| Letter by FZ - August 29, 1985
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Ronald Reagan, President of the United States
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The White House
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1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
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Washington D.C. 20500
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| Mr. President,
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| Even though I disagree strongly with many administration policies, I have never doubted that your personal views on Basic Constitutional Issues are sincere.
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| I would like to know your opinion of the record censorship program sponsored by the PMRC, an organization involving the wives of elected governmental officials. Do you support this effort? If so, have you considered the basic issue of fairness when a pet project, likely to result in legislative action that will restrain trade and affect the lives of millions of Americans, is promoted by the spouse of an elected official and rushed to a Senate hearing while important national business waits in the wings? Is it fair that people not fortunate enough to be married to a D.C. Superstar have to keep their mouths shut while “THE WASHINGTON WIVES” diddle with the legislative machinery?
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| The PMRC is an unlicensed lobbying group, comporting itself outrageously. While threatening an entire industry with the wrath of their husbands’ powerful committees, they blithely spew frogwash and innuendo with the assistance of an utterly captivated media. When the PMRC’s proposal leaps to a full committee hearing September 19th, an unfortunate precedent will be set. If you support the PMRC (or the NMRC or any other Fundamentalist Pressure Groups) in their efforts to perpetuate the myth that SEX EQUALS SIN, you will help to institutionalize the neurotic misconception that keeps pornographers in business.
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| By attempting to remove all references to sexuality from media consumed by young people, the PMRC, contrary to its stated goals, will create an atmosphere of ignorance that benefits the child molester, not the child.
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| In a nation where deranged pressure groups fight for the removal of sexual education from public schools, and parents know so little about sex that they have to call Dr. Ruth on TV for answers to rudimentary anatomical questions, it would seem infinitely more responsible for these esteemed wives and mothers to demand a full-scale Congressional demystification of the subject.
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| Are we headed toward a time when descriptions of sexual behavior in entertainment media can be obtained only by employing a lawyer to petition under the Freedom Of Information Act? Must all sexual practices in the United States be tested and approved by The Moral Majority? When they test them, do we get to watch?
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| Assuming, for argument’s sake, that the basic premise of the PMRC’s effort is to shield people in a certain age bracket from exposure to various forms of UNDESIRABLE INFORMATION, the proposition is grossly inequitable since it singles out Rock Music as the villain.
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| Country Music contains references to sex, violence, alcohol and the Devil, yet the PMRC is not requesting a warning label on THESE records. Could it be that a certain Senatorial husband and wife team from Tennessee has concocted this issue as an affirmative action program to benefit the suffering multitudes in Nashville? Surely there are other ways to protect this vital source of Tennessee state revenue.
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| Is there anyone in the PMRC who can differentiate infallibly between rock and country music? Artists in both fields have crossed stylistic lines, even within an individual album. If an album is part rock, part country, what sort of label does it get? Is this determination to be made according to the state in which the material was recorded?
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| The PMRC wants ratings to start as of the date of their enactment. What will be the status of those recordings remaining from the Golden Era prior to censorship? Do they become collector’s items… or will the government order them burned in a public ceremony, somewhere in Virginia?
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| If, as they suggest, hearing a certain type of music can cause UNWANTED BEHAVIOR, then anyone who has heard a Beatles’ or a Beach Boys’ record is in danger. Those were Charles Manson’s favorite groups.
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| Wagner’s influence on Hitler is well documented. Shouldn’t the PMRC consider a big red “M” for those classical works favored by Megalomaniacs? What if statistics become available showing a marked preference for Wayne Newton and Barry Manilow among convicted white-collar felons?
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| Fundamentalist Christianity is not a State Religion. The PMRC’s request for labels regarding sexually explicit lyrics, violence, drugs, alcohol, and occult content reads like a catalog of phenomena abhorrent to practitioners of that faith. Is the PMRC aware of the Muslim affiliations of some black performers?
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| If they should suddenly decide to record lyrics advocating the violent overthrow of America in the name of Allah, will the PMRC’s labels deter a nation of semi-literates from learning an exciting new dance called “The Funky Jihad”? Will the PMRC wish they had used the big red “M” to warn of Muslim Content?
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| The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, sets the stage for an endless series of “control programs” based on “Things Certain Christians Don’t Like”.
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| What if the next bunch of Washington Wives demands a large yellow “J” on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to “concealed Zionist doctrine”?
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| How long will it take till somebody else’s wife demands that composers and performers wear a Special Arm Band at all times in public, reflecting the stigma of their category rating?
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| The PMRC has demanded that the record companies “reassess” the contracts of those groups who do things on stage that they don’t approve of. GROUPS are comprised of INDIVIDUALS. If one guy wiggles too much, does the whole band get an “X”? If the group gets dropped from the label because of the “X”, do the other guys in the group who weren’t wiggling get to sue the guy who wiggled because he ruined their careers?
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| Should the individual musicians be rated? If so, who is qualified to determine if the BASS PLAYER behaves like an “O”, the GUITAR PLAYER behaves like an “X”, the VOCALIST behaves like a “D/A”, or the DRUMMER behaves like a “V”? Will unscrupulous performers voluntarily rate themselves “B/A” (Born Again), in order to protect their careers and differentiate themselves from the rest of the Stigmatized Scum when they shoot the next “Let’s Go Pretend To Feed Somebody” video?
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| It was a sad day for composers, performers and record retailers when the major labels agreed to the first of PMRC’s absurd demands.
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| Why did they agree? The record industry bills (H.R. 3163 and H.R. 2911) regarding tape royalties and piracy must pass through Senator Thurmond’s committee. With Mrs. Thurmond a member of PMRC, the industry was hardly in a position to express their true feelings on the matter. After broad hints of “legislative strangulation”, the major labels attempted a compromise. “Not GOOD enough!” said the Washington Wives, pressing for legislation to control “satanistic or occult content”.
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| A composer or performer stigmatized by the “O” rating winds up on the Ultimate Blacklist. All it might take is a song with a reference to someone’s astrological sign. What legal hazards lurk then for the unfortunate retailer who sells “O” rated records? If he sells one to somebody he’s not supposed to, does he get the red-hot tweezers or what?
