Joe's Garage is a three-part rock opera released by American musician Frank Zappa in September and November 1979. Originally released as two separate albums on Zappa Records, the project was later remastered and reissued as a triple album box set, Joe's Garage, Acts I, II & III, in 1987. The story is told by a character identified as the "Central Scrutinizer" narrating the story of Joe, an average adolescent male, from Canoga Park, Los Angeles, who forms a garage rock band, has unsatisfying relationships with women, gives all of his money to a government-assisted and insincere religion, explores sexual activities with appliances, and is imprisoned. After being released from prison into a dystopian society in which music itself has been criminalized, he lapses into insanity.
The album encompasses a large spectrum of musical styles, while its lyrics often feature satirical or humorous commentary on American society and politics. It addresses themes of individualism, free will, censorship, the music industry and human sexuality, while criticizing government and religion, and satirizing Catholicism and Scientology. Joe's Garage is noted for its use of xenochrony, a recording technique that takes musical material (in this instance, guitar solos by Zappa from older live recordings) and overdubs them onto different, unrelated material. All solos on the album are xenochronous except for "Crew Slut" and "Watermelon in Easter Hay", a signature song that Zappa described as the best song on the album, and according to his son Dweezil, the best guitar solo his father ever played.
Joe’s Garage initially received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising its innovative and original music, but criticizing the scatological, sexual and profane nature of the lyrics. Since its original release, the album has been reappraised as one of Zappa's best works.
Background
After being released from his contractual obligations with Warner Bros. Records, Frank Zappa formed Zappa Records, a label distributed at that time by Phonogram Inc. He released the successful double album Sheik Yerbouti (1979, recorded 8/1977-2/1978), and began working on a series of songs for a follow-up album.[1][2]:370 The songs "Joe's Garage" and "Catholic Girls" were recorded with the intention that Zappa would release each as a single.[1][3] Throughout the development of Joe's Garage, Zappa's band recorded lengthy jams which Zappa later formed into the album.[4]:331 The album also continued the development of xenochrony, a technique Zappa also featured on One Size Fits All (1975), in which aspects of older live recordings were utilized to create new compositions by overdubbing them onto studio recordings,[5][6] or alternatively, selecting a previously recorded solo and allowing drummer Vinnie Colaiuta to improvise a new drum performance, interacting with the previously recorded piece.[6]
Midway through recording the new album, Zappa decided that the songs connected coherently and wrote a story, changing the new album into a rock opera.[1]:149Joe's Garage was the final album Zappa recorded at a commercial studio.[6] Zappa's own studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, built as an addition to Zappa's home, and completed in late 1979, was used to record and mix all of his subsequent releases.[6]
Style and influences
Lyrical and story themes
Eventually it was discovered, that God did not want us to be all the same. This was Bad News for the Governments of The World, as it seemed contrary to the doctrine of Portion Controlled Servings. Mankind must be made more uniformly if The Future was going to work. Various ways were sought to bind us all together, but, alas, same-ness was unenforceable. It was about this time, that someone came up with the idea of Total Criminalization. Based on the principle, that if we were all crooks, we could at last be uniform to some degree in the eyes of The Law. [...] Total Criminalization was the greatest idea of its time and was vastly popular except with those people, who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws, so, of course, they had to be Tricked Into It... which is one of the reasons, why music was eventually made Illegal.
