We're Only in It for the Money

We're Only in It for the Money
Studio album by The Mothers of Invention
Released March 4, 1968 (1968-03-04)
Recorded March 14–16; August 2–9; October 1967 at Capitol Studios, LA; Mayfair and Apostolic Studios, NYC
Genre Rock, experimental, avant-garde, doo-wop, psychedelic rock
Length 39:15
Label Verve
Producer Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa chronology
Lumpy Gravy
(1967)		 We're Only in It for the Money
(1968)		 Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
(1968)
The Mothers of Invention chronology
Absolutely Free
(1967)		 We're Only in It for the Money
(1968)		 Cruising with Ruben & the Jets
(1968)
Singles from We're Only in It for the Money
  1. "Lonely Little Girl"
    Released: 1967 (non-LP version)

We're Only in It for the Money is the third studio album by the Mothers of Invention. Released on March 4, 1968 on Verve Records, it was subsequently remixed and re-recorded by Frank Zappa and reissued independently by Rykodisc Records in 1986.

As with the band's previous two albums, We're Only in It for the Money is a concept album, and satirizes left and right-wing politics, particularly the hippie subculture, as well as the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.

We're Only in It for the Money encompasses rock, orchestral and experimental music, with its orchestral segments deriving from the recording sessions for Lumpy Gravy, which was previously issued as a solo instrumental album by Capitol Records and was subsequently reedited by Zappa and released by Verve; the reedited Lumpy Gravy was produced simultaneously with We're Only in It for the Money and is the first part of a conceptual continuity, continued with the reedited Lumpy Gravy and concluded with Zappa's final album, Civilization Phaze III (1994). This is Official Release #4.

Background

While filming Uncle Meat, Frank Zappa recorded in New York City for a project called No Commercial Potential, which ended up producing four albums: We're Only in It for the Money, a revised version of Zappa's solo album Lumpy Gravy, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat, which served as the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which was not completed until 1987.[1]

Zappa 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 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."[1]

As the recording sessions continued, The Beatles released their acclaimed album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. In response to the album's release, Zappa decided to change the album's concept to parody the Beatles album, because he felt that the Beatles were insincere and "only in it for the money".[2] The Beatles were targeted as a symbol of Zappa's objections to the corporatization of youth culture, and the album served as a criticism of them and psychedelic rock as a whole.[2]

Recording

Band member Ray Collins had left the Mothers before the New York recording sessions took place, but later rejoined when the band was recording the doo-wop songs that formed the album Cruisin' with Ruben & the Jets.[2] Gary Kellgren was hired as an engineer for the project, and subsequently wound up delivering whispered pieces of dialogue that linked segments of We're Only in It for the Money.[3] During the recording sessions, Verve requested that Zappa remove a verse from the song "Mother People". Zappa complied, but reversed the recording and included the backwards verse as part of the dialogue track "Hot Poop", concluding the album's first side,[4] but this would be removed by Verve themselves on subsequent represses of their own.

While recording We're Only in It for the Money, Zappa discovered that the strings of Apostolic Studios' grand piano would resonate if a person spoke near those strings. The "piano people" experiment involved Zappa having various speakers improvise dialogue using topics offered by Zappa. Various people contributed to these sessions, including Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Tim Buckley.[5] The "piano people" voices primarily consisted of Motorhead Sherwood, Roy Estrada, Spider Barbour, All-Night John (the manager of the studio) and Louis Cuneo, who was noted for his laugh, which sounded like a "psychotic turkey".[6]
"What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" (sample)
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During the production, Zappa experimented with recording and editing techniques which produced unusual textures and musique concrète compositions; the album featured abbreviated songs interrupted by segments of dialogue and unrelated music which changed the continuity of the album.[7] Segments of orchestral music included on the album came from a solo orchestral album by Zappa previously released by Capitol Records under the title Lumpy Gravy in 1967.[3] MGM claimed that Zappa was under contractual obligation to record for them, and subsequently Zappa re-edited Lumpy Gravy, releasing a drastically different version on Verve Records, after the release of We're Only in It for the Money. The artwork of Lumpy Gravy identified it as "phase 2 of We're Only in It for the Money", while We're Only in It for the Money was identified in its artwork as "phase one of Lumpy Gravy", alluding to the conceptual continuity of the two albums.[3]

