The crux of the biscuit

Project/Object album

Linked material:

The crux of the biscuit

1 Cosmik debris

2 Uncle Remus [Mix outtake]

3 Down in de dew [Alternate mix]

4 Apostrophe’ [Mix outtake]

5 The story of “Don’t eat the yellow snow / St. Alphonzo’s pancake breakfast”

6 Don’t eat the yellow snow {+ Nanook rubs it} + St. Alphonzo’s pancake breakfast {+ Rollo + Father O’Blivion + Mar-juh-rene + Steno pool}

7 Excentrifugal forz [Mix outtake]

8 Energy frontier {Down in de dew} [Take 4]

9 Energy frontier {Down in de dew} [Take 6 with overdubs]

10 Energy frontier (Bridge) {Apostrophe’}

11 Cosmik debris [Basic tracks - Take 3]

12 Don’t eat the yellow snow [Basic tracks - Alternate take]

13 Nanook rubs it [Basic tracks - Outtake]

14 Nanook rubs it [Session outtake]

15 Frank’s last words…

All compositions by Frank Zappa.

Album notes by Simon Prentis

OMISSION IMPOSSIBLE - Why we can’t look away

“Conceptual continuity” can be a vexed issue for Zappa fans. It’s a phrase we’re all familiar with in the context of the work, but when it comes down to it, what does it actually mean? Is it about the recurrence of certain symbolic motifs - poodles, ♫ “Louie Louie” and blow jobs ▶ - hidden references and secret words, or something else entirely? In 1971, the “MOI Customized Press Kit” ▲ announced that “there is, and always has been, a conscious control of thematic and structural elements flowing through each album, live performance, and interview”.

But still, like the hapless Mike Nesmith posing as Frank Zappa in that notorious episode of the Monkees, our attempts to locate the soul of the music (“Is it on the one and the seven or the one and the five?”) can leave us badly wrong-footed: not only is it sometimes to be found on the three and the five, it can also turn out that we’re asking the wrong question altogether. For the continuity connecting the AAAFNRAA concept is less about symbols than symbiosis - the interaction between organic pieces of the puzzle is always going to be more interesting than any particular pooch, paean or perquisite.

So what the hell has an apostrophe (’) got to do with it, then?

In the song “Stink-foot”, Fido the dog famously responds to his human interlocutor by explaining that this pesky little punctuational peccadillo is the very crux of the conceptual continuity’s biscuit ▶. How so, indeed? The only time Frank seems to have been asked directly about the entanglement in question, he agrees that what he had in mind was the function that “denotes ownership”; but we should probably not allow ourselves to take that too seriously.

For one thing, Fido’s assertion is immediately challenged by a blizzard of commonly apostrophized words that have nothing to do with possession (IT DOESN’T, an’ YOU CAN’T, I WON’T, an’ IT DON’T. IT HASN’T, IT ISN’T, IT EVEN AIN’T, an’ IT SHOULDN’T…). For another, Frank was way too fond of the multivalent (not to say malevolent) possibilities lurking in almost every aspect of reality to tie himself to a single interpretation, and neither should we. And to be preposterously pedantic about it, an apostrophe does not in fact “denote ownership”: its possessive function actually derives from a contraction of the so-called “Saxon genitive”, so the only thing an apostrophe unambiguously signals is that something has been omitted, whether or not that something implies ownership. Check it out.

But omission can have many virtues: it’s not just the minimalists who knew that less can turn out to be more. Knowing what to omit is the essence of successful editing, and the skill of editing is what lies at the heart of Zappa’s art. His well-documented (if still shockingly intense) hatred of bootleggers was not just about ownership of his output: as he told me back in 1982, it was more about aesthetic control and maintaining the quality of what was released in his name.

So the question arises: in presenting the contents of Zappa’s cutting room floor in an album such as this, and exposing his apostrophic omissions to public view, are we doing him a service? He’d probably not be best pleased were he still around: the vault was always only ever a resorz ▶ to draw on, raw material for the pancakes of his flock ▶. But for those of us still wrestling with the staggering immensity of his output, omission is an option we are less willing to embrace: with so much that’s still delicious, we can’t bring ourselves to look away - and as with so many of his albums, the art of “Apostrophe (’)” can be glimpsed not only in what was left behind, but in what it went on to be. And both of those elements are well represented in the package you now hold in your hand.

The genesis for this particular disc was sparked by a find made during one of the Vaultmeister’s more fruitful speleological expeditions, wherein it was discovered that Frank had first started to sequence an “Apostrophe (’)” album in June 1973 - even though the idea for an album of that name seems to have been around since 1971 - and that it was quite different to the album he eventually released. So far, so normal: nothing was ever set in stone until the master tape was delivered, and things could, would and did change all the time.

But among other things, what made this different was the realization that the track now known as “Down in de dew” (first released on the “Läther” album) and the title track “Apostrophe’” were originally two parts of a single piece with the surprisingly straightforward title (for a Zappa composition) of “Energy frontier”, laid down separately on the same day in November 1972 with Jack Bruce, Jim Gordon and Tony Duran. The first part of this piece was what became “Down in de dew”, and the second part, named “Energy frontier - Bridge” (though with no indication as to what it might be the bridge to) went on to become “Apostrophe’”. These two were sequenced by Frank to make up the last part of side one of the album’s build reel, placed to follow “Cosmik debris” and “Uncle Remus” - whose last line would seem to have given “Down in de dew” its name - although by this stage the “bridge” section of “Energy frontier” had become “Skin-Head”. Confused enough yet?

