Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.--from the Real Frank Zappa Book
Why doncha come on over to the house and I'll show 'em to ya?--Senate hearing on pornography in music, when Tipper said ... "I'd like to see what kind of toys your children play with."
Throwing objects such as this are capable of damaging expensive musical equipment and musicians. Any more of this and there will be no more music.--FZ, Autumn 1981 at Northrup auditorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After someone threw a plunger on stage about two-thirds of the way through the show, he stopped the band with a wave of his hand speaking in the general direction that the dangerous object was thrown, while holding it in his hand. This did not prove to be an amusing act and Franks mood hardened. - It was, however, an evening of excellent, serious musicianship around the release of 'Shut up and play your guitar'
Music is the most physically inspiring of all the arts.--Said as he gave the keynote address at the American Society of University Composers in Columbus Ohio in 1985.
And all the rest of whom for which to whensonever of partially indeterminate bio-chemical degredation. Seek the path to the sudsy yellow nozzle of their foaming nocturnal parametric digital whole-wheat inter-faith geo-thermal terpsichorean ejectamenta.--From board tape at Zappa concert, outdoors, at Blossom Music Center, Akron, Ohio, summer 1984. This quote was in the middle of a spoken section of "The Mud Club" in which a dude walks into the club with a blue Mohawk and proceeds to "work the floor, work the wall, work the monitor system. . . ." The band was having monitor feedback problems at the Blossom concert, and there are numerous references to P.A. equipment throughout this ramble. Other than that, the quote is meaningless, I guess. But great imagery!
You get nothing with your college degree--from Roxy & Elsewhere
With the power of soul you can do anything you wanna do.--I guess he was takling about the feeling of his music. It was in a guitar magazine.
Weedley-Weedley-Wee-- Specifically, the small fret guitar-playing technique that musicians have a tendency to display while in pursuit of a cross between a waitress and a hoover vacuum... This, of course, from his book.
Beware of forest fires...Don't fuck too hot-a-gal in it might jest set em on fire.--From a series of bootlegs that were recorded i n the 3 European tours that I travelled with during my illustrious military career in Pirmasens W. Germany....11/76-6/79...most of the quotes came from the live titties and beer versions with fz and skinny little terry ted bozio. Definitely in Paris, Stutgart and outside of Kaiserslaughtern ( K-Town )
It was 11 o'clock upon a friday nite...you know that me an' her were feelin' outasite....yeah 20 reds and a big ol' pile of weed...ya know we drank some wine and then we LSD'd...well Chrissy puked twice and jumped on my bike...she said fire it up because you know what I like...then she burned her leg on the tailpipe then and said shiter-ree and puked again.... -- From a series of bootlegs that were recorded i n the 3 European tours that I travelled with during my illustrious military career in Pirmasens W. Germany....11/76-6/79...most of the quotes came from the live titties and beer versions with fz and skinny little terry ted bozio. Definitely in Paris, Stutgart and outside of Kaiserslaughtern ( K-Town )
Playing guitar with this band is like trying to grow WATERMELON IN EASTER HAY.
Always get a second opinion.--His personal physician did not diagnose prostate cancer before it was too advanced to treat with any success.
Freak me out, Frank!
I think "when" is a very important thing, but "what the fuck!" is also a very important thing to ask. Just keep asking "what the fuck?" I mean, why the fuck bother? See what i mean? The important thing is, deal with the "when". "When" will open a lot of shit for you. "What the fuck" really makes it easier to deal with it when you understand the "when".
It's fucking great to be alive, ladies and gentlemen, and if you do not believe it is fucking great to be alive, you better go now, because this show will bring you down so much--from Just Another Band From L.A.
All right, Zubin, hit it!--Frank's onstage cue to conductor Zubin Mehta during their collaborative effort with the L.A. Philharmonic orchestra in 1970
The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus.--What he's talking about is obvious. He said this in an interview with Playboy magazine on May 2, 1993.
You can tell what they think of our music by the places we are forced to play it in. This looks like a good spot for a livestock show.--The Mothers of Invention were opening for Cream in April of 1968 in Chicago. The place was very large and did look like it had been used for displays of cattle and other such animals.
It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I'm wrong. The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right... Why do you necessarily have to be wrong jus because a few million people think you are?--Why they don't play my stuff on the radio From the Real Frank Zappa Book (1989 Poseidon Press)
The Future is scary! (Yes, it sure is!)
It makes me wanna dance.--From a FZ interview about some music he had composed (on the synclavier). It was written in 17/35 (or something like that).