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| The PMRC’s program protects country musicians, not children, it is mechanically unworkable from a listening / rating standpoint, considering the quantity of recorded material released each year. If enacted, American Musical Culture will become a hostage in the Beige Zone, somewhere between the Salem Witchcraft Trials and the McCarthy Era.
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| Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.
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| The facts simply do not support the PMRC’s outlandish claims. This is more than a First Amendment Issue. Freedom of religious thought (if this matter produces legislation determining what is “occult”), the right to assemble (if these idiotic ratings extend to live concerts), and the right to due process for composers performers and retailers (if the major labels proceed with “album identification”, in violation of existing contracts) are all jeopardized by PMRC’s demands.
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| I submit that elected officials have a spiritual and fiduciary duty to their constituents that takes precedent over the whims of their spouses. How many other costly and ill-conceived governmental programs have been generated in this manner and dumped onto the shoulders of American Business?
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| Those involved in this sort of “connubial insider trading”, if not subject to prosecution under existing law, ought to be disciplined by their peers… or perhaps they should take their own medicine and VOLUNTARILY RATE THEMSELVES. It shouldn’t be too hard to determine who deserves the Congressional “X”, the Congressional “D/A”, or the Congressional “V”. It’s hard to imagine a Congressional “O”, but there must be a few on somebody’s committee.
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| The PMRC loudly decries the label of censorship when it is applied to their plan. Jesse Jackson reminded Jerry Falwell in a recent CNN debate that “You do not judge a tree by the bark it wears, but by the fruit it bears…”
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| Mr. President, if you are not serious about getting government off our backs, could you at least do something about getting it out of our nostrils? There seems to be a lethal cloud of brimstone and mildewed bunting rising from the Senate floor.
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| I do not expect a reply to this letter, however, any public statement from you on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
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Thank you
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| FZ statement to Congress on September 19, 1985
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| These are my personal observations and opinions. They are addressed to the PMRC as well as this committee. I speak on behalf of no group or professional organization.
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| The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal’s design.
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| It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC’s demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.
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| No one has forced Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Gore to bring Prince or Sheena Easton into their homes. Thanks to the Constitution, they are free to buy other forms of music for their children. Apparently they insist on purchasing the works of contemporary recording artists in order to support a personal illusion of aerobic sophistication. Ladies, please be advised: the $8.98 purchase price does not entitle you to a kiss on the foot from the composer or performer in exchange for a spin on the family Victrola.
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| Taken as a whole, the complete list of PMRC demands reads like an instruction manual for some sinister kind of “toilet training program” to house-break ALL composers and performers because of the lyrics of a few.
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| Ladies, how dare you?
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| The ladies’ shame must be shared by the bosses at the major labels who, through the RIAA, chose to bargain away the rights of composers, performers, and retailers in order to pass H.R. 2911, The Blank Tape Tax: A PRIVATE TAX, LEVIED BY AN INDUSTRY ON CONSUMERS, FOR THE BENEFIT OF A SELECT GROUP WITHIN THAT INDUSTRY. Is this a “consumer issue”? You bet it is.
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| PMRC spokes-person, Kandy Stroud, announced to millions of fascinated viewers on last Friday’s ABC Nightline debate that Senator Gore, a man she described as “A friend of the music industry”, is co-sponsor of something she referred to as “anti-piracy legislation”. Is this the same tax bill with a nicer name?
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| The major record labels need to have H.R. 2911 whiz through a few committees before anybody smells a rat. One of them is chaired by Senator Thurmond. Is it a coincidence that Mrs. Thurmond is affiliated with the PMRC?
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| I can’t say she’s a member, because the PMRC HAS NO MEMBERS. Their secretary told me on the phone last Friday that the PMRC has NO MEMBERS, only FOUNDERS.
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| I asked how many other D.C. wives are NON-MEMBERS of an organization that raises money by mail, has a tax-exempt status, and seems intent on running the Constitution of the United States through the family paper-shredder. I asked her if it was a cult. Finally, she said she couldn’t give me an answer and that she had to call their lawyer.
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| It is unfortunate that the PMRC would rather dispense governmentally sanitized Heavy Metal music than something more “uplifting”. Is this an indication of PMRC’s personal taste or just another manifestation of the low priority this administration has placed on education for the arts in America?
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| The answer, of course, is NEITHER. You can’t distract people from thinking about an unfair tax by talking about Music Appreciation. For that you need SEX, and LOTS OF IT.
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| Because of the subjective nature of the PMRC ratings, it is impossible to guarantee that same sort of “despised concept” won’t sneak through, tucked away in new slang or the over-stressed pronunciation of an otherwise innocent word. If the goal here is TOTAL VERBAL / MORAL SAFETY, there is only one way to achieve it: watch no TV, read no books, see no movies, listen to only instrumental music, or buy no music at all.
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| The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of Moral Quality Control Programs based on “Things Certain Christians Don’t Like”.
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| What if the next bunch of Washington Wives demands a large yellow “J” on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to “concealed Zionist doctrine”?
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| Record ratings are frequently compared to film ratings. Apart from the quantitative difference, there is another that is more important: people who act in films are hired to pretend. No matter how the film is rated, it won’t hurt them personally.
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| Since many musicians write and perform their own material and stand by it as their art (whether you like it or not), an imposed rating will stigmatize them as INDIVIDUALS. How long before composers and performers are told to wear a festive little PMRC ARM BAND with their Scarlet Letter on it?
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| The PMRC rating system restrains trade in one specific musical field: Rock. No ratings have been requested for Comedy records or Country Music.
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| Is there anyone in the PMRC who can differentiate INFALLIBLY between rock and country music? Artists in both fields cross stylistic lines. Some artists include comedy material. If an album is part Rock, part Country, part Comedy, what sort of label would it get? Shouldn’t the ladies be warning everyone that inside those Country albums with the American Flags, the big trucks, and the atomic Pompadours there lurks a fascinating variety of songs about sex, violence, alcohol, and THE DEVIL, recorded in a way that lets you hear EVERY WORD, sung for you by people who have been to prison and are PROUD OF IT?