But before getting into more detail about the dining and dancing delights ▶ to come, let me briefly divert the proceedings with a different species of apostrophe: Oh. My. God. (Recalling that an “apostrophe” is also “an address to an imaginary or absent person”). The deployment of a rhetorical appeal to the divine at this juncture is a cue to remind ourselves just what an astonishingly good album “Apostrophe (’)” was and still is: the most commercially successful of all Frank’s releases, not only did it eventually go gold, within the space of 11 weeks it had hit the giddy heights of #10 on the Billboard album charts. This is a year in which the running was being made with records like Eric Clapton’s “461 Ocean Boulevard”, Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run”, and Elton John’s “Caribou”. The top Billboard spot in the week that “Apostrophe (’)” appeared was in fact taken by Barbra Streisand and “The Way We Were”: so to have reached #10 with an album of material that rode roughshod over almost every contemporary social, sexual and musical norm was an extraordinary achievement.

As has been widely reported, Frank was so delighted at this that he hired a 50-piece marching band to parade up and down with signs in front of the Warner Bros. offices in Burbank, one reading “Warner Bros. you got one HELL of a team” and another saying “Anybody who can get a Frank Zappa LP even to the bottom of the Top Ten is OK in my booklet”.

Parade celebrating the success of “Apostrophe (’)”

But this unprecedented (if sadly unrepeated) success probably had little to do with the promotional skills of Warner Bros.: its unexpected journey up the charts can more reasonably be put down to an unauthorized re-edit of the first two tracks into a “novelty record” by a radio DJ in Pittsburgh that saw significant radio play in the station’s region. Never slow to spot an opportunity, Frank quickly released his own edit as a single, nimbly paired with “Cosmik debris” on the B-side.

His version of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” single actually combines segments from the first three tracks of the album, tailing off with a teasing glimpse of the aural fireworks of “St. Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast” - no doubt a stealthy attempt to draw more attention to the musical appeal of the record. In that sense it works as a compressed version of what became known as the “Yellow snow suite” - an expanded and embellished version of the released album’s first four tracks that was such a staple of the 1973-74 tours, later revived for the 1978-80 touring band (a fine version of the latter is found on “YCDTOSA Vol. 1”, replete with audience participation). It’s not hard to see why: apart from the obvious crowd-recognition factor, it’s a superb showcase both for his writing and the stupendous musical chops of the band, and features some of Zappa’s snarkiest and most surreal lyrics, all marshaled to the service of gleefully dissing the idiocies of convention, commercialism and organized religion. And this is really the core of the project as far as the lyrics are concerned, a focus that comes to bear most obviously in “Cosmik debris”.

So what we have on this disc is a snapshot of the “Apostrophe (’)” album project as it was developing in mid-1973: a first draft of the first side of the album, featuring a very different sequence and different mixes to the tracks that eventually appeared on the finished record; a complete version of the “Yellow snow suite” as it had evolved on the road and which Frank himself describes in the accompanying interview as “two songs” - even though by the time it came to the album he divided them into four tracks; a mix outtake for “Excentrifugal forz”; and a medley of other outtakes and basic tracks from the recording sessions, all of which had taken place at this point and were merely awaiting the alchemy of mixing and editing that would transmute their base material into the gold of “Apostrophe (’)”.

But as with any album, the downside of prising “Apostrophe (’)” apart to see how it hangs together is that it can begin to seem less of an album than an ad hoc assemblage - much more like, say, “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” or “Man from Utopia”. And that’s knowledge you can’t undo: any continuity that might have been divined from the placement of the tracks will forever now seem more conceptual than structural. But despite the way we may have come to perceive them, the fact is that most of the albums were put together like that. Jimmy Carl Black once told me he had no idea what form the music that eventually became “We’re Only in It for the Money”, “Ruben & The Jets” and “Uncle Meat” would actually take until the albums were released, because the material was all worked on together in the studio. Ultimately, it’s all in the edit: addition by omission.

So there we have it, a smorgasbord of alternative versions and basic tracks rescued from the shelves where the tapes go to die ▶, able at last to cast their glow of insight back down the line from later on to way back when ▶. But it’s not quite over yet. Lest it be we that become those suckers that fell right in ▶, there’s one more task to perform - an act of ownership. To make this album into something more than just a sneak peek behind the scenes - just another cheap thrill ▶ it’s your turn to participate. Make your way back to the original album and listen to it straight through, as it was meant to be heard - but with ears now primed for the crux of the biscuit ▶, the essence of the apostrophe, more finely tuned to the art of Frank’s skill: omission accomplished.

