JOE'S GARAGE: THE EMOTIONAL DIMENSION

The unlimited popularity of the tonal system in western music has a lot to do with it's capacity, combined with instrumentation and the way music is performed, to translate emotions into music in a for everybody recognisable form. It's also the way most people like to talk about music, often giving highly subjective interpretations of what the music means in their opinion along with it. Sections of music can express feelings of joy, sadness, anger and relaxation. Why this effect exists is usually not very clear. Dissonants and shouting can be associated with anger or tension, but why some melodic lines have the effect of joy and others don't is hardly explainable. It's better to take it for granted that the three downwards played notes of a minor third have the effect of sadness, and composers looking to maximize recognisable emotional impact problably have a good catalogue in their mind of melody types and their effect (compare "Debra Kadebra" from "Bongo Fury" from 2:44 onwards for a minor third effect).
Music can also be on a more emotionally abstract level, but certainly not less emotional, where it becomes difficult to translate the emotions into words other than "expressive" or "intense" and where the emotions seem to rely more on the pleasure of the listening to the music itself. Zappa prefers the more abstract level, confirmed by his unwillingness to take his personal life as the subject of his lyrics. He may talk about his lovely wife and children in "The Real Frank Zappa book", but never on his albums. Zappa's music can be very expressive, but speaking for myself I have no idea how I could describe for instance the guitar solo's on "Shut up 'n play yer guitar" in emotional terms as happines or tension.

Related to this is his instrumentation, that is functional for the composition, meant to make the notes audible in a clear way and not to create ornamental atmospheres or to overwhelm the listeners through sound building. Some exceptions do exist like the ornamental harp and percussion part at the end of the "Zoot Allures" guitar solo, that have a relaxing effect. There are also compositions that are specifically about sound effects, like "N-lite" from "Civilization Phaze III". In general Zappa chooses instruments that are unrelated in their sound so that they can play separatly as well as together in different combinations, and always remain clearly distinguishable. Alternation of sound is the issue rather then the creation of an overall sound. Furthermore he doesn't raise or bend his voice while singing and he doesn't dance on stage, which is for pop music standards unusual.

As far as I'm concerned about all note examples presented in this site are of the emotionally abstract kind, except for the ones in this section and the previous "Ruben and the Jets" section, where we're getting at songs with a better translatable emotional dimension. Most of them can be found on "Freak out", "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" and "Joe's garage". Of the infinite range from deepest inner sorrow to sound related expressions as feeling the groove, I've taken out four basics below. Relaxation and the building up of tension are present in the title track of "Joe's garage". It opens with a slow I-IV intro in E and than, as the sung melody begins, proceeds with I-IV-V. This movement continues in several shapes, alternated with divers interrupting bars, all in slow tempo. The ease of the I-IV-V progression expresses Joe's fine memories of the good old times when he was playing a tune like this with friends in his garage. At the end of the song, when Joe is complaining about all the new fashions in rock music, the comfortable I-IV-V environment is left and the tension starts to rise, ending with police interference. In the transcription below I've combined the opening and some sections, the last bar containing the start of tension.

Joe's garage (midi file)

Joe's garage (transcription)

The opposition of tension and relaxation is more directly present in the "Run home cues #3" example from the Movie scores subpage and the chamber music section at the end of "Lumpy Gravy, part I". After the dissonant notes in this section a little dialogue follows with one saying "not okay" and the other one complaining in response "no, man, no, I can go through this again?". After this some charming consonants follow. Happiness has already come by. Controlled in "Jelly roll gum drop" and "Deseri" from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets". Euphorically in "What will this evening bring me this morning" from "200 Motels". Here's one from "Joe's garage":

Fembot in a wet T-shirt, opening (midi file)

Fembot in a wet T-shirt, opening (transcription)

On "Joe's garage" Zappa depicted what can go wrong if you decide to start a career in the rock 'n roll business, with the accent on sexual abuse. It's also an example of the always present two-sidedness in his ideas. On the album sleeve we are warned that people exist who would like to make (rock) music illegal, but the so called central scrutenizer presenting and commenting the little play on the album, gives you some reasons why it should be. Whatever the purpose (if there is any), the play ends with the main character Joe winding up in prison, being able to play his music and guitar solos only in his imagination. He wails:

Outside now, theme (midi file)
Packard goose, section (midi file)

Outside now, theme (transcription)
Packard goose, section (transcription)