This is Frank Zappa saying, Don't do speed. Speed turns you into your parents. -- this used to play OFTEN as a public service announcement(PSA) on radio station WHFS at 102.5 FM in bethesda,MD.USA during the early '70's. it was followed by a nearly inaudible whisper, "...but grass and acid are o.k.", which may have been frank, or one of the mothers.
I never took a shit on stage, and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973.--From The Real Frank Zappa book.
Rain is good for you... Rain is bad for electrical equipment...--Outdoor concert, Jones Beach, NY, Circa 1984
You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
Nobody looks good in brown lipstick
Get yer ass out there and register to VOTE!
Whenever your down, just think about how you got there.
Anything over a mouthful is wasted.
The family was from Arkansas. The Dad (Dink) was a furniture salesman in San Bernardino, but, back in the way-bak- when, he used to play 'bones' or 'spoons' in a minstrel show. To relive the golden days of yesteryear he would, from time to time, force his children to accompany him (Ronnie on guitar, Kenny on trombone) in a living room replay of a minstrel routine called "Lazy Bones. The kids often found this to be an inconvenience, as they were fascinated by, and constantly perfecting new techniques for, The Manly Art Of Fart-Burning. Kenny explained to me that it was scientific - that it demonstrated (this is a real quote) "Compression, ignition, combustion and exhaust."--Kenny & Ronnie Williams (later "immortalized" in "Let's Make The Water Turn Black") From "The Real Frank Zappa Book" Chapter 4
I can't think of anything I like more than audience participation--From the Mothers of Prevention
To me, cigarettes are food--Response to an assertion that his nicotine habit conflicted with his anti-drug stance
May you'll never hear a vloerbedekking again.--The beginning of "Theme from Lumpy Gravy," performed in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Vloerbedekking means "carpet" in Dutch. It must be one of the Frank's made up musical terms translated into Dutch, just like putting eyebrowes on something.
It's not ordinary and it's not mundane, but it does not involve golden showers and appliances--He was talking about his sex life with Gail in 1980. This information comes from a book I picked up the other day entitled Frank Zappa: in his own words
Ooooh the way you love me baby, Iget so hard now I could die. Ooooh the way you squeeze me lady red balloons just pop behind my eyes--Magic Fingers, 200 Motels
You see, when I was a kid I used to save up for a month, so I could get an R&B album and, the same day, the completed works of Anton Webern. Maybe that means something. Maybe that tells you something about my music.--Excerpt from the book "Rock and Other Four Letter Words", copyright 1968.
Seeing a psychotherapist is not a crazy idea, it just wanting a second opinion of ones life.
All year long you people manufactured this crap, and one night a year you've got to listen to it!--Frank introducing "psychedelic music" to the audience of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Science dinner in New York (1968) at which the Mothers were invited to play
Did anybody dance?--Said after performing the highly, shall we say, evolved "Black Page #2" on "Zappa In New York". (And as you probably already know, this was the song that alerted FZ to the existance of his stunt guitarist to be,Steve Vai, after recieving a sheet music transcription of the song, made by young master Vai.)
....and then they put them on their heads, they were having a good time,the girl was in the water,she didn't even see what was going on with her UNDERPANTS.But wearing the pants,it looked just like a tiny little PARTY HAT!--Establishing the tradition of the JAZZ DISCHARGE PARTY HATS whilst in Alberquerque, New Mexico.(The Man From Utopia,1983)
I'd like to know who's Plunkin' the monkeys?--It was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I can't remember the year maybe 10 years ago? They were talking about AIDS and how AIDS all got started, he had 3 theory's. First Frank said something about AIDS being a government test gone wrong Then maybe it was an Alien (ET) test or mistake and finally they talked about the theory of AIDS coming from a monkey and then Frank said " I'd like to know who's plunkin' the monkey's?"
This is Frank Zappa suggesting you Un-Load yourself... Don't do Smack or Downers.--Public service announcement on KMET rock radio in Southern California during the Early Mid-Seventies.
You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face.--to Mrs. Gore about parental advisory labels on album covers
Bad facts make bad laws--Said during the PMRC hearings.
Well, you know people, I'd rather have my own game show than enough votes to become president.
The drummer's playing in 4/4, the Saxophone player is playing 5/4, the guitar player is picking his nose....
A true Zen saying, nothing is what I want.--From Roxy & Elsewhere, Dec 1973
Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy -- Speaking at a ProChoice rally in Los Angeles around 1989-90.
Anything can be music--Answer to critics accusing him of not doing actual music on Uncle Meat
Did everyone hear the great news today? Jimmy Swaggart; under investigation. One day every one of those cocksuckers will get caught.--Hypocritical television evangelists; "Make A Jazz Noise Here" was the album. The live performance was either in Boston or Poughkeepsie.
Seriousity is something to be laughed at.--FZ responding to Ivo Niehe from Dutch television after being told that Europeans take Frank's music very serious.