1. Cosmik debris

[Notes by Simon Prentis] Apart from six extra seconds of brass intro, the version of “Cosmik debris” on this disc is essentially the one released on the album: same mix, same instrumentation, same take. But in considering it for pole position, Frank underlines its importance to his overall theme. Religious hokum and New Age charlatans had been in his sights before, but by 1973 the rampant espousal of self-proclaimed gurus by pop-stars and other celebs was in need of serious satirical attention. It was a deficit that Frank was only too happy to fill, and he went straight for the jugular:

“He said for a nominal service charge

I could reach Nervonna t’nite”

is a line that absolutely nails the crass commercialism of a mystery man whose grasp of detail is so poor he can’t even pronounce “nirvana” correctly. The whole idea of “debris” as a descriptor for the lazy assumptions and dodgy cosmology of such spiritual snake-oil salesmen is a theme later enthusiastically revisited in the artwork for “One Size Fits All”, and explored further in “The adventures of Greggery Peccary” ▲.

The mystery man came over

An’ he said: “I’m outasite”

He said for a nominal service charge

I could reach Nervonna t’nite

If I was ready, willing an’ able ▶

To pay him his regular fee

He would drop all the rest of his pressing affairs

And devote his attention to me

But I said:

“Look here, brother, who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?

Now, who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?

Look here, brother, don’t you waste your time on me”

The mystery man got nervous

An’ he fidget around a bit

He reached in the pocket of his mystery robe

An’ he whipped out a shaving kit

Now, I thought it was a razor

An’ a can of foamin’ goo

But he told me right then when the top popped open

There was nothin’ his box won’t do

With the oil of Afro Dytee

An’ the dust of the Grand Wazoo ▶

He said: “You might not believe this, little fella, but it’ll cure your asthma too!”

An’ I said:

“Look here, brother, who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?

Now, what kind of a geroo are you anyway?

Look here, brother, don’t you waste your time on me

Don’t waste yer time…”

[Instrumental]

“I’ve got troubles of my own” I said

“An’ you can’t help me out

So take your meditations an’ your preparations

An’ ram it up yer snout”

“BUT I GOT A KRISTL BOLE!”

He said, an’ held it to the light

So I snatched it all away from him

An’ I showed him how to do it right

I wrapped a newspaper ‘round my head

So I’d look like I was Deep

I said some mumbo jumbos then

An’ told him he was goin’ to sleep

I robbed his rings an’ pocket watch

An’ everything else I found

I had that sucker hypnotized

He couldn’t even make a sound

I proceeded to tell him his future then

As long as he was hanging around

I said: “The price of meat has just gone up

An’ yer ol’ lady has just gone down…”

Look here, brother, who you jivin’ with that cosmik debris?

(Now, is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho? ▶)

Don’t you know? You could make more money as a butcher

So don’t you waste your time on me

Don’t waste it, don’t waste your time on me

Ohm shanti, ohm shanti, ohm shanti-ohm

SSSHANTI

2. Uncle Remus [Mix outtake]

[Notes by Simon Prentis] Next up is “Uncle Remus”. Juxtaposed in this way, the lush funk of the piano places it in sharp contrast to the smart-ass cynicism of “Cosmik debris”, which strikes down its target in such uncompromising and unanswerable terms. The version unveiled here is an alternate mix from the session at Paramount Studios on May 24,1972, which took place toward the end of the “Grand Wazoo” recordings. The backing singers Tina Turner and the Ikettes, lest we forget - are mixed more to the fore, and George gets an extra chorus to showcase the pathos in his piano work (so ably abetted by the wistful tone of Frank’s guitar), adding 75 seconds to the album edit. Interestingly, this session was not originally intended for release on an FZ album. Let George Duke take up the story, from an unreleased interview in 1997 with Andy Hollinden (whom I hereby thank):

“Uncle Remus” came about as a result of Frank producing a demo for me… I already had a record deal with a label called MPS Records in Germany but their distribution here in the States was not very good. So he was going to do a demo for me. We did three songs and “Uncle Remus” was one of them. Frank decided, after we recorded it - I didn’t get a deal out of it, by the way - but, basically, he said: “I think I’d like to use this track on my album and I’m going to write some lyrics to it”. And so I said: “Hey Frank, you paid for it. Go ahead”. I would never have written a lyric like that. I really wouldn’t have, but Frank saw the humor in it. He just decided for some reason to put it on his record. A lot of people like that song. I was very happy and honored by the fact that he’d even consider doing it, because I didn’t think it’d be the kind of song that he’d be interested in.

Which just goes to show ▶, you can’t tell: Anything anytime anyplace - for no reason at all. At the same time, it’s not hard to see what might have drawn Frank to it: this is a song that brims with humor and compassion in equal measure, asking how much progress has really been made with civil rights since the Watts riots (the subject of “Trouble every day” ▲) if all it amounts to is the freedom to “look sharp in these clothes” and the aspiration to grow out a ‘fro. It’s a question that still resonates in the US today: if you’re liable to get squirted with a hose if you step out of line, hard work isn’t going to buy redemption when the playing field is tilted against you by rich (white) people with little jockeys on their lawn (Stunning to note: the entrance to Zappa’s studio was once guarded by just such a jockey - over-painted with a stylish Z - whose battered features suggested he’d already been knocked off someone’s lawn).

[FZ & Susan Glover] Woh, are we movin’ too slow?

Have you seen us, Uncle Remus?

[FZ] We look pretty sharp in these clothes

(Yes we do)

Unless we get sprayed with a hose

It ain’t bad in the day

If they squirt it your way

‘Cept in the winter, when it’s froze

An’ it’s hard if it hits on yer nose

[Susan Glover] On yer nose

[FZ] Just keep yer nose (Keep yer nose) to the grindstone, they say

Will that redeem us (Will redeem us), Uncle Remus? (Uncle Remus)

I can’t wait till my fro is full-grown

I’ll just throw ‘way my doo-rag at home

[Susan Glover] What was that?