—Joe's Garage Acts II & III liner notes, 1979
The lyrical themes of Joe's Garage involve individualism, sexuality, and the danger of large government. The album is narrated by a government employee identifying himself as The Central Scrutinizer, who delivers a cautionary tale about Joe, a typical adolescent male who forms a band as the government prepares to criminalize music.[1]:150 The Central Scrutinizer explains that music leads to a "slippery slope" of drug use, disease, unusual sexual practices, prison, and eventually, insanity.[1]:150 According to Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, Zappa's narrative of censorship reflected the censorship of music during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, where rock music was made illegal.[2]:370
The title track is noted as having an autobiographical aspect, as the character of Larry (as performed by Zappa himself) sings that the band plays the same song repeatedly because "it sounded good to me".[1]:150 In real life, Zappa said he wrote and played music for himself, his sole intended audience.[1]:150 The song also takes lyrical inspiration from bands playing in bars like The Mothers of Invention once had, and shady record deals Zappa had experienced in the past.[1]:150 In "Joe's Garage", Joe finds that the music industry is "not everything it is cracked up to be".[1]:151 The song refers to a number of music fads, including new wave, heavy metal, disco and glitter rock, and is critical of the music industry of the late 1970s.[1]:151
"Catholic Girls" is critical of the Catholic Church, and satirizes "the hypocrisy of the myth of the good Catholic girl."[1]:151 While Zappa was in favor of the sexual revolution, he regarded himself as a pioneer in publicly discussing honesty about sexual intercourse, stating
"American sexual attitudes are controlled as a necessary tool of business and government in order to perpetuate themselves. Unless people begin to see through that, to see past it to what sex is really all about, they're always going to have the same neurotic attitudes. It's very neatly packaged. It all works hand-in-hand with the churches and political leaders at the point where elections are coming up."[7]
This view inspired the lyrical content of "Crew Slut", in which Mary, Joe's girlfriend, falls into the groupie lifestyle, going on to participate in a wet T-shirt contest in the following track, "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt".[7][8]
"Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" was written in the summer of 1978.[9] Zappa's road manager, Phil Kaufman, alleged, that the song was written after Kaufman had asked that very question; within the context of the album's storyline, it is sung by Joe after he receives a sexually transmitted disease from Lucille, "a girl, who works at the Jack in the Box".[9] The Central Scrutinizer continues to express the hypothesis that "girls, music, disease, heartbreak [...] all go together."[1]:155 Halfway through the album's libretto, Zappa expressed the belief that governments believe that people are inherently criminals, and continue to invent laws, which gives states the legal grounds to arrest people, leading to the fictional criminalization of music which occurs towards the end of the album's storyline.[1]:155
"A Token of My Extreme" satirizes Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, as well as new age beliefs and the sexual revolution.[1]:155[10]:114 It describes an insincere religion, which co-operates with a "malevolent totalitarian regime."[11] "Stick It Out" contains lyrical references to Zappa's songs "What Kind Of Girl", "Bwana Dik", "Sofa No. 2", and "Dancin' Fool".[12] "Dong Work For Yuda" was written as a tribute to Zappa's bodyguard, John Smothers, and features Terry Bozzio imitating Smothers' dialect and speech.[13] "Keep It Greasy" is a lyrical tribute to anal sex.[1]:157 Following Joe's imprisonment and release, the libretto describes a dystopian future, accompanied musically by long guitar solos, which Joe imagines in his head.[1]:159 The penultimate song, "Packard Goose", criticizes rock journalism, and features a philosophical monolog delivered by the character Mary, who had been absent since the first act.[1]:158–159 In the epilogue song "A Little Green Rosetta," Joe gives up music, returns to sanity, hocks his imaginary guitar and gets "a good job" at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Facility (a self-reference to Zappa's own personal studio). The Central Scrutinizer sings the last song on the album in his "regular voice", and joins in a long musical number with most of the other people that worked with Zappa around 1979.
Plot
Act I
At the beginning of the album, we are introduced to "The Central Scrutinizer", the album's narrator, who brings us a "special presentation" on music's bad influences on man. We are introduced to Joe, the main character in the presentation. Joe used to be the lead singer in a garage band, which eventually broke up ("Joe's Garage"). Joe continues playing his music until a neighbor calls the police, who tell Joe to "stick closer to church-oriented social activities." Joe starts going to the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) at the Catholic Church, held by Father Riley, and falls in love with a girl named Mary ("Catholic Girls").
One day, Mary skips the church club and goes to the Armory. She becomes a groupie for a band called Toad-O ("Crew Slut"). Eventually, Mary, unable to keep up with the band's laundry, is dumped in Miami. With no money to get home, she signs up for the local Wet T-Shirt Contest at the Brasserie, hosted by Father Riley (who has since changed his name to Buddy Jones) ("Wet T-Shirt Nite"). Mary wins first place in the contest and wins fifty bucks, enough money to go home. However, Warren, a former member of Joe's Garage Band, finds out about Mary's "naughty exploits" and sends a letter to Joe telling him about it ("Toad-O Line"). Joe, heartbroken, "falls in with a fast crowd" and gets seduced by Lucille, a girl who works at the Jack in the Box, and has sex with her, only to catch gonorrhea ("Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?"). Discouraged, he sings about Lucille and his feelings for her ("Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up").