Get smart and i`ll fuck you over-Sayeth The Lord About the basics of Christianity and it`s perpetuation of ignorance as a way of life
Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?--Concert at the Rockpile, Toronto, May 1969
My music makes the mind think--Time magazine Dec.20/93, page 73
Yeah, I tell them to change the channel if they see some guy in a brown suit with a telephone number at the bottom of the screen asking for money.--on being asked by Tipper Gore if there was anything on the TV he _didn't_ allow his kids to watch ...
Think I'll go out and get a little action.--Pamela Zarubica described this as something Zappa would say when beginning an average day. This time her husband was visiting and FZ scared the crap out of him... he was compared to Dr. Zhivago. I read this little story in MOTHER! the Frank Zappa Story.
This tree is ugly and it wants to DIE...--graphic art work on the "Absolutely Free" cover
Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public.--A quote in response to criticism of "Jewish Princess" ("People" magazine, circa 1979)
...I think (Abbey Road is) the best engineered, best mastered rock and roll album ever produced...except that I take exception to stereo placement. -- From "Frank Zappa talks about Faves, Raves, and composers in their g raves" - some English publication, I think. (2 & 3 from the book, "The Lives and Times of Frank Zappa and the Mothers", some Brit thing again (got it at Blue Meanie Imports in San Diego fifteen years ago.)
DENSE, PUTRID VAPORS from a SMOKE GUN (we rent it) --From another Zappa graphic, this time a poster advertising a concert: "Therapeutic Abortion with the Mothers..."
For some real personal satisfaction, try yelling out your own names.-- At a concert in Boston, Massachusetts to some fans (my friends) who kept yelling out Frank's name.
I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?--In response to Tipper Gore's allegations that music incites people towards deviant behavior, or influences their behavior in general.
I didn't know such things existed, a guy walking in front of the stage with a fucking t-shirt to sell to somebody, well you live and learn... ...us regular folks know this exquisite little inconvenience by the name of COMMERCIALISM -- from bootleg recording "Project/Object" intro Stinkfoot
The manner in which Americans "consume" music has a lot to do with leaving it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles, like the score of a movie--it's consumed that way without any regard for how and why it was made.--From "The Real Frank Zappa Book" (ch. 11)
Never stop and keep going -- Giving advice to young musicians. early 80's interview with Pennsylvania state police officer whom is also a zappa fan. originally to be shown to local high school students of the area but frank ended up on the subject of politics and you can just imagine why the kids never seen this video.
Do we really want to know HOW Michael Jackson makes his music? NO. We want to understand why he needs the bones of the Elephant Man-and, until he tells us, it doesn't make too much difference whether or not he really is "bad." -- The Real Frank Zappa Book, 1989, Ch. 11.
Well Mike, I'm abnormal.--When FZ appeared on the Mike Douglas show (solo, playing guitar with recorded backup), Mike said "Your latest album is called Zoot Allures. How do you come up with such names for your records?" (or something equally banal!) Frank's succinct reply is printed above.
So long as somebody gets a laugh out of it, what the fuck?--From Guitar Player's "Mother of All Interviews" part 2, summing up...well , everything!
All right kiddies, we'll play "wipe-out" for you in a moment.--Frank's comment to the crowd at a 1968 concert in Dallas, Tx
People who think of videos as an art form are probably the same people who think Cabbage Patch Dolls are a revolutionary form of soft sculpture.--Zappa on videos (obviously) from Viva Zappa - Biography
People make a lot of fuss about my kids having such supposedly 'strange names', but the fact is that no matter what first names I might have given them, it is the last name that is going to get them in trouble.--From the Real Fran Zappa Book - Mr. Dad chapter
The formal structure of "You Didn't Try to Call Me" is not revolutionary, but it is interesting. You don't care.--Liner notes for "You Didn't Try to Call Me" on "Freak Out!"
"Wowie Zowie" is what [Pamela Zarubica] says when she's not grouchy...who would guess it could inspire a song? No one would guess. None of you are perceptive enough. *Why are you reading this?*--Liner notes for "You Didn't Try to Call Me" (yes, really) on "Freak Out!"
Carl Orestes Franzoni...is *freaky* down to his toe nails. Some day he will live next door to you and your lawn will die.--Liner notes for "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" on "Freak Out!"
Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and *educate yourself* if you've got any guts. Some of you like *pep rallies* and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. *This song has no message.* Rise for the flag salute.--Liner notes for "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" on "Freak Out!"