[FZ] I’ll go to Beverly Hills, just before dawn

An’ knock those little jockeys off the rich people’s lawn

An’ before they get up I’ll be gone, I’ll be gone

Just keep yer nose to the grindstone, they say

Will that redeem us, Uncle Remus?

I can’t wait till my fro is full-grown

I’ll just throw ‘way my doo-rag at home

I’ll take a drive to Beverly Hills, just before dawn

An’ knock the little jockeys off the rich people’s lawn

An’ before they get up I’ll be gone, I’ll be gone

Before they get up I’ll be gone, I’ll be gone

Before they get up I’ll be knocking the jockeys off the lawn

Down in the dew

3. Down in de dew [Alternate mix]

[Notes by Simon Prentis] The third track is “Down in de dew”, which, as already noted ▲, appears to have been conceived as part of a larger work. This version is both a different mix and, at 20 seconds longer, a very different edit to the version eventually released on “Läther”. What’s interesting is just how different it is to the two other outtakes that Joe has found (tracks 8 and 9).

[Instrumental]

4. Apostrophe’ [Mix outtake]

[Instrumental]

5. The story of “Don’t eat the yellow snow / St. Alphonzo’s pancake breakfast”

[Notes by Simon Prentis] Track 5 is a brief spoken interlude in which Frank outlines the story of the “Yellow snow suite” to an Australian journalist, during which he also reveals the inspiration for “St. Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast” - a TV commercial for Imperial Margarine that was so “loathsome” he felt compelled to memorialize it in song. It’s a telling example of his penchant for placing found material center stage in some of his most apparently absurd inventions: if you’re looking for insanity, there’s nothing better than reality itself. It remains unclear whether or which St. Alfonzo actually is or was the patron saint of the smelt fisherman of Portuguese extraction, but the Columbia River delta is without doubt a popular location for the entrapment of smelt (otherwise known as candlefish, hooligan, or the Pacific eulachon. But then you probably knew that).

[Interviewer] Is it likely that you’ll be doing any more comedy routine stuff as…

[FZ] Well, we have one thing that you might qualify as a comedy routine that’s built into the show right now. It’s a new piece that hasn’t been released yet.

It’s a combination of two songs. One of them is called “Don’t eat the yellow snow”. It’s about an Eskimo and his seal and an evil fur trapper. And that… And then the evil fur trapper uh… has something terrible happen to him and then he has to get repaired, and in order to get repaired he seeks out uh… well, he has to trudge across the tundra so that he can get to St. Alfonzo’s parish at the juncture of the Columbia River delta. And he has to seek out the representative of St. Alfonzo, who is the patron saint of the smelt fishermen of Portuguese extraction.

And… he has to find St. Alfonzo’s only authorized representative here on Earth, Father Vivian O’Blivion, man of the cloth.

DUNT-DUN-DUN! ▶

[Interviewer] He he

[FZ] And then uh… The two songs are “Don’t eat the yellow snow” and “St. Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast”.

[FZ] I watch television every once in a while and… some things that I’ve seen on television have enthused me to the point of writing songs about them. “St. Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast” has some… is derived from a television commercial in the United States.

I’ll tell you about it.

There’s a margarine in the United States called Imperial Margarine, and they have this commercial that is in such a bad taste it makes you wanna die every time it comes on.

There’s a young black gentleman sitting in a bed, and he’s just woken up, and he’s got his covers up like this. And then his young girlfriend comes trudging into the room; she’s carrying a tray. She walks in, and he goes: “Oh boy! Pancakes and butter!” And she says: “Good morning, your highness! No, it’s not butter!” And as soon as she says “Your highness” this crown appears on his head. It goes “Ding!” Like that, he he he! And he takes a big mouthful of these pancakes and starts shoveling it in and goes: “Mmm mmm… This really tastes better than butter” you know. God, it’s horrible! It’s just…

We used to see that two or three times a night watching science fiction movies and that would come on and I would just roll all over the couch, you know. Just loathsome.

So it turned into a song.

6. Don’t eat the yellow snow {+ Nanook rubs it} + St. Alphonzo’s pancake breakfast {+ Rollo + Father O’Blivion + Mar-juh-rene + Steno pool}

[Notes by Simon Prentis] The recording of the “Yellow snow suite” that forms the heart of the disc on track 6 is a performance from the day before the recording released as “Australian snow” on “One Shot Deal”. That was an edit of the full version featured here (it omits the Sal Marquez vocal on “Father O’Blivion”) but this is the one in which FZ first comes up with the idea of a hyphen standing for “something that might be used for erotic gratification by a very desperate stenographer” (a formulation that pleased him so much he repeated it the following day).

This suggests - in case we hadn’t guessed it - that his daily association of words that spell out the letters MAR-JUH-RENE was ad-libbed on the spot. Those of you who already appreciate his bravura performance on “Australian snow” (noteworthy items being M for marsupial, H for homunculus ▶ and R for rebus) will be further thrilled by A for Australopithecus (how many people even know that what that is, let alone can pronounce it properly?) H for horny in America and randy in Australia (he’d clearly been doing his research) and E for the “extended, overwhelming, obnoxious, ubiquitous, comestible” E to the nth degree (followed by “an N which is the N of the nth degree of the E that you just heard”).