Act II
Joe is in "a quandary, being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own steaming desires" and seeks redemption; he decides to "pay a lot of money" to the First Church of Appliantology, owned by L. Ron Hoover, an amount of fifty bucks ("A Token of My Extreme"). He learns from Hoover that he is a "Latent Appliance Fetishist", learns German, dresses like a housewife and goes to a club called the "Closet", filled with sexual appliances. Joe meets Sy Borg, a "Model XQJ-37 Nuclear PoweredPansexual Roto-Plooker", who looks like a "Cross between an Industrial Vacuum Cleaner and a Chrome-Plated Piggy Bank with marital aids stuck all over it", and falls in love with him ("Stick It Out"). They go back to Sy's apartment and have sex, only for Joe to accidentally kill him when a "golden shower" causes his master circuit to short out ("Sy Borg").
Having given all his money to Hoover, Joe cannot pay to fix Sy and is arrested and sent to a special prison filled with people arrested due to music, who spend all day "snorting detergent and plooking each other". At the prison, he meets Bald-Headed John, "King of the Plookers" ("Dong Work for Yuda"). Joe is eventually "plooked" by the executives at the prison ("Keep It Greasey"). Having "a long time to go before [he's] paid [his] debt to society", he decides to be "sullen and withdrawn" and sits around dreaming up imaginary guitar notes ("Outside Now"), until he is released from prison (a bit of art imitating life, as Zappa himself did just that during his own prison sentence in 1965).
Act III
Joe is released from prison into a dystopian society where music has been made illegal and "[walks] through the parking lot in a semi-catatonic state", dreaming guitar notes. Eventually, he hears the voice of his neighbor Mrs. Borg taunting him in his head ("He Used to Cut the Grass"). Joe becomes scared of rock journalists and sings about them. He sees a vision of Mary appear and deliver a lecture ("Packard Goose"). Joe goes back to his house and dreams his last imaginary guitar notes ("Watermelon in Easter Hay"). Afterward, he "[hocks his] imaginary guitar and [gets] a good job" at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, where he squeezes icing rosettes onto muffins. As an epilogue, the Central Scrutinizer turns off his plastic megaphone and sings the final song on the album, "A Little Green Rosetta", with most of the people who worked at Village Recorders around 1979, with the song growing more chaotic as it goes as "proof" that music is dangerous.
Music and performance
Joe's Garage is noted for its extensive guitar-oriented work, including live improvisations which were incorporated into new studio compositions using xenochrony.
The music of Joe's Garage encompassed a variety of styles, including blues, jazz, doo wop, lounge, orchestral, rock, pop and reggae.[1] "Catholic Girls" makes musical reference to Zappa's controversial song "Jewish Princess", as a sitar plays the melody of the earlier song during the fadeout of "Catholic Girls".[1] "Crew Slut" is performed as a slow blues song, with slide guitar riffs and a harmonica solo.[1]:152–153[4]:333 According to Kelly Fisher Lowe, the song is "more Rolling Stones or Aerosmith than it is Gatemouth Brown or Guitar Watson".[1]:152–153 The extended three and a half minute, two-part guitar solo in "Toad-O-Line" is taken from Zappa's earlier song, "Inca Roads."[14]
"A Token Of My Extreme" originated as an instrumental song played during improvised conversations by saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock and George Duke on keyboards. It typically opened Zappa's concerts in 1974; a recording of this version of the piece was released under the title "Tush Tush Tush (A Token of My Extreme)" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2.[1]:155
"Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up" first appeared on Jeff Simmons' album of the same name, on which its writing is credited to "La Marr Bruister", one of Zappa's pseudonyms.[15] The Joe's Garage arrangement is radically different, and is played in a reggae style.[15] "Stick It Out" originated as part of the Mothers of Invention's "Sofa" routine in the early 1970s.[1]:120 The Joe's Garage version is musically influenced by funk and disco, with its lyrics performed first in German, and then in English.[1]:156[16]:270 "Sy Borg" derives from funk, reggae and R&B.[1]:154,156
"Keep It Greasy" had been performed by Zappa since 1975; the Joe's Garage album version features a guitar solo from a March 1979 live performance of the song "City of Tiny Lights".[1] Another March 1979 guitar solo from "City of Tiny Lights" is incorporated into the song "Outside Now" using the same recording technique.[1] "Packard Goose", which Zappa wrote sometime in 1975, also uses xenochrony, with its guitar solo taken from a March 1979 performance of "Easy Meat".[1]
