Frank Zappa’s Album “Uncle Meat” (1969):

Serious Art Music Hidden And Exposed In

The Nonsensical.

Helena Van Hoolst

Master 2 Classical Guitar

Module 4: Frank Zappa Scccccccrrrrrrrutinized

Yves Senden

academiejaar 2019-2020
Abstract

This paper revisits interpretations1 of Frank Zappa’s Uncle Meat (1968) that prove how the
nonsensicalism of the album does not cover but adds to the seriousness of Zappa’s composership
and by large how this peculiar album would be reminiscent for his later albums. The nonsensicalism
is created by postmodernist techniques of pastiche and parody, constructing a collage with divergent
genres and songs recycled from his previous albums, Zappa makes the audience feel disturbed,
alienated and intrigued at the same time. His seriousness can be understood from a neoclassical
point of view, writing in different styles but moreover his radicalized genre mixing (a feature of
postmodernism) into a large structure. The seriousness through nonsensicalism is explained on three
levels: 1. The context of Uncle Meat as the film soundtrack, 2. The overall structure of the album, 3.
Analysis of the songs: use of modernist and postmodernist techniques.

1
Most interpretations regarding the analysis of Uncle Meat were gathered from the works of scholars James Grier
and Kelley Lowe.

2
From his first album Freak Out! (1966) onwards with the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa gained
the status of an outsider and creator of freakish music that either fascinated or repelled the
audience (Grier 78).2 Moreover, Zappa cannot be categorized: he is a “rock musician who employed
the language of art music;” and at the same time he is a “practitioner of art music who played rock
(Grier 87).” His album Uncle Meat (1969) is a climax of these contradictions because Zappa collects
the style conventions from various genres of his time such as banal lyrics (referring to ‘50s and ‘60s
popular rock), high opera and nonsensical voicings, symphonic soundtracks, complex soloing of
electric guitars and saxophones, together with casual conversations between band members.. and
then juxtaposes them into larger complex structures of the album (i.e. the use of theme and
variations) (Grier 89). As a result Uncle Meat became one of the weirdest and most challenging
albums of the 60’s (Lowe 71).

Because of his radical eclecticism the nonsensical effects of some stylistic cross-overs seem to
overshadow the seriousness of Zappa as a composer and the complex structure of the album, or as
Grier remarks “disorienting aspects of the album’s fabric, alienation […], conspire to disguise the
long-range structure of the album (Grier 89).” This conspiracy is intentional as a way to mislead and
defamiliarize, next to criticize music and society and finally as a neoclassical composing praxis of
serious art music. This paper then goes to prove that the nonsensical is part of his serious music. In
any case, the nonsensical is explained and resolved on three levels: the context, the structure of the
album and the specific modernist and postmodernist techniques used in the songs of the album.

1.1 The Context: Film Soundtrack and Collages.

Zappa and the Mothers had started a film project called Uncle Meat of which the plot according to
Lowe was an “incomprehensible mixture of fifties science fiction film clichés and road stories (i.e.,
the sexual escapades of the various members of the Mothers of Invention) (Lowe 66).” Due to
money shortage and other conflicts the film was never finished, hence the subtitle on the EP of
Uncle Meat: “Most of the music from the Mother’s movie of the same name which we haven’t got
enough money to finish yet (Ibid. 66).”

Nevertheless, the recording of the soundtrack started in 1968 and became Zappa’s sixth album
which came out in April 1969 as a double album after Cruising With Ruben & The Jets (1968) and
We’re only in it for the Money (1967). Zappa considers these three albums as one conceptual whole,
as he stated:

"It's all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the
master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a

2
“Zappa clearly relished the conflicting images he projected as rock musician and knowledg- able observer or practitioner
of art music. This posture allowed him to remain an outsider in both fields (rock musician who employed the language of
art music; practitioner of art music who played rock) while capitalizing on the cultural hegemony of art music to create an
ironic distance between himself and other rock musicians, and assert the superiority of his cultural sophistication and
musicianship. Nowhere is this position made clearer than in a liner note on the cover of the Mothers' first album, Freak
Out!, where Zappa boldly declares the musical and cultural milieu in which he wished his music to be perceived (78 Grier).”
 different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that
razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I
could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related (Miles 160)."

This quote explains the obvious recycling of songs (for example certain fragments of melodies and
lyrics) from one album to another and Zappa even makes parodies of them (see further § 1.3 for
techniques of parody and pastiche) (Grier 86). Another way of recycling is the returning of fictive
characters such as Suzy Creamcheese who already had previous roles as the groupie of the band in
Cruising With Ruben And The Jets, Freak Out!, Absolutely Free (1967) or the character Uncle Meat
who appears on Cruising with Ruben and the Jets and Uncle Meat (Borders 136). Next, also true
events that have occurred, for example Don Preston playing the organ on a live recording at the
Royal Albert Hall in London, 1967, - which seems to be rather a joke – are spread in small fragments
on the album. The result is a very odd constitution of a collage (Grier 94).