Where did he get this stuff from? What didn’t he know? Pole-vaulting seamlessly from paleoanthropology to pure mathematics by way of semi-semiotic argot - all this over a deliberately rong spelling of a stick of margarine that some deranged fur trapper was using to heal his deflicted eyes? It’s too good, as Cap’n Beefheart was wont to say.

And then the very next day, after some idiot looses off a firecracker in the audience (this after the fire at Montreux… seriously?) he unhesitatingly retorts with: “The ‘M’ of the mystery mar-juh-rene must stand for moron, which is the kind of person who lights fireworks in a crowded room, and the ‘A’ of mar-juh-rene stands for asshole, as if moron was not a good enough word to describe the motherfucker and ‘R’ in this case stands for rat, which is also what that guy is for lighting fireworks in this room and there is a hyphen, ladies and gentlemen, ‘M-A-R-hyphen’ the hyphen should be stuffed up his ass, ‘M-A-R-hyphen-J’ and ‘J’ is for juvenile hall, which is where they would send him if they caught him in Los Angeles and ‘U’ is for Unguentine, which is a remedy for burns which might be used for a potential victim of his stupidity over there, folks…” Unguentine? But yes indeed: of course it is.

Nor is it just the lyrical invention. The brief flourish from the band at the start of this version of the “Yellow snow suite” is notable for two ridiculously compressed renditions of the “the big Nanook motif” - a musical theme almost as much quoted in Zappa’s work as ♫ “Louie Louie”.

And here’s the thing. Despite its day job as a melody that meanders improbably up and down a quirky scale that seems so quintessentially Zappa (doo-DEEdoo-dahdy-doodly-dahdy-doo-dah, dee-do-da-do-DAH-dee-doo), this wholesome little ditty turns out to be none other than a sublimely depraved take on the opening line to Lionel Hampton’s ♫ “Midnight sun”, a well-known jazz-standard to those in the know. If you’re not in the know - and I wasn’t, until far too recently - I heartily suggest you check out the original. To discover the “strictly commercial” ▶ pedigree of this historic tune is perhaps the most extraordinary of the many jaw-dropping musical moments on the “Apostrophe (’)” album: managing in plain sight to smuggle a twisted version of “Midnight sun”’s classic theme into a song about the frozen north and dog-doo snow cones is both a monstrously clever counter-cultural coup and a cheeky homage of the highest order (if you ever find yourself looking for a name to blame for the vibraphone sound that is such a signature aroma in Zappa’s music, you need look no further than the legendary “Hamp”).

And speaking of ridiculous compression, another notable moment in this deliciously modulated version is the “very, very, very very fast” reprise of “St. Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast” delivered at bionic speed by a band that really had the material under its belt after two months on the road and a whole set of studio sessions. As always, Ruth’s mallet runs are exemplary in their extraordinary precision, but kudos must also go to Bruce Fowler and Sal Marquez as they push hard up against the limits of the possible. And then just as the piece closes, this fantastically tight rhythm section is spurred to newer heights by Frank’s cryptic instruction “Join the march and eat my starch!” - which triggers a dizzying 28-second virtuoso performance of the otherwise un-named composition that precedes the “steno pool” segment of “Greggery Peccary” (still doing business at that time as the front end of “Farther O’Blivion” - an early version of which can be heard on “Imaginary Diseases”).

One, two, three, four…

No, no, don’t eat it

[FZ] Dreamed I was an Eskimo

Frozen wind began to blow

Under my boots an’ around my toe

Frost had bit the ground below

And it was a hundred degrees below zero

And my momma cried

She said:

“Nanook, no, no

Save your money: don’t go to the show”

And I turned around an’ I said:

“HO HO”

An’ the northern lites commenced t’glow

An’ she said:

“WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO

AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW

WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO

AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW”

Well, right about that time, people

A fur trapper

Who was strictly from commercial

Strictly commercial

Had the unmitigated audacity to hop up from behind my igyaloo

Peek-a-boo woo-ooo-ooo

And he started in to whippin’ on my fav’rite baby seal

With a lead-filled snow shoe…

I said:

“With a lead…

Lead…

With a lead-filled…

Lead-filled…

With a lead-filled snow shoe…”

Snow shoe

He said: “Peak-a-boo”

Peek-a-boo

“With a lead…

Lead…

Filled…

Lead-filled…

With a lead-filled snow shoe…”

Snow shoe

He said: “Peak-a-boo”

Peek-a-boo

He said: “Peak-a-boo”

Peek-a-boo

On my favorite baby seal

With a lead-filled snow shoe…

And he said: “Peak-a-boo” to the baby seal

With a lead-filled snow shoe…

An’ he hit him on the head an’ he hit him on the fin

An’ he hit him on the nose an’ he hit him on the eye with a snow shoe

An’ he said: “Peak-a-boo”

You know, that got me just about as evil as ▶ an Eskimo boy can be…

So I reached down with my special patented Nanook of the North whale blubber mitten

An’ I reached down an’ I scooped up a generous hand full… a mitten full of the deadly…

Yellow snow

The deadly yellow snow from right there where the huskies go

And then I pounced

And I pounced again

And I pounced

And I jumped up an’ down on the chest of the…

I got vicious with the fur trapper

And I took my mitten full of deadly yellow snow flakes and I started rubbing it all into his beady little eyes with a vigorous circular motion destined to supplant the mud shark ▶ in Sydney mythology, hey!