The album concludes with a long guitar instrumental, "Watermelon in Easter Hay", the only guitar solo recorded for the album, in 9/4 time; every other guitar solo on the album was xenochronous—overdubbed from older live recordings.[1]:154[8]:381 In their review of the album, Down Beat magazine criticized the song,[8]:376 but subsequent reviewers have championed the song as Zappa's masterpiece. Lowe called it the "crowning achievement of the album" and "one of the most gorgeous pieces of music ever produced".[1]:159 Zappa told Neil Slaven that he thought it was "the best song on the album".[8]:376 The song's title is thought to have come from a saying used by Zappa while recording the album: "Playing a guitar solo with this band is like trying to grow watermelon in Easter hay".[17] After Zappa died, "Watermelon in Easter Hay" became known as one of his signature songs, and his son, Dweezil Zappa, later referred to it as "the best solo Zappa ever played".[18]:90–91
The song is followed by "A Little Green Rosetta", a song that was originally intended to appear on Zappa's shelved Läther album, but rerecorded with different lyrics for Joe's Garage.[1]:159[19]
Guitar solo sources
Song
Source
Notes
Toad-O Line/On the Bus
March 21st, Rhein-Neckar-Halle, Eppelheim, Germany
extracted from "Inca Roads"
Keep It Greasy
March 31st (late show), Rudi-Sedlmayer Sporthalle, Munich, Germany
first section extracted from "City of Tiny Lites" (source also appears on Guitar as "Outside Now (Original Solo)")
March 31st (early show), Rudi-Sedlmayer Sporthalle, Munich, Germany
second section extracted from "City of Tiny Lights"
Outside Now
second solo extracted from "City of Tiny Lites"
April 1st, Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
first solo extracted from "City of Tiny Lites"
Packard Goose
first section extracted from "Easy Meat"
March 27th (late show), Rhein-Main-Halle, Wiesbaden, Germany
second section extracted from opening solo ("Persona Non Grata")
He Used to Cut the Grass
March 23rd, Liebenau Station, Graz, Austria
extracted from opening solo ("Persona Non Grata")
Release
Joe's Garage Acts II & III was released in November 1979, with cover art depicting a makeup artist applying blackface makeup to Zappa's face.
Joe's Garage was initially released in separate units, beginning with the single LPAct I in September 1979. For the album artwork, Zappa was photographed in blackface makeup,[20] holding a mop for the car grease garage theme.[8]:381 The gatefold sleeve of Act I was designed by John Williams, and featured a collage, which included a naked Maya, vague technical drawings, pyramids and fingers on the fret of a guitar.[8]:381 The lyric insert featured similar illustrations, which related to the content of the songs and storyline.[8] The title track was released as a single, with "The Central Scrutinizer" as its B-side. It did not chart.[21]
Act I peaked at #27 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.[22] It was followed by the double albumActs II & III in November.[1] The gatefold of Acts II & III featured collages taken from a medical journal, while the cover for Acts II & III featured a makeup artist applying blackface makeup to Zappa's face.[8]:381Acts II & III peaked at #53 on the Pop Albums chart.[23]
Joe's Garage was reissued in 1987 as a triple album, combining Acts I, II & III into a single box set, and as a double album on compact disc.[1] The song "Wet T-Shirt Nite" received two alternate titles, when the album was released on CD: the libretto referred to the song as "The Wet T-Shirt Contest", while the back cover referred to the song as "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt".[24] In an interview, Zappa explained that the "fembot" was the name given to a female robot in an episode of the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.[24] The instrumental "Toad-O Line" was renamed "On the Bus".[25] The Central Scrutinizer monolog at the end of "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up", which concludes the story's first act, was indexed as its own track on the CD reissue, under the title "Scrutinizer Postlude".[15]
AllMusic gave 3 out of 5 stars for the individual releases Act I and Acts II & III.[27][28] William Ruhlmann wrote of Act I, "although his concern with government censorship would see a later flowering in his battles with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), here he wasn't able to use it to fulfill a satisfying dramatic function."[27] Ruhlmann also felt that Acts II & III "seems so thin and thrown together, musically and dramatically".[28]
Don Shewey of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "If the surface of this opera is cluttered with cheap gags and musical mishmash, its soul is located in profound existential sorrow. The guitar solos that Zappa plays in Joe's imagination burn with a desolate, devastating beauty. Flaws and all, Joe's Garage is Frank Zappa's Apocalypse Now."[32] The collected Acts I, II & III release received 4.5 out of 5 stars from Allmusic's Steve Huey, who wrote "in spite of its flaws, Joe's Garage has enough substance to make it one of Zappa's most important '70s works and overall political statements, even if it's not focused enough to rank with his earliest Mothers of Invention masterpieces."[26]
For his performance on Joe's Garage, Vinnie Colaiuta was named "the most technically advanced drummer ever" by Modern Drummer, which ranked the album as one of the top 25 greatest drumming performances of all time.[33]:58 On September 26, 2008, Joe's Garage was staged by the Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles, in a production authorized by the Zappa Family Trust.[34]
The cover was parodied by Swedish rockabilly artist Eddie Meduza on his 1980 album Garagetaper.