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| If enacted, the PMRC program would have the effect of protectionist legislation for the Country Music Industry, providing more security for cowboys than it does for children. One major retail outlet has already informed the Capitol Records sales staff that it would not purchase or display an album with ANY KIND OF STICKER ON IT.
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| Another chain with outlets in shopping malls has been told by the landlord that if it racked “hard-rated albums” they would lose their lease. That opens up an awful lot of shelf space for somebody. Could it be that a certain Senatorial husband and wife team from Tennessee sees this as an “affirmative action program” to benefit the suffering multitudes in Nashville?
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| Is the PMRC attempting to save future generations from SEX ITSELF? The type, the amount, and the timing of sexual information given to a child should be determined by parents, not by people who are involved in a tax scheme cover-up.
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| The PMRC has concocted a Mythical Beast, and compounds the chicanery by demanding “consumer guidelines” to keep it from inviting your children inside its SUGAR WALLS. Is the next step the adoption of a “PMRC National Legal Age For COMPREHENSION of Vaginal Arousal”? Many people in this room would gladly support such legislation, but, before they start drafting their bill, I urge them to consider these facts:
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| (1) There is no conclusive scientific evidence to support the claim that exposure to any form of music will cause the listener to commit a crime or damn his soul to hell
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| (2) Masturbation is not illegal. If it is not illegal to do it, why should it be illegal to sing about it?
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| (3) No medical evidence of hairy palms, warts, or blindness has been linked to masturbation or vaginal arousal, nor has it been proven that hearing references to either topic automatically turns the listener into a social liability
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| (4) Enforcement of anti-masturbatory legislation could prove costly and time consuming
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| (5) There is not enough prison space to hold all the children who do it
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| The PMRC’s proposal is most offensive in its “moral tone”. It seeks to enforce a set of implied religious values on its victims. Iran has a religious government. Good for them. I like having the capital of the United States in Washington D.C., in spite of recent efforts to move it to Lynchburg, Virginia.
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| Fundamentalism is not a state religion. The PMRC’s request for labels regarding sexually explicit lyrics, violence, drugs, alcohol, and especially OCCULT CONTENT reads like a catalog of phenomena abhorrent to practitioners of that faith. How a person worships is a private matter, and should not be INFLICTED UPON or EXPLOITED BY others. Understanding the Fundamentalist leanings of this organization, I think it is fair to wonder if their rating system will eventually be extended to inform parents as to whether a musical group has homosexuals in it. Will the PMRC permit musical groups to exist, but only if gay members don’t sing, and are not depicted on the album cover?
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| The PMRC has demanded that record companies “re-evaluate” the contracts of these groups who do things on stage that THEY find offensive. I remind the PMRC that GROUPS are comprised of INDIVIDUALS. If one guy wiggles too much, does the whole band get an “X”? If the group gets dropped from the label as a result of this “re-evaluation” process, do the other guys in the group who weren’t wiggling get to sue the guy who wiggled because he ruined their careers? Do the FOUNDERS of this TAX-EXEMPT ORGANIZATION WITH NO MEMBERS plan to indemnify record companies for any losses incurred from unfavorably decided breach of contract suits, or is there a PMRC secret agent in the Justice Department?
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| Should individual musicians be rated? If so, who is qualified to determine if the GUITAR PLAYER is an “X”, the VOCALIST is a “D/A” or the DRUMMER is a “V”? If the BASS PLAYER (or his Senator) belongs to a religious group that dances around with poisonous snakes, does he get an “O”? What if he has an earring in one ear, wears an Italian Horn around his neck, sings about his astrological sign, practices yoga, reads the Kabbalah, or owns a rosary? Will his “occult content” rating go into an old CoIntelPro computer, emerging later as a “FACT”, to determine if he qualifies for a horns-owner loan? Will they tell you this is necessary to protect the folks next door from the possibility of “devil-worship” lyrics creeping through the wall?
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| What hazards await the unfortunate retailer who accidentally sells an “O” rated record to somebody’s little Johnny? Nobody in Washington seemed to care when Christian Terrorists bombed abortion clinics in the name of Jesus. Will you care when the “FRIENDS OF THE WIVES OF BIG BROTHER” blow up the shopping mall?
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| The PMRC wants ratings to start as of the date of their enactment. That leaves the current crop of “objectionable material” untouched. What will be the status of recordings from that Golden Era prior to censorship? Do they become collector’s items… or will another “fair and unbiased committee” order them destroyed in a public ceremony?
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| Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.
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| Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religious Thought, and the Right to Due Process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain.
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| Are we expected to give up Article One so the big guys can collect an extra-dollar on every blank tape and 10% to 25% on tape recorders? What’s going on here? Do WE get to vote on this tax?
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| There’s an awful lot of smoke pouring out of the legislative machinery used by the PMRC to inflate this issue. Try not to inhale it. Those responsible for the vandalism should pay for the damage by VOLUNTARILY RATING THEMSELVES. If they refuse, perhaps the voters could assist in awarding the Congressional “K”, the Congressional “D/A” the Congressional “V”, and the Congressional “O”. Just like the ladies say: these ratings are necessary to protect our children. I hope it’s not too late to put them where they REALLY belong.
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| [Jade Teta] CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW
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| [Chairman] Mr. Frank Zappa
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| [Chairman] Mr. Zappa, thank you very much for being with us. Please proceed.
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| [FZ] OK. My name is Frank Zappa. This is my attorney Larry Stein from Los Angeles. Can you hear me?
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| [Chairman] Could you… If you could speak very directly and clearly into the microphone, I would appreciate it
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| [FZ] OK. My name is Frank Zappa. This is my attorney Larry Stein.
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| Uh… The statement that I prepared, that I sent you 100 copies of, is five pages long, so I have shortened it down and I’m going to read a condensed version of it.
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| Certain things have happened. I have been listening to the event in the other room and have heard some conflicting reports as to whether or not people in this committee want legislation. I understand that Mr. Hollings does from his comments. Is that correct?
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| [Chairman] I think you better concentrate on your testimony, rather than asking questions to the committee, Mr. Zappa.
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| [FZ] The reason I need to ask it, because if it… I have to change something in my testimony if s— if there is not a clear-cut version of whether or not legislation is what is being discussed here.