Until finally this…

Finally… (Oh, calm yourself, ladies and gentlemen)

Finally the evil fur trapper succumbed to the… deadly yellow crystals

And he said:

“I can’t see”

I can’t see, temporarily

“I can’t see”

I can’t see, temporarily

“Oh woe is me”

I… I can’t see, temporarily

“What if there’s something good on TV?”

I… I can’t see, temporarily

“And I can’t see, temporarily”

I…

“He took a dog-doo snow cone an’ stuck it in my right eye

He took a dog-doo snow cone an’ stuffed it in my other eye

An’ the huskie wee-wee, I mean, the doggie wee-wee has blinded me

Temporarily

An’ goddamn I can’t see”

Well the fur trapper was in a terrible condition

He couldn’t see where he was going or nothing

But it serves him right for pummeling the baby seal

However he wanted to see “War of the Worlds”

No, no, “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” on television that night

Wouldn’t miss it for the world

But he couldn’t see it

And so he had to do something to fix himself up

So he remembered an ancient legend of the North

You don’t know where that is, folks

But an ancient legend of the North Land

That says if anything bad happens to your eyes

From an Eskimo

You have to trudge across the tundra…

All the way from the Arctic Circle

Down to the Columbia River delta

And seek out

The parish of Saint Alfonzo

Patron saint of the smelt fishermen of Portuguese extraction

And his only living representative here on Earth, folks

Father Vivian O’Blivion, man of the cloth

DUNT-DUN-DUN! ▶

So the evil fur trapper starts

Trudgin’ across the tun-duh-ra

An’ he goes trudgin’ across the tun-duh-ra

Mile after mile

Winding and whistling and dwindling his way

Slowly but assuredly, yes, yes, folks

Down to Saint Alfonzo’s parish and here’s what happened…

Yes, here we are!

At Saint Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast

Where I stole the mar-juh-rene

An’ widdled on the bingo cards in lieu of the latrine

I saw a handsome parish lady

Make her entrance like a queen

Why, she was totally chenille and her old man was a Marine

As she abused a sausage pattie

And said: “Why don’t you treat me mean?”

(Hurt me) Hurt me (Hurt me) Hurt me (Hurt me, oooooh!)

At Saint Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast

Good God! What you say?

Where I stole the mar-juh-rene…

[Instrumental]

Saint Alfonzo

Ooo-ooo-WAH

Ah, Father Vivian O’Blivion

Resplendent in his frock

Was whipping up the batter

For the pancakes of his flock

He was looking rather bleary

(He forgot to watch the clock)

The night before

Behind the door

A leprechaun had stroked his smock

Set him off in such a frenzy

He sang ✄ “Lock around the crock”

An’ he topped it off with a…

WOO WOO WOO

As he stumbled on his cock

He was delighted as it stiffened

Yeah, it ripped right through his sock

“Oh, Saint Alfonzo would be proud of me

Proud of me”

He shouted down the block

Dominus vo-bisque’em ▶

Et cum spear a tu-tu, oh

Won’t you eat my sleazy pancakes

Just for Saintly Alfonzo?

They’re so light an’ fluffy-white

We’ll raise a fortune by tonite

They’re so light an’ fluffy-white

We’ll raise a fortune by tonite

They’re so light an’ fluffy-brown

They’re the finest in the town

They’re so light an’ fluffy-brown

They’re the finest in the town

Good morning, Your Highness ▶

Ooo-ooo-ooo

I brought you your snow shoes ▶

Ooo-ooo-ooo

Good morning, Your Highness

Ooo-ooo-ooo

I brought you your snow shoes

Very, very, very very fast

At Saint Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast

Where I stole the mar-juh-rene

An’ widdled on the bingo cards in lieu of the latrine

I saw a handsome parish lady

Make her entrance like a queen

Why, she was totally chenille and her old man was a Marine

As she abused a sausage pattie

And said: “Why don’t you treat me mean?”

Hurt me, hurt me, hurt me, oooooh!

At Saint Alfonzo’s pancake breakfast

Ha!

Good God! Feet on fire!

Where I stole…

Oh, Lord, where I stole…

Where I, where I, where I…

Where I stole the mar-juh-rene

Here’s what I did

I finally made my way into the pantry where they keep the stuff

(You have to imagine that I’m the fur trapper, you understand, boys and girls)

And I went in there and I found the box with the mar-juh-rene

And I fumbled around for it

And I could tell because it said Imperial on the package

You don’t know about that, but…

Raised lettering and aluminum covered cardboard package

And I fondled the little crown on the packet

And I said: “This must be the stuff” and I reached in there and I…

Pulled out a… pulled out a chunk of it

Rubbed a little on my right eye

And I said, mmmm… “M”…

“M” is for the mystery and the majesty of the mar-juh-rene

And “A” is for Australopithecus

Which might have lived around here at one time or another

And “R”…

“R” is for RATS, which is what lives in New York

And then there’s a hyphen

Which is something that might be used for erotic gratification

By a very desperate stenographer

And then there’s a “J”

Lord, Lord, there is a “J”

There’s “M-A-R” and a hyphen and a “J”

And that “J” stands for jubilation

Juba juba juba

‘Cause we need a little bit of that every day

“M-A-R-hyphen-J” a “U”

And of course the “U” always stands for you

Each and everyone of YOU out there

Because if you weren’t there

This place would be uninhabited which also starts with a “U”

And then we have an “H”

“M-A-R-hyphen-J-U-H”

“H” is for horny in America, randy in Australia

And then another hyphen

This second hyphen could be used…

What could the second hyphen be used for?