This unity through collages of fragments links Zappa’s albums to one another. The creation of this
musical world together with the construction of Zappa’s persona in the media and the fictive and
factual stories of the band life, is what he called ‘conceptual continuity’ (Grier 79). What
furthermore puts together the collage are the technical procedures of overdubbing, for example
when he makes a track sound like a full orchestra and other electrical sound manipulations (Borders
158). In any case, what Lowe called studio wizardry with sped up tape players and guitar solos is also
what will be a constant in Zappa’s following albums together with long guitar and drum solos (Lowe
66).

The cover art of the album is also a collage of images. 3 They are images not very pleasing to the eye,
for example the two sets of teeth, one prominently at the center in yellow (gold?) and grey that is
pulled back by fingers. Then there are broken teeth that are crushed into food so that the
bizarreness and “shocking associations, without necessarily prescribing an interpretative program
(Grier 81-82)” that runs through the whole album is already introduced with the imagery.

Another remark of Grier is that Zappa is introduced on the record label as the producer and
conductor which is unusual for a so-called rock album (Grier 89). During the recording of the
soundtrack Uncle Meat Zappa sat non-stop composing in the sound engineer’s room that Charles
Keil also interprets as the serious act of composing or “classicizing” (quoted in: Borders 155). In fact,
the album was presented as a film soundtrack, that is a genre associated with symphonic music for
orchestra and written by serious composers. In fact, the juxtaposition of its serious form of a double
album of film music and the representation of Zappa as the conductor and producer opposite the
weird cover art and the even weirder liner notes that describe the tracks and their connection to the
film, is one example of nonsensicalism that goes together with the seriousness of its formal
presentation (Grier 84). Or to end this paragraph with a quote from Grier:

It was in the well-established context, therefore, of the rock album as a unified concept
in which Uncle Meat was produced and released. By borrowing formal procedures from
art music, and by presenting the album as serious music, Zappa widened the boundaries
of that context (Grier 81).

3
Cover art by Cal Schenkel.

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 1.2 The Structure and Analysis of the Album “Uncle Meat”

Conceptual continuity also refers to Zappa’s mix of rock and art music (Grier 81). He furthermore
introduces his own musical influences of R&B (Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Guitar Watson) and Stravinsky
and Varese, with the genres that were popular at his time (‘50s and ‘60s rock). Already the
juxtaposition of the serious “Theme” and “variations” that accompany “Dog Breath” and “King Kong”
in the track titles are absurd. Yet, the structure in theme and variations might hint at the serious
intentions of Zappa as a composer (SOURCE). Not in the least, the album is what Borders calls “the
avant-rock triumph”of Zappa (Borders 137). The various musical models used in Uncle Meat run
from rock to structures borrowed from Stravinsky’s compositions of repetition (Borders 126).
Borders reflects further on the obvious variation-rondo structure in the album and emphasizes the
album as instrumental with lyrics into the variation-rondo (Borders 137). ). The musical form of the
variation-rondo is prominent with three songs “Uncle Meat”, “Dog Breath” and “King Kong” (Ibid.).
Even though Zappa intends to have a unified whole of theme and variations he recruits different
devices to connect but at the same time distinguish them (Ibid.). Also Grier adds that the central musical focus
of the album is “the double set of variations, "Uncle Meat" in high modernist style and "King Kong" as an extended jazz
improvisation (Grier 95).”

To understand the development of the themes of the album of “Uncle Meat”, “Dog Breath” and
“King Kong” together with the interludes of different songs we can have a look at the contents of the
double album as it came out in 1969 of Uncle Meat as summed up by James Grier:

The Contents of Uncle Meat double EP (SOURCE)

SIDE ONE:
Uncle Meat (Main Title Theme Uncle Meat theme)
The Voice of Cheese (spoken)
Nine Types of Industrial Pollution (new material)
Zolar Czakl (Uncle Meat variation I)
Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague ('50s rock song parody/bass ostinato)
The Legend of the Golden Arches (Uncle Meat variation 2)
Louie Louie (At the Royal Albert Hall) ('60s rock song)
The Dog Breath Variations (Dog Breath variation)
SIDE TWO:
Sleeping in a Jar ('50s rock song parody)
Our Bizarre Relationship (spoken)
The Uncle Meat Variations (Uncle Meat variation 3)
Electric Aunt Jemima ('50s rock song parody)
Prelude to King Kong (King Kong last variation)
God Bless America (Live at the Whisky A Go Go) (popular song)
A Pound for a Brown on the Bus (percussion/bass ostinato)
lan Underwood Whips It Out
King Kong (penultimate variation)
SIDE THREE:
Mr. Green Genes ('50s rock song parody)
We Can Shoot You (percussion)
"If We'd All Been Living In California..." (spoken)
The Air '50s rock song parody
Project X (Uncle Meat variation 4)
Cruising for Burgers ('60s rock song parody)
SIDE FOUR:
King Kong Itself (King Kong theme and variations)
King Kong (Dom DeWild)
King Kong (Motorhead)
 King Kong (Gardner)
King Kong (3 deranged Good Humor Trucks)
King Kong (live on a flatbed diesel in the middle of a race track at a Miami Pop Festival.
(Grier 84)