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Chorus– Al Malkin, Warren Cucurullo, Dale Bozzio, Geordie Hormel, Barbara Issak and most of the people who work at Village Recorders
Terry John Bozzio is an American drummer best known for his work with Missing Persons, U.K., and Frank Zappa. He has been featured on nine solo or collaborative albums, 26 albums with Zappa and seven albums with Missing Persons. Bozzio has been a prolific sideman, playing on numerous releases by other artists since the mid-1970s. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1997.
Warren Bruce Cuccurullo is an American musician, songwriter, restaurant owner, and former bodybuilder who first worked with Frank Zappa during the 1970s. He was also a founding member of Missing Persons in the 1980s. In 1989, Cuccurullo joined Duran Duran, becoming a long-term member of the band until 2001. In 2022, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Duran Duran.
Sheik Yerbouti is a double album by American musician Frank Zappa, released in March 1979 as the first release on Zappa Records, distributed by Phonogram Inc. in the United States and Canada. The album was released in other countries by CBS Records. It is mostly made up of live material recorded in 1977 and 1978, with extensive overdubs added in the studio. In an October 1978 interview, Zappa gave the working album title as Martian Love Secrets. It was later released on a single CD.
Frank Zappa Plays the Music of Frank Zappa: A Memorial Tribute is a posthumous album by Frank Zappa.
Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar is a series of three albums - Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar Some More, and Return of the Son of Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar - released by Frank Zappa in 1981. The albums consist solely of electric guitar instrumentals and improvised solos (mostly) played live by Zappa and featuring a wide variety of backing musicians.
Zoot Allures is the 22nd album by the American rock musician Frank Zappa, released in October 1976 and his only release on the Warner Bros. Records label. Due to a lawsuit with his former manager Herb Cohen, Zappa's recording contract was temporarily reassigned from DiscReet Records to Warner Bros.
Dale Frances Bozzio is an American rock and pop vocalist. She is best known as co-founder and lead singer of the '80s new wave band Missing Persons and for her work with Frank Zappa. While with Zappa, she performed significant roles in two of his major works, Joe's Garage (1979) and Thing-Fish (1984). Bozzio has released four solo albums and one EP.
Läther is the sixty-fifth official album by Frank Zappa. It was released posthumously as a three-CD set on Rykodisc in 1996. The album's title is derived from bits of comic dialog that link the songs. Zappa also explained that the name is a joke, based on "common bastardized pronunciation of Germanic syllables by the Swiss."
Xenochrony is a studio-based musical technique developed at an unknown date, but possibly as early as the early 1960s, by Frank Zappa, who used it on several albums. Xenochrony is executed by extracting a guitar solo or other musical part from its original context and placing it into a completely different song, to create an unexpected but pleasing effect. He said that this was the only way to achieve some rhythms.