Lisa knows what to do with the second hyphen

He he

She would hold the second hyphen with a pair of tweezers

And administer acupuncture to some vital organ

And eventually acupuncture will be big down here

But not yet

And then after the second hyphen there’s another “R”

There’s an “R” that stands for…

Raymond!

Raymond? Yes, it stands for Raymond

Happy birthday, Raymond

Raymond is our door prize tonight

He wins a napkin

And then there’s an “E”

There’s a big long, gigantic, long, extended, overwhelming

Obnoxious, ubiquitous, comestible “E”

It’s an “E” to the n-th degree

And then there’s an “N” which is the “N” of the n-th degree of the “E” that you just heard

And then on the end of the mar-juh-rene

It’s a tiny weeny dwindling off

Superficial, phlegmatic uh…

It’s… (You wanna hear cosmic)

It’s a cosmic “E”

It’s a teeny weeny “E” on the end of the mar-juh-rene

And boy, you know, as soon as I had spelled mar-juh-rene

And I took the stuff and rubbed it on my other eye

I felt better right away

I was healed

Miraculous healing from the mar-juh-rene

[Instrumental]

I, I stole the mar-juh-rene

Well I admit it, I did it

I, I stole the mar-juh-rene

I admit it, I did it

As soon as I had repaired my eyesight and had ac— actually succeeded in watching that great, heavy, cosmic, thrilling movie “The Day the World Caught Fire” on television last night

I immediately set about

To thank the guy who had made it all possible, none other than Father Vivian O’Blivion, and I looked around the parish and I found him, he was off to the side, and here’s what he was doing:

Father Vivian O’Blivion

Was resplendent in his frock

He was whipping up the batter

For the pancakes of his flock

He was looking rather bleary

(He forgot to watch the clock)

Because the night before

Behind the door

A leprechaun had stroked his smock

And that set him off in such a frenzy

He sang ✄ “Lock around the crock”

An’ he topped it off with a woo-woo-woo

An’ he topped it off with a woo-woo

As he stumbled on his cock

He was delighted as it stiffened

And it ripped right through his sock

“Oh, Saint Alfonzo would be proud of me”

He shouted down the block

Now as soon as he shouted that, a whole bunch of people came over and they started looking at this pink thing sticking out the bottom of his discrete black stocking

And they all gathered around and they started checking him out

He lifted up his pants leg a little bit like this, he was going… hey, boys and girls

And then, to calm them, because that… that got them into a frenzy, to calm them down he gave them a special secret gesture that he picked up in an extension course at Divinity School

Gave ‘em one of these

Couple of those

Half a dozen Dominus Vobiscums

And that was it

They relaxed

And then he turned to them in a… pseudo-biblical accent he said:

(Bring the band on down behind me, boys)

“Join the march and eat my starch!”

[Instrumental]

7. Excentrifugal forz [Mix outtake]

[Notes by Simon Prentis] Meanwhile, after the excoriation of religious and pseudo-relijermus chicanery in “Cosmik debris” and the “Yellow snow suite”, “Excentrifugal forz” arrives almost as light relief, though it can also be read as an autobiographical vignette tracking something of Frank’s personal cosmology. The version here is a mix outtake that’s no more than a hairbreadth from the final edit; but it’s still worth the price of entry. If the title sounds like a collision between “centrifugal force” and “eccentric”, it’s a phrase that fits: as well as meaning someone who is strange or unusual, “eccentric” also literally means “off-center”; and a standard definition of centrifugal force is: “A force that causes an object moving in a circular path to move out and away from the center of its path”. However appropriate it may be to conceive of Frank’s path as circular (given his belief that time is a spherical constant) his trajectory certainly took him far away from the center, and happily so:

“I’m never really lonely in my excentrifugal forz”.

The lyrics continue in the dreamlike vein of the “Yellow snow suite” sequence with all its apparent non-sequiturs and abrupt changes, but the vortex of images still bears down on classic Zappa themes: the masturbation parallel with “Father O’Blivion”’s pancakes may be overcooked, but from within the portholes of the capsule (shades of Studio Z’s spaceship ▲ and “The blue light”? ▲) it’s cheapness all the way down as he casts a cold eye on sports and assesses the microbiological implications of jamming with Korla Plankton and his bejeweled turban (a reference to the genuinely fake Korla Pandit, a cheezy staple of monocultural 1950’s television exotica). And if we really let our speculation run wild, we can perhaps even see that Pup Tentacle and the enquiry about his chin resonate both with the monster in “Cheepnis” ▲ and the teen-age dilemma in “Tryin’ to grow a chin” ▲.