Grier points out that the variations of some themes are in the disguise of other titles such as “Zolar
Czakl” and “The Legend of the Golden Arches” and alternate with interludes “in the form of the
spoken passages and '50s parodies mentioned above, as well as new material, like "Nine Types of
Industrial Pollution" (Grier 91).” The fourth side promises six tracks of variations on “King Kong”
theme that turn out to be free jazz improvisations of Zappa’s individual members of the group.

Some further examples of genre collages in specific songs:

- The first track on the album “Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme” is as Lowe describes “an in-
between classical symphonic film scoring and rock instrumentals” that changes into a
romantic theme played on an anachronistic harpsichord (Lowe 66).
- “Nine Types of Industrial Pollution” is overdone free jazz with elaborated guitar solo.
- “Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague” starts off with a verse sung three times (once with an
opera singer, once with the tape sped up to gain high chipmunk voices), the banal lyrics are
about teenagers and their useless interests (Lowe 67). Then it resolves into avant-garde
music.
- Dog Breath Variations starts including funny voices and lyrics, so again we have the
juxtaposition of serious symphonic form with stupid rock lyrics and voicings.

In conclusion, due to the contrast of the nonsensical in the mix of various stylistic conventions with
the seriousness of the musical structures that the intellectual art is visible, and this will be attacked
in the next paragraph.

1.3 Modernist, Postmodernist, and Neoclassical?, The Exposition of the Nonsensical

Grier proposes that certain aspects of the album contribute to modernist art music (Grier 78); and
Lowe recognizes postmodernist features such as pastiche, nevertheless in his own Zappa-like
manner of self-reference and the collaging of different genres. The result is of a disorientation
emphasized by humour (Grier 85). Interestingly, Grier states that with Zappa: “Each comment, each
gesture, each musical statement is simultaneously serious, ironic and openly comic (Grier 79)”. First,
the disorienting often humoristic features seem to hide the seriousness of his art, but actually they
are part of his esthetic and therefore part of the seriousness.

His attitude is of a neoclassicist composer, as Zappa acknowledged himself at the time of Ruben &
the Van Jets: "I conceived the album [in extension: the album of Uncle Meat] along the same lines as
the compositions in Stravinsky's neoclassical period." (Grier 86) He composes according to certain
styles, emphasizing deliberately or even exaggerating their stylistic characteristics: doo-wop (the
vocal timbres), rock songs, jazz (specifically free jazz soloing without any type of orientation),
symphonic music (with regards to the film soundtrack), etcetera. If these attitudes are not to make a
funny parody out of the original genre it is to use the genre-typical characteristics as a reference
point into a more complex whole. Nevertheless, the combination of having experimental

6
instrumentals mixed with innocent lyrics from rock music from the ‘50s is in fact humoristic and
absurd (Grier 86).

As seen before the structure of the album is very solid though, or as Grier notes:

the progression of the variations presents an equally strong unifying structure, binding the
materials of the collage into a single musical statement. It is through this statement that the
Mothers of Invention and Frank Zappa created a distinctive voice in the heterogeneous rock
music culture of the late 1960s, and in so doing simultaneously presented their work as a
serious contribution to modern art music (Grier 95).

The result of the collage has the effect of fragmentation (what Grier calls a fragmented cognitive
image (Grier 79)).The modernist outlook on the album is thus the alienating effects on the listener
are caused by the Joycean stream of consciousness as Grier puts it (79 Grier). He also emphasizes
the modernist style of the track "Uncle Meat" (Grier 95). Next, Ben Watson, Zappa’s biographer,
therefore urges the listeners to look for “images and connections as they emerge on the material
surface” and links Zappa’s music to concepts of modernist literature; to put it differently, Uncle
Meat represents Zappa’s high modernist intentions of a composer or “to expand listeners’
consciousness beyond a limited appreciation of eclecticism’s possibilities, and to present a far
broader range of music to rock audiences than otherwise offered (quoted in Borders 146).”

