| Notes by Matt Groening on “Hot Rats” songbook - December 21, 2000
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| When “Hot Rats” first dropped onto my sick little ▶ teen-age record player ▶ back in 1969, I planted myself on the floor and sandwiched my head between the two speakers, expecting yet another masterpiece from Frank Zappa.
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| But what another masterpiece!
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| Even by Frank’s brilliant standards, “Hot Rats” is in a class by itself. With its angular melodies, quick-change rhythms, and eccentric arrangements, “Hot Rats” basically invented that peculiar musical genre known as fusion. I think it also remains the finest jazz-rock album of all time. Everything about “Hot Rats”, from Sugarcane Harris’s screeching violin to Ian Underwood’s exuberant saxes (not to mention Don Van Vliet at his growly Beefheartiest) continues to amaze me. I’ve been listening to it for more than three decades now, and I keep hearing new things in Frank’s extended guitar solos, which play like sneaky little compositions within the bigger pieces. (And does anyone else hear a wee bit of Stravinsky’s ♫ “Petrushka” in “Willie the pimp”?)
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| One little confession: the cover of “Love Is Hell”, my first cartoon book, was inspired by the graphic starkness of the “Hot Rats” cover. I admitted this to Frank and Gail several years ago, which led to Gail asking me to write this little piece. Gail also asked if I still had my original beat-up LP copy of “Hot Rats”, so here it is reproduced in all its mottled, stained, dog-eared glory, complete with candle-wax drippings.
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| HOT RATS… HOT ROOTS… HOT ZITS… what another masterpiece!
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| [Don Van Vliet] I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back
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| Pair a khaki pants ▶ with my shoe shined black
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| Got a little lady… walk the street
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| Tellin’ all the boys that she cain’t be beat
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| “Twenny dollah bill (I can set you straight)
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| Meet me onna corner, boy, an’ don’t be late”
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| Man in a suit with a bow-tie neck
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| Wanna buy a grunt with a third party check
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| Standin’ onna porch of the Lido Hotel
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| Floozies in the lobby love the way I sell:
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| Hot meat
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| Hot rats
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| Hot cats
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| Hot Ritz
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| Hot roots
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| Hot soots
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| [Instrumental]
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| Hot meat
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| Hot rats
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| Hot cats
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| Hot zitz
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| Hot roots
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| Hot soots
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| [Instrumental]
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| [FZ] Take two
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| [?] How many bars?
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| [FZ] Uh… Why don’t you count it off?
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| [?] Alright
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| [FZ] You start… You three start together on this
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| [?] Alright
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| [FZ] One, two, one, two
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| [Instrumental]
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 Design by Cal Schenkel - Photo of Christine Frka by Andee Nathanson.jpg "(Front) Design by Cal Schenkel - Photo of Christine Frka by Andee Nathanson")
.jpg "(LP inside left)")
.jpg "(LP inside right)")
 Photo of Christine Frka by Andee Nathanson.jpg "(LP back) Photo of Christine Frka by Andee Nathanson")
Songs list
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Title origin
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