Frank Zappa - The Mothers Of Invention - Absolutely Free
The second release by The Mothers of Invention, Absolutely Free, is another concept album of sorts (actually, it's like two mini-rock operas. One on each side of the album), though a bit harder to decipher than its predecesor, Freak Out!. Musical styles shift and change without rhyme or reason, it seems, and many of the lyrics are very avant garde/absurdist. The shifting musical styles usually coincides with the lyrics, however, creating musical signposts in a way.
The first half of the album is a series of songs that all run into one another, and deal lyrically mostly with vegetables (specifically cabbage and pumpkins, though also prunes, which, while not vegetables, they are "fruit, but cabbage is a vegetable and that makes it Ok."), and "plastic people". At first listen, it seems to be nonsense lyrics, but upon further inspection, it becomes clear that the whole side is another statement on conformity and commercialism. "Plastic people" are very square, and do mundane things like dolling themselves up with chemicals on their face and hair, and pretending to care about issues, while only doing it for fashion ("I hear the sound of marching feet down Sunset Blvd to Crescent Heights, and there at Pandora's Box, we are faced with a vast quantity of Plastic People.") The narrator even warns, "you think we're talking about someone else, but you're plastic people." The vegetables are similar to the plastic people, except they are conformers who remain static, at home even (like a "vegetable".) The listener is encouraged to "call any vegetable, call it by name, and the chances are good, the vegetable will respond to you."
Amidst all this veiled commentary is some fantastic music that ranges from free-form jazz fusion to musical allusions to Romantic composers (such as Stravinsky), and even some popular songs find themselves represented here ("The Duke of Earl" becomes the Duke of Prunes, a "very sick" President of the United States sings an off kilter version of "Louie Louie" with his wife. "Louie Louie" for whatever reason would become a common theme in Zappa's music over the years.) The shifting of styles is not as clean and clear as on Freak Out!, where it is mostly in a song to song pace, here, any given song could change styles several times with almost no warning. This all sounds very odd today, but must have sounded like musical insanity in the 1960's.
The second half of the album is a broader look at society in general and the silly limitations and classifications we put on ourselves. "Status Back Baby" is a song about social classes in school situations, and it makes a wonderful mockery of it. "I'm losing status at the high school. I used to think it was my school! I was the king of every school activity, but that's no more, oh, what will become of me?" Suzy Creamcheese makes her second appearance as a character on this side with "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" which is not a song about her offspring, but simply the second time a reference to her had happened in Zappa's work. He had a tendency to name re-thought ideas and songs in his works the way horror movies in the '50's would their sequels. (Think "Return of the Son of the Monster Magnet" from Freak Out!)
The strongest song on the whole album is the second last song on side two, "Brown Shoes Don't Make It". It's been described as "a condensed two hour rock opera". It tells (through a very dense and shifty musical medium) the story of a local politician who blows off going to a public event with his wife to have an affair with a young girl. The title "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" is a reference to a news article run by Time magazine. They reported that President Lyndon B. Johnson made the fashion faux pas of wearing brown shoes with a gray suit on a visit to Vietnam on a surprise public relations visit.
The album closes with the song "America Drinks and Goes Home" which has a lounge club feel, complete with crowd noises and glasses clinking over top. It's a tip of the hat to the years the Mothers spent playing in night clubs before getting signed to a label. In the final moments of the album, Frank calls out to the "audience" "hope we got all your requests, see you next time, last call for alcohol!"
Absolutely Free - 8 out of 10
I haven't found any good videos of The Mothers performing the music from this album on the net (if you come across any, point me their way!), but here is Zappa's son, Dweezil, on the Zappa Plays Zappa Tour, performing "Call Any Vegetable".
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