The presence of John Guerin on drums has led some to conclude that the basic tracks were laid down as part of the “Hot Rats” sessions in 1969, but the Vaultmeister has been able to confirm that this was also recorded at Paramount Studios in July 1972, with Guerin making a rare comeback for a jam session. Only his drum track survives into the final version; Frank’s driving overdubbed bass and George Duke’s spooky evocations of Korla Pandit were added later.

[FZ] The clouds are really cheap

The way I seen ‘em thru the ports

Of which there is a half-a-dozen

On the base of my resorz

You wouldn’t think I’d have too many

Since I never cared for sports

But I’m never really lonely

In my excentrifugal forz

There’s always Korla Plankton

Him an’ me can play the blues

An’ then I’ll watch him buff

That tiny ruby that he use

He’ll straighten up his turban

An’ eject a little ooze

Along a one-celled Hammond organism

Underneath my shoes

An’ then I’ll call Pup Tentacle

I’ll ask him how’s his chin

I’ll find out how the future is

Because that’s where he’s been

His little feet got long an’ flexible

An’ suckers fell right in

The time he crossed the line

From “later on” to “way back when”

8. Energy frontier {Down in de dew} [Take 4]

[Notes by Simon Prentis] The remaining tracks are outtakes and offcuts from the actual recording sessions at Ike Turner’s Bolic Sound studio at the end of May 1973: tantalizingly brief excerpts from the basic tracks used in the construction of “Cosmik debris”, “Don’t eat the yellow snow” and “Nanook rubs it”. It’s fascinating to see the process of assembly taking place as if before your very ears, with Frank’s weary voice at the end of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” excerpt hinting at all the unseen work and very human graft that went into producing these fabulous recordings. (Note to ZFT: much more of this, please - this be the stuff that gets us the hottest…)

These are essentially the original studio recordings (though track 9 has some overdubs) and apart from showing that the basic structure of the track was already quite clear, the significant discovery is not so much that Jack Bruce was part of the session, but just how thoroughly his contribution has been erased: as released, “Down in de dew” features Frank alone on guitars and bass, and Jim Gordon on drums.

[Engineer] Rolling on four

[Instrumental]

9. Energy frontier {Down in de dew} [Take 6 with overdubs]

[Engineer] Six

[Instrumental]

10. Energy frontier (Bridge) {Apostrophe’}

[Notes by Simon Prentis] Now for the “bridge”, which again has a clear underlying structure despite ending its days as a bridge to nowhere on the second side of the album. Full disclosure at this point: I should confess that I never liked this track from the get-go. Frank himself complained that Bruce was too “busy”, and to my ear that’s exactly the problem - he needed space to move around and swoop in, and Bruce is playing without extending the room that Alex Dmochowski afforded him earlier that year on “Big Swifty”, for example. Whether or not this is because he’s ignoring the bass’s root functions - as Frank later claimed - he definitely seems to have had other things on his mind.

To that extent it’s interesting to hear this back to back with the other outtake (track 10), where Frank is constantly feeling his way but failing to take off amid a repetitive storm of high-end bass notes. It’s also instructive to compare this track with “The ocean is the ultimate solution”, where Patrick O’Hearn’s equally densely-woven bass platform allows Frank to fly effortlessly to the far end of the universe. But as a fan of Cream, Frank perhaps felt the jam was still interesting enough to make the cut, even when the cut reduced it from eight minutes to five. He may even have had one eye on attracting the ear of other Cream fans. It still doesn’t do it for me, though.

[Instrumental]

11. Cosmik debris [Basic tracks - Take 3]

[Engineer] Rolling

[Instrumental]

12. Don’t eat the yellow snow [Basic tracks - Alternate take]

[FZ] Dreamed I was an Eskimo

Frozen wind began to blow

Under my boots an’ around my toe

Frost had bit the ground below

Was a hundred degrees below zero

And my momma cried:

“Nanook, no, no”

And my momma cried:

“Nanook, no, no

Save your money: don’t go to the show”

Well, I turned around an’ I said:

“HO HO”

Well, I turned around an’ I said:

“HO HO”

And the northern lites commenced to glow

An’ my momma looked at me

An’ she said:

“WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO

AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT…”

All right. Punch for the second set of fast ones.

13. Nanook rubs it [Basic tracks - Outtake]

[FZ] Now, right about that time, people

A fur trapper

Who was strictly commercial

Had the audacity to jump up behind my igyaloo

14. Nanook rubs it [Session outtake]

[FZ] Some of you might know

Saint Alfonzo is the patron saint of the smelt fishermen

S-M-E-L-T fishermen of Portuguese extraction

And his parish is located in the area of the Columbia River delta

Wherein it is really funky

Now the fur trapper has to make it down there

And bust into the pantry

And locate a mysterious elixir

Disguised as a box of mar-juh-rene

He’s got to break into the pantry

Whip out a stick of it

Rub a little bit on either of his deflected eyes

Thereby affecting some sort of miraculous cure

Stay tuned for the second part of our adventure

Wherein the fur trapper gets it all together

Hoopla!

15. Frank’s last words…

[FZ] OK. I think we got it.

Ha ha ha ha

Ha ha ha. Stop the tape.

Photo by Emerson-Loew

English lyrics from site Information Is Not Knowledge.