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| [Chairman] Do the best you can, because I don’t think anybody here can characterize Mr. Hollings… Senator Hollings’ position.
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| [FZ] OK. I will carry on with the issue, then. First thing…
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| [Senator Exon] Mr. Chairman, I might help him out just a little bit. I might make a statement.
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| [FZ] Yes
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| [Senator Exon] This is one Senator that might be interested in legislation and/or regulation uh… to some extent, recognizing the problems with free right of expression and my previously expressed views that I don’t believe I should be telling other people what they have to listen to. But I really believe that the suggestion made by the original panel was some kind of an arrangement uh… for voluntarily policing this in the music industry as the correct way to go. So, if it’ll help you out in your testimony, I might join Senator Hollings and, or others in some kind of legislation and/or regulation, unless the free enterprise system, both the producers and you as the performers, see fit to clean up your act.
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| [FZ] OK, thank you. Then I’ll…
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| [Senator Exon] […] voluntary
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| [FZ] OK. That’s hardly voluntary. The first thing I would like to do, because I know there is some foreign press involved here and they might not understand what the issue is about, one of the things the issue is about is the… the First Amendment to the Constitution, and I’d… it is short… and I’d like to read it so they will understand. It says:
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”
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| That’s for reference.
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| These are my personal observations and opinions. I speak on behalf of no group or professional organization.
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| The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal’s design.
|
| It’s my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC’s demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation.
|
| No one has forced Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Gore to bring Prince or Sheena Easton into their homes. Thanks to the Constitution, they are free to buy other forms of music for their children. Apparently they insist on purchasing the works of contemporary recording artists in order to support a personal illusion of aerobic sophistication. Ladies, please be advised: the $8.98 purchase price does not entitle you to a kiss on the foot from the composer or performer in exchange for a spin on the family Victrola.
|
| Taken as a whole, the complete list of PMRC demands reads like an instruction manual for some sinister kind of “toilet training program” to house-break ALL composers and performers because of the lyrics of a few.
|
| Ladies, how dare you?
|
| The ladies’ shame must be shared by the bosses at the major labels who, through the RIAA, chose to bargain away the rights of composers, performers, and retailers in order to pass H.R. 2911, The Blank Tape Tax: A PRIVATE TAX, LEVIED BY AN INDUSTRY ON CONSUMERS, FOR THE BENEFIT OF A SELECT GROUP WITHIN THAT INDUSTRY. Is this a “consumer issue”? You bet it is.
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| The major record labels need to have H.R. 2911 whiz through a few committees before anybody smells a rat. One of them is chaired by Senator Thurmond. Is it a coincidence that Mrs. Thurmond is affiliated with the PMRC?
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| I can’t say she’s a member, because the PMRC has no members. Their secretary told me on the phone last Friday that the PMRC has no members, only founders.
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| I asked how many other D.C. wives are non-members of an organization that raises money by mail, has a tax-exempt status, and seems intent on running the Constitution of the United States through the family paper-shredder. I asked her if it was a cult. Finally, she said she couldn’t give me an answer and that she had to call their lawyer.
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| While the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury recites ✄ “Gonna drive my love inside you” and Senator Gore’s wife talks about “BONDAGE” and “oral sex at gunpoint” on the CBS Evening News, people in high places work on a tax bill that is so ridiculous, the only way to sneak it through is to keep the public’s mind on something else: PORN ROCK.
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| Is the basic issue morality? Is it mental health? Is it an issue at all? The PMRC has created a lot of confusion with improper comparisons between song lyrics, videos, record packaging, radio broadcasting, and live performances. These are all different mediums and the people who work in them have the right to conduct their business without trade-restraining legislation, whipped up like an instant pudding by “The wives of Big Brother”.
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| Is it proper that the husband of a PMRC nonmember / founder / person sits on any committee considering business pertaining to the blank tape tax or his wife’s lobbying organization? Can any committee thus constituted find facts in a fair and unbiased manner? This committee has three that we know about: Senator Danforth, Senator Packwood, and Senator Gore. For some reason, they seem to feel there is no conflict of interest involved.
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| Children in the vulnerable age bracket have a natural love for music. If as a parent you believe they should be exposed to something more uplifting than ♫ “Sugar walls”, support music appreciation programs in schools. Why haven’t you considered your child’s need for consumer information? Music appreciation costs very little compared to sports expenditures. Your children have a right to know that something besides pop-music exists.
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| It is unfortunate that the PMRC would rather dispense governmentally sanitized Heavy Metal music than something more “uplifting”. Is this an indication of PMRC’s personal taste or just another manifestation of the low priority this administration has placed on education for the arts in America?
|
| The answer, of course, is neither. You can’t distract people from thinking about an unfair tax by talking about Music Appreciation. For that you need SEX, and lots of it.
|
| The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of Moral Quality Control Programs based on “Things certain Christians don’t like”.
|
| What if the next bunch of Washington Wives demands a large yellow “J” on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to “concealed Zionist doctrine”?
|
| Record ratings are frequently compared to film ratings. Apart from the quantitative difference, there is another that is more important: people who act in films are hired to pretend. No matter how the film is rated, it won’t hurt them personally.
|
| Since many musicians write and perform their own material and stand by it as their art (whether you like it or not), an imposed rating will stigmatize them as individuals. How long before composers and performers are told to wear a festive little PMRC arm band with their Scarlet Letter on it?
|
| Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.
|
| Freedom of speech, freedom of religious thought, and the right to due process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain.
|
| Are we expected to give up Article One so the big guys can collect an extra-dollar on every blank tape and 10% to 25% on tape recorders? What’s going on here? Do we get to vote on this tax?
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| I think that this whole matter has gotten completely blown out of proportion, and I agree with Senator Exon that there is a very dubious reason for having this event. And I also agree with Senator Exon that you shouldn’t be wasting time on stuff like this, because from the beginning I have sensed that it is somebody’s hobby project.
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| Now, I’ve done a number of interviews on television and people keep saying: “Can’t you take a few steps in their direction, can’t you sympathize, can’t you empathize?” I do more than that at this point. I’ve got an idea for a way to stop all this stuff and a way to give parents what they really want, which is information, accurate information as to what is inside the album, without providing a stigma for the musicians who have played on the album or the people who sing it or the people who wrote it. And I think that if you listen carefully to this uh… idea that it might just get by all of the constitutional problems and everything else, as far as I am concerned.