Of course you realize you won't be able to hear the organ once we turn the guitars on.--Introduction to "Louie, Louie" on "Uncle Meat"
My, you sure are slow here in Texas aren't you?--During a 1968 Dallas, Tex. tour, Frank was conducting the Mothers by flipping the bird to the musician he wanted to perform. He turned to the audience and using both hands, he swept his fickle fingers wildly into the air. The crowd of several thousand at the convention center sat silent. "My you sure are slow here in Texas, aren't you?" he yelled and the punks went crazy!
Meanwhile at the Fornebu duty free shop--Phrase used between songs during the march 1988 concert in Skedsmohallen, near Oslo, Norway. Fornebu is the Oslo airport.
You think our music- the Monkees music is banal and insipid?"--Frank replying to Mike Nesmith on an episode of "The Monkees" on which Frank and Mike pretended to be each other for several minutes before the opening theme.
If there is a hell, it waits for them, not us!
There's no question in my mind--the beer, the ballons and the bunting all start with "B" for some cosmic reason.--Words that star with B and remind him of the Republican party. The Real Frank Zappa Book. Page 238
Anyone who is disturbed by the idea of newts in a nightclub is potentially dangerous.--I can't remember the exact details but it was during one of his trials. One of the prosecuting lawyers quoted some of his lyrics which pertained to newts in a nightclub and said he found this image disturbing. Frank responded with the above. I like it as a sentence.
Ever try to have a conversation with someone on drugs? It just doesn't work...--Sometime during the summer of 1987, when asked by a DC reporter, "what are your feelings on the war on drugs?" His first response was to criticize the inherent invasion of privacy, followed by the above statement against drug use.
You wouldn't know a revolution if it bit you on the dick.--In response to a young crowd member continually shouting "Revolution" between songs at a late 60's gig. The gig was at Middle Earth in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on--from The Real Frank Zappa Book, In other words, don't kiss ass.
No one has forced Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Gore to bring Prince into their homes.--PMRC Hearing 1985
It began with lyrics, but even looking at the PMRC fund raising letter in the last paragraph, at the bottom of the page, it starts looking like it's branching into other areas when it says 'We realize that this material's pervaded other aspects of society' and it's like 'What, you gonna fix it all for me?'
Mr Zappa, I am astounded at the courtesy and soft voiced nature of the comments of my friend, the Senator from Tennessee. I can only say that I find your statement to be boorish, incredibly and insensitively insulting to the people who were here previously, that you could manage to give the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States a bad name, if I felt you had the slightest understanding of it, which I do not.--- Senator Slade Gorton
You don't have the slightest understanding of the difference between government action and private action, and you have certainly destroyed any case you might otherwise have had with this Senator.--Senator Gorton, to which Frank Zappa responds with "Is this private action?"
I think you should leave it up to the parent, because not all parents want to keep their children totally ignorant.--Frank Zappa in response to a question from Senator Hollings.
Well, you and I would differ on what's ignorance and educated.--Senator Ernest Hollings to Zappa
Yes, Ladies and gentleman, even in this agricultural enviroment, We're gonna' play a love song--This was about 1974 in Harrisburg Pa. at the Farm Show Arena, a week after the Farm show had left town... Frank never admitted to playing there, and I can't say as I blame him. But, I will never forget what a magical night that was.
Tax the FUCK out of the churches!
The concept of the rock-guitar solo in the eightees has pretty much been reduced to: Weedly-weedly-wee, make a face, hold your guitar like it's your weenie, point it heavenward, and look like you're really doing something. Then, you get a big ovation while the the smoke bombs go off, and the motorized lights in your truss twirl around!" - - The Real Frank Zappa Book.
If there's ever an obscene noise to be made on an instrument, it's gonna come out of a guitar! On a sax you can play sleze, on a bass you can play balls.but on a guitar you can be truely obscene! Lets be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blastomphous device on the earth! the guitar makes a stink noise. thats why I like it!!
The first hyphen in MAH-JUH-REEN could be used for erotic gratification by a very desparate stenographer.--Sydney australia, 1974, second night. on Mystery box III
I feel it's better to sing about these things ourselves and perform them with the people who it happened to than to have some jounralist one day say 'then in 1971, one time when they were at the mudshark hotel...' But people have problems with things of a glandular nature in connection with things of a musical nature. They say why, music is way up here, and glands are way down there and they can't get 'em together, but then they are hypocritical because they take a band that doesn't sing about such things directly and couches their language a little and does it with a little choreography and say that that's great and that's real rock and roll. I maintain that there's no difference, we're just honest enough to get up and say 'this is this and that's that and here you are and respond to it' and the response is 'why... I'm hip, but of course I am offended'.--from the Vitamin Deficiency bootleg.
"If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine -- but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good -- and CARES about any of it -- to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working." --The Real Frank Zappa Book, by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, p. 301
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