Isaac Willis is an American vocalist and guitarist who was a regular member of Frank Zappa's studio and touring bands from 1978 until the last tour in 1988. He did not tour with Zappa in 1981 and 1982 because he wanted to be at home for the birth of his two children, and returned to touring with Zappa for his final two tours in 1984 and 1988. He currently tours with the Frank Zappa tribute bands Bogus Pomp, Ossi Duri, Project/Object, Pojama People, Ugly Radio Rebellion and ZAPPATiKA. He also performed several times with the Brazilian Zappa cover band, The Central Scrutinizer Band, The Muffin Men, and with the Italian bands Ossi Duri and Elio e le Storie Tese. Additionally, he has appeared multiple times at the annual Zappanale Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany. He is most recognized for his involvement in Zappa records such as playing Joe in Joe's Garage, providing vocals on Tinsel Town Rebellion, You Are What You Is, and The Man from Utopia, and as the title character and narrator in Zappa's off-Broadway-styled conceptual musical Thing-Fish.
"Muffin Man" is a song recorded live by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. It appears on his 1975 mostly live album Bongo Fury made with Captain Beefheart.
Zappa Records is an American record label based in Los Angeles which was founded by Frank Zappa in 1977. It was mostly inactive during the 1980s and 1990s, but was revived in 2006 by the Zappa Family Trust.
"My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" is a song written by Frank Zappa and originally recorded by The Mothers of Invention in February 1969 at Criteria Studios (Miami), with overdubs recorded sometime between August and September 1969 at TTG Studios and Whitney Studios. This version was included on their 1970 album Weasels Ripped My Flesh, an LP that included various recordings by the band from 1967 to 1969. A second version was released as a single on the Bizarre and Reprise labels as "My Guitar." Despite the more conventional naming, "My Guitar" did not chart.
One Shot Deal is an album by Frank Zappa, posthumously released in June 2008.
Edward L. Mann was an American musician best known for his mallet percussion performances onstage with Frank Zappa's ensemble from 1977 to 1988, and his appearances on over 30 of Zappa's albums, both studio recordings and with Zappa's band live. Mann also released a number of CDs as a bandleader and composer.
"Advance Romance" is a Frank Zappa song originally from his live album with Captain Beefheart, Bongo Fury. Other versions of the song can be found on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 5, and Make a Jazz Noise Here. It is a humorous parody of typical love songs and is sung by Napoleon Murphy Brock with George Duke. The song was played from 1975 to 1976 and from 1982 to 1988 making the song one of Zappa's most performed. Almost all of Zappa's lineups after its release on Bongo Fury played this song in concert.
"Joe's Garage" is a single on Frank Zappa's 1979 album Joe's Garage Act I. After the introductory track, "The Central Scrutinizer", this song begins the story of Joe's Garage. Although it only charted in Norway and Sweden, it was one of Zappa's songs which had the most airplay on American FM radio, at the time still album-centered. The song was played in concert from 1980 to 1988 along with the song "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee?" in all tours of Zappa's after the single's release. The single version of the song lacks many of the special effects that the album version contains. The single version of "Joe's Garage" was put onto Zappa's best-of Strictly Commercial.
Denny Walley is an American guitarist. He was born in Pennsylvania. He is known for working with Frank Zappa in the 1970s and '80s.
"A Little Green Rosetta", by Frank Zappa, is the final song on the 1979 concept album Joe's Garage Acts II & III. The main character from this triple-album rock opera is faced with the decline of the music industry, and is forced to work on an assembly line placing little frosted rosettes on top of muffins at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen facility
"Watermelon in Easter Hay", full name "Playing a Guitar Solo With This Band is Like Trying To Grow a Watermelon in Easter Hay", by Frank Zappa, is the penultimate song on the 1979 concept album Joe's Garage. The main character from this three-part rock opera is faced with the banning of all music after being repeatedly raped in prison, and copes after his release by imagining guitar solos in his head for the entire third act of the album. As he "begins to feel depressed now, he knows the end is near", this song acts as the character's final goodbye to music as he moves on with his life, detailed in "A Little Green Rosetta", the next and final song of the album.
↑ Bould, Mark; Butler, Andrew M, eds. (2009). "L. Ron Hubbard (1911–86)". Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction. Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-43950-3.
↑ Drenching, T.H.F. (2005). "'Watermelon In Easter Hay': The Function of the Reverb Unit & the Poverty of the Individual Spirit". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. SAF Publishing Ltd. ISBN978-0-946719-79-2.
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