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| I have no objection to having all of the lyrics placed on the album routinely, all the time. But, there is a little problem. Record companies do not own the right automatically to take these lyrics, because they’re owned by publishing companies.
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| So, just as all the rest of the PMRC proposals would cost money, this would cost money too, because the record companies would need… the— they shouldn’t be forced to bear the cost, the extra expenditure to the publisher, to print those lyrics.
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| Uh… If you consider that the public needs to be warned about the contents of the records, what better way than to let them see exactly what the songs say? That way you don’t have to put any kind of… of subjective rating on the record. You don’t have to call it R, X, D/A, anything. You can read it for yourself.
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| But in order for it to work properly, the lyrics should be on a uniform kind of a sheet. Maybe even the Government could print those sheets. Maybe it should even be paid for by the Government, if the Government is interested in uh… making sure that people have consumer information in this regard.
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| And uh… you also have to realize that if a person buys the record and takes it out of the store, once it is out of the store you can’t return it if you read the lyrics at home and decide that little Johnny is not supposed to have it.
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| I think that that should at least be considered, and the idea of imposing these ratings on live concerts, on the albums, asking record companies to re-evaluate or drop or violate contracts that they already have with artists should be thrown out.
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| That’s it all. That’s what I have to say.
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| [Chairman] Thank you very much, Mr. Zappa. You understand that the… the uh… previous witnesses were not asking for legislation. And uh… I don’t know, I can’t speak for Senator Hollings, but I think that the prevailing view here is that nobody is asking for legislation. The question is just focusing on what a lot of people perceived to be a problem, and you have indicated that you at least understand that there is another point of view.
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| [FZ] Yeah, I do understand
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| [Chairman] But there are people that think that parents should have some knowledge of what goes into their home.
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| [FZ] All along my objection has been with the tactics used by these people in order to achieve the goal. I just think the tactics have been really bad, and the whole premise of their proposal, the— they were badly advised in terms of record business law, they were badly advised in terms of practicality, or uh… they would have known that certain things don’t work mechanically with what they sug— suggest.
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| [Chairman] Senator Gore
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| [Senator Gore] Thank you ve— very much, Mr. Chairman. I found your statement very interesting and… let me say, although I disagree with some of the statements that you make and have made on other occasions, I have been a fan of your music, believe it or not. And I… I… respect you as a true original and a tremendously talented musician.
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| Your suggestion on printing the lyrics on the album is… is a very interesting one. Because the PMRC at one point said they would propose either a rating or warning, or printing all the lyrics on the album. And… And the record companies came back and said that they… that they didn’t want to do that.
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| But I think an awful lot of people agree with… with your suggestion that one easy way to solve this problem for parents would be to put the actual words there, so that parents could… could see them. In fact, the National Association of Broadcasters made exactly the same request of the record companies.
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| So, I think your suggestion is… is an intriguing one and might really be a solution for the problem.
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| [FZ] But the problem… Well, you just have to understand that it does cost money, because you can’t expect publishers to automatically give up that right, which is a money earning right for them. Somebody is going to have to reimburse the publishers, the record industry is going to… without trying to mess up the album jacket art, and impose the… that lyrics only be printed on the back, it should be a sheet of paper that is slipped inside the shrink-wrap, that when you take it out you can still have a complete album package. So there is going to be some extra cost for printing it.
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| But as long as people realize that for this kind of consumer safety you’re gonna spend some money and as long as you can find a way to pay for it, I think that would be the best way to let people know.
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| [Senator Gore] Well, you know, I do not disagree with that at all. And the… the… the separate sheet would also solve the problem with the cassettes as well, because you do not have the… the space for words on the cassette packs.
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| [FZ] Well, there would have to be a little accordion-fold in there.
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| [Senator Gore] Yeah. Something like that. And… or… or just fold it. But… But a very large percentage of the albums that are sold are sold in cassette form.
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| I’ve lif— listened to you a number of times on this issue, and uh… I guess the question that… that I really want to get from you is, or the… the statement that I want to get from you is… is on whether or not you feel that the concern is legitimate.
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| Because, occasionally you… you feel very strongly about your position, and I understand that. Very articulate and forceful.
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| But occasionally you give the impression that you think parents are just silly to… to be concerned at all.
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| [FZ] That’s not an accurate impression.
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| [Senator Gore] Well, please clarify it, then.
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| [FZ] First of all, I think it is the parents’ concern, it is not the Government’s concern.
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| [Senator Gore] And they agree with you on that.
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| [FZ] Well, that doesn’t come across in the way they have been speaking. The whole drift that I have gotten, based upon the media blitz that has attended the PMRC and its rise to infamy, is that they have a special plan, and it has smelled like legislation up until now.
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| There are too many things that look like hidden agendas involved with this. And, I am a parent. I have got four children. Two of them are here. I want them to grow up in a country where they can think what they want to think, be what they want to be, and not what somebody’s wife or somebody in Government makes them be.
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| I don’t wanna have that and I don’t think you do either.
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| [Senator Gore] OK. But now you’re back on the… you’re back on the other issue. And… let me just say briefly on that, that th— they say repeatedly no legislation, no regulation, no Government action. Certainly sounded pretty clear to me. And as far as a… as far as a hidden agenda, you know, I… I don’t see one, hear one, or know of one.
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| [FZ] OK, let me tell you why I have drawn these conclusions. First of all, they may say: “We are not interested in legislation”. But there are others who do, and because of their project bad things have happened in this country in the industry.
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| I believe there is actually some liability. Look at this. You have a situation where, even if you go for the lyric printed thing in the record, because of the tendency among Americans to be copycats, one guy commits a murder, you get a copycat murder, now you’ve got copycat censors.
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| You get a very bad situation in San Antonio, Texas, right now where they are trying to pass PMRC-type individual ratings and attach them to live concerts, with the mayor down there trying to make a national reputation by putting San Antonio on the map as the first city in the United States to have these regulations, against the suggestion of the city attorney, who says: “I don’t think this is constitutional”.