In the case of "Packard goose" the direction of the emotions lie mostly in the lyrics. The melody itself is fluid diatonic material, that you could just as well use for a love song. Subtle and effective is a chord change in bars 5-6 compared to bars 7-8, returning in bars 9-10 compared to bars 11-12. It's just the A# going to A natural, but it changes the climate in bars that are otherwise mostly the same. Here it's sung by Joe for fulminating against imaginary reviews of his guitar solos. Touching is also the re-appearance of Mary, just the soft intonation of her voice makes an impression. Her little speech includes Zappa's favorite phrase "Music is the best". It's also the non-imaginary Zappa himself, who once referred to rock journalist as people who know nothing about music, who write for people who know nothing about music. His irritation stems from the time "Absolutely free" was released. The album was for a rock album unprecedentedly complex and it's details went unnoticed in reviews. There is more to this remark however. He also knew that it would get quoted by these same journalists, who can always comfort themselves with the thought that it's about their collegues and not about themselves. Rock journalism is a strange business indeed. It's the only type of journalism I know of where it is considered normal to have no technical knowledge about the subject you're writing about whatsoever. Their articles are mostly about the lives of the artist, the music gets only vaguely described by naming styles and mentioning who's influenced by whom. It leads to bizarre individual reviews that don't contain any specific information about the music itself. Only when you're looking for a common denominator and average things out, something more sensible comes out. Another song in which the lyrics are responsible for the impact is an unreleased tribute Zappa wrote for his wife, called "Solitude". It was rehearsed in 1981 and premiered by the Band from Utopia. It's known by fans via a bootleg copy, indeed a touching piece, still waiting for an official release.

Zappa's two most famous vamps have problaby the become two ones from "Joe's Garage", that are thus touching by their emotional impact. The "Outside now" vamp from above he himself was much fond of, because he used it so often. For the 1984 solo on "Guitar" (1987) he returned to the wailing "Watermelon in easter hay" theme. Beneath are the theme in it's 1984 phrasing and the closing bars of the 1979 version. They go as:

Watermelon in easter hay, theme (1984, midi file)
Watermelon in easter hay, coda (1979, midi file)

Watermelon in easter hay, theme (1984, transcription).
Watermelon in easter hay, coda (1979, notes).

These last two midi files lack the richness and warmth that is on the album. Not only because of sound quality (at least on my pc), but also because my midi editor can't do things as crescendo, decrescendo, glissando and vibrato.
Both "Outside now" and "Watermelon in easter hay" are unusual solos in their use of meters. Zappa normally plays over 4/4 in his solos, but these two have odd additional metres, namely 6/8 + 5/8 and 4/4 + 5/4. Apart from the phrasing, the 1984 version of the theme also deviates from the 1979 execution in its rhythm. The "Joe's Garage" one sets the A of the theme in on the fourth beat of the vamp, whereas the "Guitar" version does this on the fifth beat.
Other insances to raise our tears are the classical broken heart song "How could I've been such a fool" from "Freak out" and the fragment from "You didn't try to call me", included in the "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" section.

TOUCH ME THERE

In 1979 Zappa produced L. Shankar's album "Touch me there" for his new Zappa Records label. Shankar had made some guest appearances during Zappa's 1978 US tour (see also the previous section and the YCDTOSA section for "Thirteen"). The album consist of five instrumentals with Shankar soloing on electric violin and three songs for which Zappa wrote the lyrics. One of them, "Dead girls of London", is also known via YCDTOSA vol. V. The title track shows Zappa's flexabilaty. During the seventies he took an anti-love song attitude on his own albums, but this one is a sensative song, sung by Jenny Lautrec. Apparantly Zappa had no problems delivering the lyrics that go as "Touch me there, I like it. Touch me there, again. Touch me there, some more" with several repetitions. On paper rather simple, but in combination with Shankar's music it works.
For "No more Mr. nice girl" Shankar and Zappa co-wrote the music, all other music on the album is by Shankar alone. The opening and outchorus are included in this section because it's such a merry feel good song. It opens with a disco type vamp, followed by a melody played consequently by various instruments. Then follows a violin solo, that ends with the repeated outchorus as presented below.

No more Mr. nice girl, opening (midi file)
No more Mr. nice girl, outchorus (midi file)

No more Mr. nice girl, opening and outchorus (transcription)



Touch me there album cover and photo of L. Shankar.
Source: CD booklet, design by Carol Friedman.