Does Humour Belong in Music?

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a couple of posts on music for a while now, considering I have some vague knowledge on the subject (well, on the stuff that I listen to, at any rate). At the risk of sounding pretentious and highly knowledgeable (which I’m not) and highly boring (which I can be at times), I’ve decided to go ahead. This is partly also because I have nothing else worth writing about.

I’ll focus on a particular style of music that I listen to quite often - when I’m not flying high in progressive rock heaven, that is. It’s satire, or parody or whatever else you want to call it. I’ve always loved a good laugh, and I’ve been fascinated with funny songs. I’m sure everyone’s heard a funny song or two in their lives, but I thought I’d write, rather randomly, about a few artists who have, in their own inimitable style, made an art out of these ‘funny songs’, and whose music I’m an ardent fan of.

The first and probably the most prolific of the lot is Frank Zappa.

It is not only Frank Zappa's absurd sense of humour that has made him a revered rock legend. He was also one of rock's very best guitarists and composers, drawing from a deep understanding of classical music, as well as 50's rock and 70's pop. His work covered a wide range of styles (notably the genres of avant-garde, rock, jazz fusion and contemporary classical), and was often noted for its blending of high art, rock opera, absurdity, scatological humour, and for its hilariously repellent and satirical edge.

Zappa became interested in music early in his life, joining a local band while attending college in California. In a few years, this band became the Mothers (later renamed the Mothers of Invention – out of pressure from producers or some such thing), and Zappa became its main songwriter. In 1966 the Mothers released their first album, 'Freak Out', introducing to the world Zappa's satirical wit and musical skills. After three subsequent albums, Zappa had developed his own sophisticated approach to composition, combining satirical or absurd lyrics with pop melodies, and mixing them with long jazzy improvisational segments and sound collages.

In the 60's, when Zappa owned a small studio, a customer asked him to produce a 'suggestive' recording for a stag party. Mostly as a joke, Zappa recruited some friends, and together they faked sounds of people having sex for the 'erotic' recording. The customer turned out to be an undercover Vice Squad member, and Zappa was thrown in jail for ten days for supplying pornography. Ever since, he was a constant rebel against authority and especially music censorship.

After the Mothers broke up in 1969, Zappa continued to devote his life to music, releasing a number of albums. In 1971, Zappa suffered two major setbacks. First, a fan's use of pyrotechnics at a concert burned down the venue, destroying all of the band's equipment (this incident was immortalised in Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’). At a subsequent concert, an audience member pushed Zappa from the stage, injuring him so seriously that he was confined to a wheelchair for nearly a year. Despite his injuries, Zappa continued to record at a rapid rate, releasing two more albums. In the 80's, Zappa became somewhat involved in politics, even testifying in the US Senate against music censorship (more on this later). In the early 90's,

Zappa was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and died on December 4th, 1993.

There’s probably enough and more websites on Zappa, so I won’t go on about it. If you’re interested, check out the dedicated Wikipedia website, and the official Zappa website. This is where I got most of my info from anyway. What I will do, though, is list out a few interesting facts about the man that will hopefully exemplify his eccentricity and brilliance.

• Contrary to popular belief, Zappa’s absurd humour and compositions were not a result of drug abuse. He was probably one of the few rock stars of this time that didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke weed, and didn’t drink alcohol. The only things he was known to abuse were coffee and cigarettes. He once said “Don’t do speed, It’ll turn you into your parents”. He also said his favourite beverage was coffee and his favourite vegetable was tobacco.
  His humour is distinctly absurd and quite repulsive to most. You don’t even have to listen to listen to the song to know that – just looking at the title is enough. Some of my favourites include – Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow, The Idiot Bastard Son, Broken Hearts are for Assholes, Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?, Illinois Enema Bandit, Carlos Santana’s Secret Chord Progression etc. Though the songs did have absurd titles and lyrics, the music was very complex, and his band always consisted of extremely technically accomplished musicians.
• Zappa was one of the most vocal opponents of the PMRC - essentially, the bunch of women led my Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore) responsible for bringing about the labelling of records and CDs containing ‘explicit lyrics or content’. (Other notable opponents of the PMRC included John Denver, Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), and later Megadeth and Rage Against the Machine). In a Senate hearing on the issue, Zappa said that the PMRC’s demands to label records violated the First Amendment rights, and he likened it to treating dandruff by decapitation. He later memorialized the encounter in the album ''Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention,'' which included the song ''Porn Wars'' using sound bites from the hearing. The album cover also featured a bitingly sarcastic parody of the warning label. Incidentally, Al Gore admitted to being a fan of Zappa’s music.
• A surprising number of things have been named after Frank Zappa, including two asteroids (3834 Zappafrank, and 16745 Zappa), the ZapA gene of a microbe that causes infections of the urinary tract, a goby fish (Zappa confluentus), a jellyfish (Phialella zappa), an extinct mollusc (Amauratoma zappa), and a spider (Pachygnatha zappa) with an abdominal mark supposedly resembling Zappa's famous moustache. In 1995, a series of Intel PC motherboards were named after him.
• Zappa had 4 children with his second wife, Gail. Their names demonstrate Zappa’s devotion to eccentricity. The names are - Moon Unit Zappa (there was a reference to this in one of the Austin Powers movies), Dweezil Zappa (born Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa, (the names of his band members at the time) because the hospital refused to put Dweezil on the birth certificate; Dweezil later legally changed his name to Dweezil. Incidentally, Dweezil is also the name given to one of Gail’s toes), Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen Zappa. During a talk show with Jay Leno, Zappa was asked why he had given his children such unusual names. Zappa answered, in a casual tone of voice, "Because I wanted to!". He once said in an interview that if their names ever gave them problems, it would be because of the last name (Zappa means ‘hoe’ in Italian).

Well, that’s all I have to say about that. Rather long post already. Obviously, you must have gathered at the start that there’ll be similar posts to follow. Hopefully, it makes for interesting reading. I’ll wind up by saying that if you haven’t heard any of Zappa’s music, remedy this situation at once. A good place to start would be with the compilations ‘Strictly Commercial’, ‘Have I Offended Someone?’ and ‘Does Humour Belong in Music’.