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| But you know, there is this fervor to get in and do even more, even more.
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| And the other thing, the PMRC starts off talking about lyrics, but when they take it over into other realms they start talking about the videos… in fact, you misspoke yourself at the beginning in your introduction when you were talking about the music does this, the music does that. There is a distinct difference between those notes and chords and the bass line and the rhythm that support the words and the lyrics.
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| I do not know whether you really are talking about controlling the type of music that gets heard.
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| So just specifically we’re talking about lyrics. It began with lyrics. But even looking at the PMRC fundraising letter ▲, in the last paragraph at the bottom of the page it starts looking like it is branching into other areas, when it says: “We realize that this material has pervaded other aspects of society”. And it is like what, you are going to fix it all for me?
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| [Senator Gore] No, I think what they’re… I mean, I think they’re acknowledging some of the uh… statements by some of their critics who say: “Well, wh— why single out the music industry?” But if I can have just a… have a minute more, Mr. Chairman.
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| Before we got back into that, you were saying, yes, you… you do believe that there is a legitimate concern.
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| [FZ] Ya, but the legitimate concern is a matter of taste for the individual parent and how much sexual information that parent wants to give their child, at what age, at what time, in what quantity, OK? And I think that, because there is a tendency in the United States to hide sex, which I think is an unhealthy thing to do, and many parents do not give their children good sexual education, in spite of the fact that little books for kids are available, and other parents demand that sexual education be taken out of school, it makes the child vulnerable, because if you don’t have something rational to compare it to when you see or hear about something that is aberrated you do not perceive it as an aberration. OK?
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| [Senator Gore] OK, I’ve run out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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| [Chairman] Senator Rockefeller. Senator Gorton.
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| [Senator Gorton] Mr. Zappa, I uh… 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 found your statement to be boorish uh… incredibly and insensitively insulting to the people that 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 that you had the slightest understanding of it, which I do not. You do not 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.
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| Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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| [FZ] Is this private action?
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| [Chairman] Senator Exon
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| [Senator Exon] Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Mr. Zappa, let me say that… I was surprised that Senator Gore knew and liked your music. I must co— confess that I have never heard any of your music, to my knowledge.
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| [FZ] I would be more than happy to recite my lyrics to you.
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| [Senator Exon] Can we forgo that?
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| [Senator Gore] You… You’ve probably never heard of the Mothers of Invention.
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| [Senator Exon] I have heard of Glenn Miller and Mitch Miller. Did you ever perform with them?
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| [FZ] As a matter of fact, I took music lessons in grade school from Mitch Miller’s brother.
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| [Senator Exon] That’s the first sign of hope we have had in this hearing.
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| Let us try and get down to a fundamental question here that I would like to ask you, Mr. Zappa. Do you believe that parents have the right and the obligation to mold the psychological development of their children?
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| [FZ] Yeah, I think they have that right, and I also think they have that obligation.
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| [Senator Exon] Do you see any… extreme difficulty in carrying out those obligations for a parent by material falling into the hands of their children over which they have little or no control?
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| [FZ] Well, one of the things that has been brought up before is uh… talking about very young children getting access to the material that they have been showing here today. And what I have said to that in the past is a teenager may go into a record store unescorted with $8.98 in his pocket, but very young children do not.
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| If they go into a record store, the $8.98 is in mom’s pocket or dad’s pocket, and they can always say: “Johnny, buy a book”. They can say: “Johnny, buy instrumental music, there’s some nice classical music here for you, why don’t you listen to that?”
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| The parent can uh… ask or guide the child in another direction, away from Sheena Easton, Prince, or whoever else you have been complaining about. There is always that possibility.
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| [Senator Exon] As I understand it from your testimony and… once again, I want to emphasize that I see nothing wrong whatsoever. In fact, I salute the ladies for bringing this to the attention of the public as best they see fit. And I think you could tell from my testimony that I tend to agree with them. But I want to be very careful that we do not overstep our bounds and try and me, I emphasize once again, tell somebody else what they should see. So I am primarily worried about… about children.
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| It seems to me from your statement that you have no obligation or no objection whatsoever uh… to printing lyrics, if that would be legally possible, or tech— from a standpoint of having the room to do that, on records or tapes. Is that not what you said?
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| [FZ] I think it would be advisable for two reasons. One, it gives people one of the things that they’ve been asking for. It gives them that type of consumer protection because, if you can read the English language and you can see the lyrics on the back, you have no excuse for complaining if you take the record out of the store.
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| And also, I think that the record industry has been damaged and it has been given a very bad rap by this whole situation because it’s been indicated, or people have attempted to indicate, that there is so much of this kind of material that people object to in the industry, that is what the industry is. It is not bad at all. Some of the albums that have been selected for abuse here are obscure. Some of them are already several years old. And I think that a lot of deep digging was done in order to come up with ♫ the song about the anal vapors or whatever it was that they were talking about before.
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| [Senator Exon] If I understand you… you… you would be in support of printing the lyrics, but you are adamantly opposed to any kind of a rating system? Is that correct?
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| [FZ] I’m opposed to the rating system because, as I said, if you put a rating on the… the record it goes directly to the character of the person who made the record, whereas if you rate a film, a guy who is in the film has been hired as an actor. He is pretending. You rate the film, whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt him.
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| But whether you like what is on the record or not, the guy who made it, that’s his art and to stigmatize him is not fair.
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| [Senator Exon] Well, likewise, if you are primarily concerned about the artists, is it not true that for many many years, we have had uh… ratings of uh… of movies with indications as to the sexual content of movies and that has been, as near as I can tell, a voluntary action on the part of the actors in the movies and the producers of the movies and the distributors?
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| That seems to have worked reasonably well. What is wrong with that?
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| [FZ] Well, first of all, it replaced something that was far more restrictive, which was the Hays Office. And as far as that being voluntary, there are people who wish they did not have to rate their films. They still object to rating their films, but the reason the ratings go on is because if they are not rated they won’t get distributed or shown in theaters. So there is a little bit of pressure involved there. But still there is no stigma on the person.
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| [Senator Exon] The Government does not require that. The… The point I am trying to make is and uh…
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| While I think these hearings should not have been held if we are not considering legislation or regulations at this time, I emphasized earlier that they might follow.