Before release, MGM censored several tracks without Zappa's knowledge, involvement or permission,[3][8] and subsequent pressings contained additional deletions. On the song "Absolutely Free", the line "I don't do publicity balling for you anymore" was edited by MGM to remove the word "balling", changing the context of the sentence.[3] Additionally, on "Let's Make The Water Turn Black", the line "and I still remember Mama, with her apron and her pad, feeding all the boys at Ed's Cafe" was removed.[8] Zappa later learned that this line was censored because an MGM executive thought that the word "pad" referred to a sanitary napkin, rather than a waitress's order pad.[8] Also censored was the Lenny Bruce reference in "Harry, You're A Beast",[9] and a spoken segment of "Concentration Moon" referring to The Velvet Underground as being "as shitty a group as Frank Zappa's group".[6] Zappa later declined to accept an award for the album upon being made aware of the censorship, stating "I prefer that the award be presented to the guy who modified this record, because what you're hearing is more reflective of his work than mine."[8]

Lyrical themes

In his lyrics for We're Only in It for the Money, Zappa speaks as a voice for "the freaks—imaginative outsiders who didn't fit comfortably into any group", according to AllMusic writer Steve Huey.[7] Subsequently, the album satirizes hippie culture and left-wing politics, as well as targeting right-wing politics, describing both political sides as "prisoners of the same narrow-minded, superficial phoniness."[4]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Frank Zappa. 

Side one
No. Title Length
1. "Are You Hung Up?"   1:23
2. "Who Needs the Peace Corps?"   2:34
3. "Concentration Moon"   2:22
4. "Mom & Dad"   2:16
5. "Bow Tie Daddy"   1:21
6. "Harry, You're a Beast"   1:22
7. "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?"   1:03
8. "Absolutely Free"   3:24
9. "Flower Punk[12]"   3:03
10. "Hot Poop"   0:26
Side two
No. Title Length
1. "Nasal Retentive Calliope Music"   2:03
2. "Let's Make the Water Turn Black"   2:01
3. "The Idiot Bastard Son"   3:18
4. "Lonely Little Girl" (Listed as "It's His Voice on the Radio" on the original LP sleeve.) 1:09
5. "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance"   1:35
6. "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (Reprise)"   0:57
7. "Mother People"   2:32
8. "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny"   6:25
Total length:
 39:15

Personnel

The Mothers Today (as of 1967)

(Note: subsequent CD releases of this album contain a paragraph on the sleeve titled "The Last Word," explaining that the Mothers band pictured on the album was not the band that played the music, and in fact all musical duties on the album were performed by Frank Zappa, Ian Underwood, Roy Estrada and Billy Mundi. Jimmy Carl Black, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner and Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood were all featured in some capacity on the record.)

Additional personnel
Production

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1968 US Billboard 200 30

References

  1. 1 2 Barry Miles (2004). Frank Zappa : the biography (23. print. ed.). New York, NY: Grove Press. pp. 160, 326. ISBN 0-8021-4215-X.
  2. 1 2 3 David Fricke (2008). Lumpy Money (Media notes). Frank Zappa. Zappa Records.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Walley, David (1980). No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa. Da Capo Press. pp. 85, 89. ISBN 0-306-80710-6.
  4. 1 2 Schinder, Scott; Schwartz, Andy (2008). Icons of rock : an encyclopedia of the legends who changed music forever. Westport, Conn. [u.a.]: Greenwood Press. p. 363. ISBN 978-0-313-33847-2.
  5. ↑ James, Billy (2002). Necessity is.... : the early years of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (2. ed.). Middlesex: SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 59. ISBN 0-946719-51-9.
  6. 1 2 Slaven, Neil (2003). Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa. Omnibus Press. pp. 85, 100, 105. ISBN 0-7119-9436-6.
  7. 1 2 3 Huey, Steve (2011). "We're Only in It for the Money – The Mothers of Invention | AllMusic". allmusic. Retrieved June 26, 2011.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Zappa, Frank with Occhiogrosso, Peter (1989). The Real Frank Zappa Book. New York: Poseidon Press. p. 84. ISBN 0-671-63870-X.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Robert Christgau (2011). "Robert Christgau: CG: Artist 4155". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved June 26, 2011.
  11. ↑ Barret Hansen (1968). "We're Only In It for the Money". Retrieved August 24, 2012.
  12. ↑
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