Lowe traces the postmodernist aspects in the use of pastiche or collage (Lowe 65). Even
though there seems to be a cross-over of high (avant-garde) art music and low (rock and
pop) music on different levels, Lowe goes on to prove that one cannot conclude on pastiche
as simple as that, but instead:

Postmodernists see pastiche, the idea that art is a collection of things (images, ideas,
fragments) borrowed from elsewhere that, when put together something new, as a
result of an artistic exhaustion brought on by the end of the twentieth century. Zappa
creates a pastiche out of his own music (Lowe 65).

Yet, to draw a connection with literature as Ben Watson and Grier had done before with modernist
literary concepts, in the case of postmodernist literature by novelists such as Philip Roth or Jonathan
Coe, they use pastiche also in such a way as to establish their own fictional reality with characters
running through separate works so that self-reference is always near. Finally, the mix of reality (of
the band members and their gossiping, the bio of Ian Underwood “whips it out”, a turn on Zappa’s
sexual escapades in “Our Bizarre Relationship”) and fiction (the fictional characters mentioned
before) can also be seen as a trait from postmodernist, moreover postcolonial literature.

To sum up, there exist obvious parallels with postmodernist and modernist (literary) theory and
therefore prove Zappa’s intellectual take on his music next to the humour that is brought forward
through the use of these different postmodernist and modernist techniques.

As a conclusion we might ask questions about the true story of the use of these techniques: is Zappa
overtly criticizing or only observing as a neoclassicist? Let’s look at two tracks:
 1) “Cruisin’ for Burgers” might form an obvious critique on American teenagers. As Zappa
would repeat his intolerance towards teenagers (and grown-ups) using drugs and
the senseless driving around in daddy’s new car, during his career.

ruising for Burgers, comment on the stupidness of white, male, teenage behaviour. Cruising,
as Zappa’s many attacks on car culture make clear, is a silly male ritual set up to waste time,
gas and money. Music is a complex band with tempo and melody changes (Simon and
Garfunkel song “Hazy Shade of Winter”) Lyrics: cruising for burgers in daddy”s new car,
my freedom card, bring to me, instantly, ecstasy.” Zappa against drugs, and typical male
teenage culture. The fake di

Nevertheless the Cruising with Burgers criticizes the lyrics. , the lyrics satirize the teenage anxiety for freedom (here, apparently
gained through illicit access to alcohol), and the California car culture glorified in songs by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean,
who reached the height of their popularity in the mid-60s.4' The song begins by invoking false identification through which
minors purchase liquor, which, in turn, provides a form of freedom and even ecstasy. The passage "Cruising for burgers in
daddy's new car," meanwhile, refers directly to the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun," the lyrics of which nar- rate the escapades of
a (presumably) teenage girl who borrows her father's T-Bird (Ford Thunderbird) to go, not to the library ("like she told her old
man now"), but to the ham- burger (Grier 87). By large, Grier argues that here Zappa criticizes the artistic pretensions of rock
songs from the late I960s (Grier 87). By grafting these banal lyrics onto a more complex musical structure (itself a parody),
Zappa completes the satire of rock bands with artistic affectations. Certain artists attempted to expand the form of rock songs
by juxta- posing sections that contrast in character, principally in metre and tempo; early examples are the Beatles' "Lucy in the
Sky with Diamonds," from Sgt. Pepper, and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," on the first album by Crosby, Stills and Nash.43 Zappa
mimics those complexities in "Cruising for Burgers” (Grier 88). e original cadence at the conclusion. "Cruising for Burg- ers,"
then, broadens the spectrum of Zappa's parodies on this album to encompass virtu- ally the entire history of rock and roll, from the
simplicity of the late 50s through the surfing and car culture of the mid-60s to the artistic pretensions of rock in the late 60s; and it
reinforces the anachronistic impact of other parodies such as Dog Breath (Grier 89)

2) Zappa introduces the horribly played music as being performed by “The London
Symphony Orchestra.” This is one of Zappa’s first-of-many attacks on the classical
community, a group of folks he felt an incredible disdain for and would battle
throughout his life, going so far as to tell an interviewer “the difference between
classical and rock musicians is that classical musicians are interested in money and
pesions. And rock musicicians are interested in money and getting laid.”

So if he tries to make his listeners aware of societal problems or not, the complexity

CONCLUSION ??

1.4 Works Cited

Borders, James, “Form and the Concept Album: Aspects of Modernism in Frank Zappa’s
Early Releases,” in: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 39, No. 1 (winter), 2001.

Jameson, Frederic “Postmodenrs

Grier, James, “The Mothers of Invention and "Uncle Meat": Alienation, Anachronism and a
Double Variation,” in: Acta Musicologica, Vol. 73, Fasc. 1, 2001, pp. 77-95.

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Lowe, Kelly Fisher, The Words and Music of Frank Zappa, University of Nebraska Press:
Lincoln and London, 2007, p 65-72.

Miles, Barry, Frank Zappa: the biography, New York, NY: Grove Press, (23. print. ed.). 2004,
pp. 160.