WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY - CRUISING WITH RUBEN AND THE JETS: THE FIFTIES AND THE SIXTIES

In 1967 the Los Angelos freak scene was completely overrun by the world wide spreading Flower Power movement, that had it's origins in San Francisco. Zappa wasn't fond of their ideas, certainly not their positive attitude towards drugs. His music already needs concentration playing it sober, so the idea of musicians on drugs while he was paying for their time was inacceptable for him.

The Mothers playing at the Garrick Theater, New York 1967. Source: Overnite sensation/Apostrophe (') DVD.

On his contrary album "We're only in it for the money", he reproduces their ideals while at the same time adding demeaning remarks to it ("forgive me because I'm stoned"; "flower power sucks"). Because the Flower Power movement lost it's innocence and impact with the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont in 1970, "We're only in it for the money" has with hindsight become a reflexion upon the sixties. Zappa still found himself kicking at remnants of the movement in his eighties songs "The blue light" and "We're turning again". The music on the album is less complicated and it is an example of the more commercial side of Zappa. In "The Real Frank Zappa Book" of 1989 Zappa uses three pages arguing against the "hateful practices" of traditional harmony, especially the chord progressions that are played over and over again in pop music and the chords of resolution you had to write down to pass a harmony course (The Real Frank Zappa Book, chapter 8, section "hateful practices"; Zappa!, page 32). Zappa's attitude towards traditional harmony is ambiguous however, because he applied common chord progressions with just as much ease as he liked to deviate from them. See the Joe's Garage section for Joe's love declaration to I-IV-V. He even had a weakness for deliberate simplicity, represented in the teenage love songs from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" (1968). Next are some examples of uncomplicated chord progressions (all 5th chords unless indicated):

1) A fragment of the melody of "Mother people" from "We're only in it for the money" with the chords progression I-IV-V-VI-IV-V-I in D written beneath it (what you hear on the album is a speed up track).

Mother people, opening (midi file)

Mother people, opening (notes)

2) A section of the melody of "Absolutely free", also on "We're only in it for the money". The chords here are first in F Myxolydian, I-II-I-V, then in A-flat, I-IV-V-VII-VI, followed by two closing chords in F Myxolydian, I-VII. Then it rolls back into I of the opening theme.

Absolutely free, opening (midi file)

Absolutely free, opening (notes)

3) Two continuingly repeated easy progressions from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets". The first one from "Cheap thrills" does after the intro from bar 9 onwards I-IV-I 7th-IV-I etc. in A Myxolydian. The second is I-II-III-II-I etc. in C from "Anything" (a Ray Collins song for this album).

Cheap thrills (midi file)
Anything accompanying figure (midi file)

Cheap thrills (transcription)
Anything accompanying figure (transcription)

4) "What's the ugliest part of your body?" is a returning song on "We're only in it for the money" in the shape of a collage. It's made up of three themes as presented in the following block of transcribed bars:
- Theme A, bars 1-12: the main theme in doo-wop style. The bass is giving the basic chord progression, being I, VI 7th, IV and V in G. This four bar bass progression gets repeated three times. The doo-wop element lies in the accompanying vocal harmonies in the second staff.
- Theme B, bars 13-20: the second theme in 7/8 falls in abruptly. In fact it has nothing in common with theme A. The meter is different, the tempo is different and the keys are different, so you could just as well say that a new song is starting here. It's using more than one scale, the chord progression in rock notation being C, A, Am and D.
- Theme C, bars 21-24: a third theme in the same tempo as the previous one. This one is doing a little sequence gliding through scales as well. The progression here is a minor chord going down following the chromatic scale: Bm, Bbm, Am (plus a vague D in the bass) and Abm. In staff 2 a second voice a singing a quarter note behind the lead vocal, somewhat softer in the background, thus creating an echo effect.
The collage construction of this song is set up via two means:
- The song itself can be split into two halfs as indicated.
- The A theme is just sung once and doesn't return in the song itself. It returns much later on on the CD, namely 9 tracks further in the form of a reprise. During this second track the theme does get varied upon, though in an unconventional way by speeding up its phrases.

What's the ugliest part of your body?, section (midi file)

What's the ugliest part of your body?, section (transcription)

It's a commonplace in rock 'n roll history that "Sergeant Pepper's lonely hearts club band" by the Beatles is the first concept album, usually without explaining what then this concept is. I guess it's the packaging, the instrumentation and maybe the quality of each individual song. Some Zappa fans have argumented that the Mother's first two albums could then be considered concept albums as well. Indeed all Zappa's albums each have some form of a conceptual idea behind them. It can be in style, it can be in the lyrics and it's about always present in the sound of an album. For the two albums this section is about the concept is outspoken and obvious, in the music and the lyrics. "We're only in it for the money" is about the hippie era with relatively main stream music combined with some experimental tracks. Zappa's love of fifties doo-wop songs resulted in a huge collection of singles from this era, that he kept with him his whole life. Every now and then he would include a doo-wop classic in his concert reportoire. "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" is his tribute to the genre. Not only the music, also the lyrics are the traditional lines about the teenage love life. The emotions about being in love and broken hearts are quite reckognisable in the following three examples ("Deseri" is a Collins/Buff contribution for this album). The first two joyful, the third one melancholic. More on this topic in the Joe's garage section.

Jelly roll gum drop (midi file)
Deseri (midi file)
You didn't try to call me, fragment (midi file)

Jelly roll gum drop (transcription)
Deseri (transcription)
You didn't try to call me, fragment (transcription).

Compared to other rock composers Zappa's inclination to use non-traditional harmonic patterns is one of his distinctive features. We'll see a lot of it in the coming sections. It is understandable that Zappa liked to put the accent on this in his interviews, but if he didn't apply normal patterns as well his albums would never sell and Zappa would never have reached the status and financial independancy as he has done. Apart from "We're only in it for the money", we have albums as "Apostrophe (')", "Sheik Yerbouti" and "You are what you is", that show Zappa's commercial side and sold well for Zappa standards. As he himself has remarked the London Symphony Orchestra recordings would have been financially impossible without these albums.
One of the things that bothered Zappa for a while was to get his music played on the radio and the production of a hit single. Why some singles become hits and others don't is a territory that has many haphazard elements in it. It certainly helps to write a catching melody, that has the effect on people of "gee, I'd like to hear this again", also when only half listening. But fashionable aspects in the sound building and a direct emotional appeal get in the picture as well. Zappa had no specific sense for writing hits and besides that he refused to adapt his lyrics to a level that wouldn't offend anybody. Eventually Zappa did get two hits when has name was already well known. "Bobby Brown" from "Sheik Yerbouti", an example of a song with a catching melody, hit the charts in two European countries, where the lyrics formed no real problem, and "Valley Girl" from "Ship arriving to late for a drowning witch" sold well in the U.S. The latter due to a gimmick in it, with his daughter Moon portraying a spoiled west coast teenage girl.