(Front) Art by Donald Roller Wilson

Linked material:

Boulez conducts Zappa - The perfect stranger

 

  1 The perfect stranger
  2 Naval aviation in art?
  3 The girl in the magnesium dress
  4 Dupree’s paradise
  5 Love story
  6 Outside now again
  7 Jonestown

 

All compositions by Frank Zappa.


Album notes by FZ
This album contains seven dance pieces, each with a story and built-in “sound effects”. The style is “preposterously non-modern”.
All material contained herein is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be confused with any other form of artistic expression.

1. The perfect stranger


[Notes by FZ] A door-to-door salesman, accompanied by his faithful gypsy-mutant industrial vacuum cleaner (as per the interior illustration on the “Chunga’s Revenge” album cover ), cavorts licentiously with a slovenly housewife.

We hear the door bell, the housewife’s eyebrows going up and down as she spies the nozzle through the ruffled curtain, the sound of the little bag of “demonstration dirt” being sprinkled on the rug, and assorted bombastic interjections representing the spiritual qualities of chrome, rubber, electricity, and household tidiness. The entire transaction is being viewed from a safe distance by Patricia, the dog in the highchair.
 
[Instrumental]

2. Naval aviation in art?


[Notes by FZ] It shows a sailor-artist, standing before his easel, squinting through a porthole for inspiration, while wiser men sleep in hammocks all around him.
 
[Instrumental]

3. The girl in the magnesium dress


[Notes by FZ] It is about a girl who hates men and kills them with her special dress; its lightweight metal construction features a lethally pointed sort of micro-Wagnerian breastplate . When they die from dancing with her, she laughs at them and wipes it off.
 
[Instrumental]

4. Dupree’s paradise


[Notes by FZ] It is about a bar on Avalon Boulevard in Watts at 6:00 AM on a Sunday in 1964, during the early morning jam session. For about seven minutes, the customers (winos, musicians, degenerates and policemen) do the things that set them apart from the rest of society.
 
[Instrumental]

5. Love story


[Notes by FZ] It features an elderly Republican couple attempting sex while break-dancing.
 
[Instrumental]

6. Outside now again


[Notes by FZ] It shows the whole cast lining up for a soup. This poor food (served by people who act as if they were procurement officials of the National Cultural Foundation) perfectly befits the minimalist choreography.
 
[Instrumental]

7. Jonestown


[Notes by FZ] It concludes the album with a boring, ugly dance evoking the essential nature of all religions. A person pretending to be a messenger from God bangs on the side of the communal beverage tub with the skull of a former child, silently mouthing the words: “Come and get it!”
 
[Instrumental]



FZ and Pierre Boulez

English lyrics from site Information Is Not Knowledge.