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| I simply want to say to you that I suspect that, unless the industry “cleans up their act”, and I use that in quote words again, there is likely to be legislation. And it seems to me that it would not be too far removed from reality or too offensive to anyone if you could follow the general guidelines, right, wrong, or indifferent, that are now in place with regard to the movie industry.
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| [FZ] Well, I would object to that. I think first of all, I believe it was you who asked the question of Mrs. Gore whether there was any other indication on the album as to the contents. And I would say that a buzz saw blade between a guy’s legs on the album cover is a good indication that it is not for little Johnny.
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| [Senator Exon] I don’t believe I entered that question, but the point that you made is a good one, because if that should not go to little minds I think there should be at least some minimal activity or attempt on the part of the producers and distributors, and indeed possibly the performers, to see that that does not get to that little mind.
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| Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
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|
| [Chairman] Hollings
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| [Senator Hollings] Mr. Zappa, I apologize for coming back in late, but I am just hearing the latter part of it. I hear that you say that perhaps we could print the words, and I think that is a good suggestion, but it is unfair to have it rated.
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| Now, it is not considered unfair in the movie industry, and I want you to elaborate. I don’t want to belabor you, but why is it unfair? I mean, it’s accurate, isn’t it? I mean…
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| [FZ] Well, I don’t know whether it is accurate, because they sometimes have trouble deciding how a film gets to be an X or an R or whatever. And uh… you have two problems. One is th— the quantity of material, 325 films per year versus 25,000 4-minute songs per year, OK?
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| You also have a problem that an album is a compilation of different types of cuts. If one song on the album is sexually explicit and all the rest of it sounds like Pat Boone, what do you get on the album? How are you going to rate it?
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| You know, there are little technical difficulties here, and also you have the problem of having somebody in the position of deciding what’s good, what’s bad, what’s talking about the Devil, what is too violent, and you know, and the rest of that stuff.
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| But the point that I made before is that when you rate the album you are rating the individual, because he takes personal responsibility for the music. And in the movies, the actors who are performing in the movie, it doesn’t hurt them.
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| [Senator Hollings] Well, very good. I… I think the actual printing of the content itself is perhaps even better than the rating. Let everyone else decide.
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| [FZ] I think you should leave it up to the parents, because not all parents want to keep their children totally ignorant.
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| [Senator Hollings] Well, what… Yeah, you and I would differ on what is ignorance and educated, I can see that. But…
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| [FZ] No, I happen to think that you are very educated
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| [Senator Hollings] I can’t complain if it was there, they could see what they were buying and I think that would be a step in the right direction.
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| But as Senator Exon has pointed out, whereby the primary movers in this particular regard are not looking for legislation or regulations, that’s our function.
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|
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| And to be perfectly candid with you, I would look for regulations or some kind of legislation, if it could be constitutionally accomplished, unless of course we have these initiatives from the industry itself.
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| An’ I think your suggestion is a good one. If you print those words, that would go a long way to satisfying everyone’s objections.
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| [FZ] All we have to do is find out how it is going to be paid for
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| [Senator Hollings] Good enough. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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| [Chairman] Senator Hawkins
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| [Senator Hawkins] Mr. Zappa
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| [FZ] Yes
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| [Senator Hawkins] You say you have four children?
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| [FZ] Yes
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| [Senator Hawkins] Pardon me
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| [FZ] Four children
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| [Senator Hawkins] Four children. Have you ever purchased toys for those children?
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| [FZ] No, my wife does.
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| [Senator Hawkins] Well, I might tell you that if you were to go in a toy store (which is very educational for fathers, by the way, it is not a maternal responsibility to buy toys for children) that you may look on the box and the box says, this is suitable for 5 to 7 years of age, or 8 to 15, or 15 and above, to give you some guidance for a toy for a child. Do you object to that?
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| [FZ] In a way I do, because that means that somebody in an office someplace is making a decision about how smart my child is.
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| [Senator Hawkins] I’d be interested to see what toys your kids ever had
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| [FZ] Why would you be interested?
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| [Senator Hawkins] Just as a point of interest in this…
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| [FZ] Well, come on over to the house. I’ll show ‘em to you.
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| [FZ] Really!
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| [Senator Hawkins] I… I might do that
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| Have you ever made… Do you make a profit from sales of rock records?
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| [FZ] Yes
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| [Senator Hawkins] So you do make a profit from the sales of rock records?
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| [FZ] Yes
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| [Senator Hawkins] Thank you, I think that statement… tells the story to this committee
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| Thank you
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| [Chairman] Mr. Zappa, thank you very much for your testimony
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| [FZ] Thank you
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| [Chairman] Next witness is John Denver
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| [Senator Hollings] We haven’t got ‘em whipped on this one yet. You got a bear by the tail here, uh? Jeezis!
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| [Bruce Bereano] Thank you, Chairman Miller, members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. My name is Bruce Bereano. I’m an attorney here in Annapolis, Maryland. I am here on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, which is a trade association out of New York City, which hired me to represent their interests after this bill passed the House of Delegates uh… to seek the defeat of this legislation. RIAA is a trade association of the manufacturers of records and tapes in the United States. With me, at my invitation, as my guest uh… is Mr. Frank Zappa, born and raised here in the state of Maryland, a recording uh… musician, songwriter, and entertainer for some thirty-odd years. I’d like to make a few remarks before I turn the microphone over to Mr. Zappa.
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| This legislation, like other legislation unfortunately considered in legislatures throughout the state and other states, deals with trying to have government intervene in the development, the establishment and the dealing with matters that should be and should remain within the responsibility, the commitment and the obligation of the family structure.
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| I will not spend a great deal of time uh… going over lyrics that I could cite as well. Let me just indicate one though:
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“Love for sale, appetizing young love for sale
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Who’s prepared to pay the price, for a trip to paradise?
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Love for sale”
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Cole Porter, 1930
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| I’d like to ask Mr. Frank Zappa to please comment on this legislation. Mr. Zappa.
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| [FZ] Thank you. First of all I wanna make it very clear I do not represent the RIAA, nor would they wish me to.
