Bongo Fury

[timmo82]

First I have confession to make. I was weak I know..
I've been cheating on you! I've been getting cheap thrills at the zappa.com forum where there's more action going on!  

Anyway I hope you forgive me, I have a few queries on some of the lyrics on this fine album, such as..

-200 Years Old

Is this some clever metaphor, if it is I can't work it out   ..

She's 200 years old
So mean she couldn't grow no lips
She's 200 years old
So mean she couldn't grow no lips
(Boy, she'd be in trouble if she tried to grow a mustache . . . )

She's 200 years old
Squatting down
And poppin' up
In front of the juke box
Like she had true religion, Boy

-Cucamonga

If you listen between the bits that go..

It was crazy
(Nanook-a, no no)
To be doin' it any other way

..you can hear some weird speaking in the background, almost like on Flower Punk on the Money album, anyone worked out what's being said?

-Advance Romance

Potato-head Bobby
Was a friend of mine
Opened three of his eyes
In the food stamp line
Opened four of his eyes.. {etc}

I don't understand this part, basically.. & is the basic premise of this song someone who doesn't want to put any effort into his relationship?
or that women will thieve your watch?    

- timmo

[Barry]

I've been getting cheap thrills at the zappa.com forum where there's more action going on!

Wait a minute - my sources tell me that's an oxymoron!

Still, in a desperate attempt to move along with The Big Players, we should perhaps open up an "Associative Picture Posting Fest" thread. No wait, let's have a "Stupid Requests For Gail That Will Go Unanswered Forever" thread! This forum needs more action, I tell ya!

Ideas, anyone?

Barry

ps: interesting lyrical q timmo, yet not one that I can shed any light on. (Damn that lack of action!)

[timmo82]

OK so you don't like the zappa.com forum, but in between the shit there's some good people there.


Wherever you are Frank, we're thinking about you & your family on this sad anniversary (and most other days!)

[SOFA]

I've been getting cheap thrills at the zappa.com forum where there's more action going on!

I think an operative word here is "cheap"...
The quantity of action does not always reflect a proportionate quality of action... IMO, of course.

AFA your lyric question(s):
- First, analyzing the Captain's lyrics is more tough than analyzing FZ's -
I pick up two references in the 200 Years Old lyric; America is so mean that she can't even smile (can't grow lips) and she worships pop culture (like the 'stumbler' "worshipped" the jukebox - which is what the lyric refers to with the "squat down and jump up").
I'm not sure I understand your question of Cucamonga...
Interesting q on Advance Romance. The song is not about Bobby; he is just one of many 'band references' in the song, which are tough - if not impossible to explain... I always figured the song was about 'groupie love', and the perils of road relationships... I could be wrong.
SOFA

[timmo82]

Thanks for your insights SOFA.

The songs I mentioned were all Frank-written songs I thought? I think 'Sam' & 'Man With The Woman Head' are the only Don songs.

Re. Cucamonga - if you listen carefully enough you can hear high-pitched voices behind that part of the song I mentioned, I wondered what the bejezez they are saying if anyone knows.

D'you know what 'opened three/four of his eyes..' means   [edit - just found something about this in a previous thread but if you wanna add anything..]

[SOFA]

[edit - just found something about this in a previous thread but if you wanna add anything..]

Not much I can add really...
The eyes opening at the foodstamp line reference a potato having "eyes" - actually, root nodules - that makes a metaphoric connections with Bobby, who has a head shaped like a potato...
Reading that old thread, you can conclude that there are more than one school of thought regarding the 'meaning' of Advance Romance. I am one who believes it is not a single female being discussed, but all women (that's youuuuu, American womanhood). It can be argued either way.
The voices behind FZ on Cucamonga are layered; I can't tell what all of them say. 'Nanook a no no' seems to be the dominant parts, but there's a lot more... To me it sounds more like FZ trying to lay a little lush vocal on the track as a bit of orchestrated background (to the extreme: America Drinks and Goes Home), a sound wall, if you will. I can't say whether there's any meaning in there...

The songs I mentioned were all Frank-written songs I thought? I think 'Sam' & 'Man With The Woman Head' are the only Don songs.

I see the confusion... I didn't mean that Don wrote the songs; I meant to say that Don had an influence over a lot of the lyrics - some probably written by Frank with Don in mind (as I believe is the case with 'Torture', but Don could never memorise it, so Frank ended up doing it...). For example, Don always claimed to have been the one who brought the Gravy mix commercial to light with the term Lumpy Gravy. And, if you believe Don, his stamp is all over Hot Rats - most notable on Willie the Pimp, of course - yet all the music is credited to FZ.
FZ's Lyrics are a source of endless and non-productive debate - as only HE could truly affirm what he meant when he wrote a cryptic lyric. And he never claimed to be a poet. Don, on the other hand, IS a poet - and hence, deciphering his meaning from any line can be an even more futile challenge...
It's fun stuff to think about tho'!

[duodenum]

I've been getting cheap thrills at the zappa.com forum where there's more action going on!

Well, as a famous man said:  "If we can't be free, we can at least be cheap."  

[uzibones]

On 200 years old-
on the bootleg of 'An Evening With Frank Zappa And Captain Beefheart' that I have, just before playing the unedited version of 200 years old and after Muffin Man, FZ says
"... and it's a bicentennial song, its a song that deals with the celebration of our country's 200th anniversary, and I figured that it was time that I did a song about our country's 200th anniversary, I've done several since this, uh (Captain Beefheart: Amen!) which, which will be revealed a little bit later, this is the first of my bicentennial tunes.
CB: Amen. Is this dedicated to any particular... is this for Concord[?] and Lexington[?] ?
FZ: No, this is for anybody who's managed to live through the last two hundred years.
CB: Amen again. This is called 200 years old and it's uhh, its from later this year.

No idea who the two names Don mentions are.

The voices on Cucamonga the first time round say 'Yoo-hoo-hoo yoo-hoo yoo!' according to http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/lyrics/Bongo_Fury.html#Cucamonga
and the rest sound like Napoleon Murphy Brock scatting, which I heard him do in some other bootleg or something that I forget.

[Dunk]

See:

http://www.britishbattles.com/concord-lexington.htm

or

http://ross.pvt.k12.ny.us/boston/concord.htm

[uzibones]

Oh ok. Forgive my lack of knowledge of the American revolution! thanks.

[youarewhatyoublog]

-Cucamonga

If you listen between the bits that go..

It was crazy
(Nanook-a, no no)
To be doin' it any other way

..you can hear some weird speaking in the background, almost like on Flower Punk on the Money album, anyone worked out what's being said?

I was just listening to Brown Shoes (3:50) and they do the exact same thing uzibones described as being in the background of cucamonga. "yoo-hoo-hoo..."

Put bongo fury in any 4-way stereo/your car and find which channel the vocals are split between. Then decipher. Fixed a headache on WOIIFTM.