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| These are my personal views, these are opinions. I’m not a lawyer. I’m a guy with a high-school education. I did not go to high-school in Maryland. I escaped. And uh… this is working here? Hello. Which one’s working? None?
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| This is censorship!
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| Alright, I’ll have to talk louder. Uh… I oppose this bill bec— for a number of reasons. Uh… first of all, there’s no need for it. The idea that the lyrics to a song are going to cause anti-social behavior, as an exclusive cause of anti-social behavior, I think is not supportable by science, in spite of the fact that a psychiatrist just sat here and told you - and I don’t where he gets this - that this exposure to this type of material will keep young people from thinking or impair their thinking process. It’s a fascinating theory.
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| In looking at the bill, in spite of the fact that I’m not a lawyer, I see some unusual uh…
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| You guys read this? Or did you read the synopsis?
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| In the part where it talks about… the… it says: “In this section the following words have the meanings indicated”, the… the bill seeks to uh… keep you from seeing, renting, buying or listening to material described as “depicting illicit sex”. And the description of what “illicit sex” as per this bill, here’s the descriptions: “Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal”. Is that illicit sex? Perhaps in Maryland!
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| “Acts of human masturbation”, not animal masturbation, this is talking ‘bout human masturbation, you can’t see that but any other kind I suppose you could see. Mechanical masturbation, perhaps. Or acts of government.
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| “Sexual intercourse or sodomy”. Why… Why do they indicate that sexual intercourse is illicit sex and put it next to sodomy in the same line? The next line: “Fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals”. That is illicit in the State of Maryland according to the law as already written?
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| Next: “Distributing includes renting”
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| And then: “3. Nude or partially denuded figures means less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttocks, or female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola”.
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| Now, I like nipples, I think they look good and that… and if you are going to look at a woman’s breast, if you take the nipple off, which is the characterizing determining factor, what you got is a blob of fat there. OK? And I think that… when you’re a baby, probably one of the first things that you get interested in is that nozzle right there, and you get to have it right up in front of your face, OK? You grow up with it, so to speak, and then you grow up to live in the State of Maryland and they won’t let you see the little brown thing anymore.
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| Then it says: “Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if completely and opaquely covered”. Now, I thought “turgid” was like, you know, water swirling around in a… you know, like maybe a Bendix, or something like that, I don’t know whether that’s really the right word for describing the… the male genital. Now is this talking about, you can’t sing about or look at human male genitals with water swirling about them?
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| “Even if completely and opaquely covered”
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| I think you have problems in the law as it already exists, let alone amending it to include audio references to the things that are already in this document. Then, because it talks about not being able to advertise matter containing these objectionable topics, it opens up the possibility for this: a person wearing a Mötley Crüe T-shirt, if Mötley Crüe was adjudged, by whatever forum is gonna make these decisions, to be a pornographic act, if the person is wearing the T-shirt, theoretically he could be fined a thousand dollars or go to jail for a year for his wardrobe. And if he wore it twice, it’s “Five thousand dollars or imprisonment not to exceed three years or both unless otherwise provided”.
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| Some people, when they start talking about pornography, and saving the children, and the rest of this stuff, in the desire to help a child, sometimes choose some strange ways to express it, and what I know about this bill basically is what I see on this paper and things that I’ve read in clippings sent to me from Baltimore papers. And some of the statements made in support of the bill, for example uh… I hope I’m not in— incorrectly quoting you, Delegate Toth, in the reference to uh… rock music being “the major cause of incest in the home”, did you say that?
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| There, I’m sorry if I’m misquoting you, somebody reported to me that you had said that, and I’ve, you know, been baffled by it ever since. But, if you had said it… You know, well, I won’t even bother to answer it since you didn’t say it, but is it true that someone has said, I believe it was uh… Delegate Owens, that rock music is “the worst form of child abuse, big mass child abuse”?
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| Then somebody in the newspaper is quoting him wrong, because that’s from the Maryland papers. OK?
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|
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| [Senator Yeager] Mr. Chairman
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|
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| [FZ] Yes?
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| [Chairman] Senator Yeager
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| [Senator Yeager] Is Mr. Zappa testifying or is he cross-examining the sponsor of the bill?
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| [FZ] Well, if I’m… Are you accusing me of…
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| [Senator Yeager] Could he keep his testimony to testimony? I would appreciate that.
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| [Chairman] OK. Thank you.
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|
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| [FZ] Well, see, I haven’t… I don’t do this very often so I don’t know the protocol but I thought it would be fair to ask before I accused somebody of saying something they hadn’t said, so, if he wants me to just blab it out, I’ll do it.
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| [?] We appreciate […] Please proceed.
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| [FZ] OK. To say that rock music is the worst form of child abuse, and that it’s mass child abuse, I would call that sky-high rhetoric.
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| Because if you ever seen photographs, which I have on CNN or other news shows that show stories about abused children with bruises over their body or they’re cut or, you know, they’ve really been badly injured. That’s an abused child.
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| There is a difference between that photograph and a photograph of a kid with some earphones on listening to a heavy metal album. I don’t equate the two at all.
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| It is my personal feeling that lyrics uh… will not harm you. There is no sound that you can make with your mouth, or word that will come out of your mouth, that is so powerful that it’ll make you go to hell. It’s not gonna do it. It also not gonna turn you into a social liability.
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| Disturbed people can be set off on a disturbed course of action by any kind of stimulus.
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| If they are prone to being anti-social, or schizophrenic or whatever, they can be set off by anything, including my tie, or your hair, or that chair over there, or anything.
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| Anything can set it off. You can’t point to statistics of people uh… doing strange things in the vicinity of rock music, because all you gotta do is look around at all the normal kids who listen to it, and live with it every day, who do not commit suicide, they don’t commit murder, and they grow up to be, in some cases, legislators.
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| So, I… I would hope that the State of Maryland would send a message to the other states that are considering this type of legislation. I would hope you would kill it here so that the other states will not continue with this kind of foolish stuff. Because you know it feels like a fad or a trend and it’s something that should stop here and I hope we can stop it here.
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 Art by Bill Miller from a photo by Michael Mesker.jpg "(Front) Art by Bill Miller from a photo by Michael Mesker")
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Songs list
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