The 500 - #297 - We're Only In It For The Money - The Mothers

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #297

Album Title: We're Only In It For The Money

Artist: The Mothers

Genre: Experimental Rock, Acid Rock, Satire

Recorded: Three studios in Los Angeles, California & New York City

Released: March, 1968

My age at release: 3

How familiar was I with it before this week: A Little

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist:  Who Needs The Peace Corps?

My first record collection belonged to the London Public Library. I was fourteen when I moved to the Southwestern Ontario city and discovered that the Central Branch of the municipal library system had an entire section dedicated to vinyl records and eight comfortable listening booths available for free.

Where my earnest foray into music and comedy began.

The library's collection was impressive, and many contemporary rock bands were represented. More surprisingly, there was an extensive comedy section. Already a fan of Monty Python, Steve Martin, SCTV and Saturday Night Live, it was among these stacks that I first heard records from legends such as Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Gilda Radner and The Goon Show.

Four of my favourite comedy discoveries at the library

It was also among these stacks that I first saw a Frank Zappa record. It was Act I of his three-part rock opera Joe's Garage and, initially, I mistook it for a comedy album. I wasn't entirely wrong; there are numerous absurd and humourous elements throughout it, including provocative and titillating song titles such as: Catholic Girls, Crew Slut, Wet T-Shirt Nite, and Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? The album cover features Zappa holding a mop with his face completely painted black -- which I found weird and intriguing. Through the social lens of today, it was an unfortunate portrayal.

Joe's Garage album cover

Zappa was a provocateur and outrageous. Those familiar with Zappa's career know he has no history of racism and that, in the context of 1970s’ society, he was just being silly.  Additionally, some claim, weakly, it is not "blackface", but engine grease (ostensibly from Joe's Garage) smeared on his visage. Moreover, his lips are not painted and he is not mugging comically to the camera like the Minstrel performers of the 19th and early 20th century. Granted, it doesn't help that the "Joe" character in the rock opera is voiced by Ike Willis, a black guitarist and singer in Zappa's band.

Two white performers in blackface for a Minstrel Show

Regardless, hearing Joe's Garage for the first time on those library-owned headphones was an overwhelming and wonderfully confounding experience for my teenage brain. Instinctively, I knew I had stumbled onto something special. It was as if the universe had provided me with a puzzle that I needed to solve. I had so many questions, the most pressing of which was: "Who is Frank Zappa"?

The unconventional Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940, to Sicilian immigrants. When he was 12, the family moved to southern California and he joined the high school band as a drummer. It was during this time that he became passionate about music and sound. His earliest influences ranged from black rhythm and blues guitar rock and doo-wop to modern composers that included Igor Stravinski and Anton Webern. He was also fascinated with avant-garde composers, particularly Edgard Varese, who created dissonant sound experiments.

Edgard Varese, known for dissonant sound experiments

Varese's influence, which emphasized timbre (tone quality) and rhythm above melody, is evident in many of Zappa's compositions. In fact, in 1963, long before the release of his first record, Freak Out! (#246 on The 500), the 22-year-old Zappa appeared on the television variety program, The Steve Allen Show, to demonstrate how he composed using a pair of drumsticks, a bass violin bow and a bicycle. You can see the video here.

The magic wrought by drumsticks, violin bow and bicycle wheel demonstrated by Zappa on the Steve Allen Show, 1963

In 1964, Zappa replaced the guitarist in an established R&B band called The Soul Giants and the group rebranded themselves as The Mothers of Invention. Zappa became bandleader and co-singer. The group built an audience playing in Los Angeles’ underground scene and Zappa's predilection for sonic experimentation began to infiltrate the band's sound. In 1966, their first record, Freak Out!, was released. The Mothers were backed by an orchestra of 20 additional musicians, including cellists and a full brass section.

Album cover for Freak Out! (1966)

We're Only In It For The Money, was the third release by The Mothers. Featuring 18 musicians, it is a concept record that satirizes left and right wing politics, describing both sides as "prisoners of the same narrow-minded, superficial phoniness". The themes work as well in today's political climate as they must have in 1968. The thin-skinned, perpetually stoned hippies of Zappa's era have been replaced by overly-woke, endlessly offended hipsters of today.

1960s hippies have somewhat morphed into 2020 hipsters

The right wing targets of Zappa's sardonic ire – insincere corporations and police officers who unreasonably resort to acts of hyper-violence – fit well into a criticism of the social milieu of the sixties or these twenties.

Police arresting protesters in San Francisco (1968)

The cover lampoons The Beatles who had just released their magnum opus, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Zappa felt that the British band's embrace of peace, love and harmony was less sincere than it appeared. He believed The Beatles were more a corporate product than a band and that Sgt. Pepper was more about money than about social change.

Sgt. Pepper & We're Only In It Covers side by side

After Zappa conceived the cheeky parody photograph, he reached out to Beatle Paul McCartney to request permission to lampoon their iconic cover. McCartney declined, suggesting  it was "an issue for business managers" -- ostensibly supporting  Zappa's contention.  Thus, when the first edition of We’re Only In It For The Money was released by the production company, Capitol Records, it nervously put the parody cover on the inner sleeve. An alternative cover was requested  by Capitol and Zappa opted for an image of himself and three of The Mothers looking intentionally bland, dressed in women's frocks.

First version of the album cover for We're Only In It For The Money

Back in 1980, when I was filled with teenage anxiety and was uncertain about my place in the world, I kept my appreciation of Zappa a secret. It wouldn't be until the autumn of 1981 that I would become more public about my Zappa fandom. That was when I met two unabashed Zappa fanatics -- pals Paul and Steve (both of whom have been featured in previous posts). They had, to my envy, attended a Frank Zappa concert at the local hockey arena the previous November. I knew about the show, but chose not to attend it. It's a regret I still have today and, since Zappa's premature death from prostate cancer in 1993, it is a missed opportunity I can no longer rectify.

The 500 - # 322 - Sail Away - Randy Newman

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 322

Album Title: Sail Away

Artist: Randy Newman

Genre: Orchestral Pop, Satire

Recorded: Three studios in Los Angeles, California, USA

Released: May, 1972

My age at release: 6

How familiar was I with it before this week: 1 song

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #268 (up 54 places)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Political Science

Sail Away is Randy Newman's third studio recording and also the third of three records he has on The 500. In August, 2021, my friend Rob Hodson guest blogged for the record, 12 Songs, and I penned a post for Newman’s fourth record, Good Old Boys, about a year earlier.

In the final paragraph of that 2020, post, I talked about the "uncomfortable, but titillating thrill" that comes from really well-crafted and provocative satire. I cited the films Monty Python's Life Of Brian and Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles as two examples of media that lampooned taboo subjects in order to shine a critical light on more important societal injustices and hypocrisies.  

Randy Newman albums are masterpieces in satirical commentary. My first exposure to the legendary songwriter, pianist and singer was in the winter of 1977 when his song Short People hit the charts. I was 12 and, initially, was shocked by the lyrics. As were many people, but we had completely missed the point.

Short People Lyric and Album Cover

To my credit, likely because I was already a fan of Monty Python, MAD magazine and had heard a National Lampoon record, I deduced this was a spoof and Newman had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Short People was, if you paid attention to the lyrics in the bridge section, an indictment on the ridiculousness of racist beliefs.

Short People (Lyrics from the bridge) Alternate Album Cover

Sail Away is full of marvelously witty, facetious lyrics performed over catchy, melodic piano scores. Newman is accompanied by a who’s who of session players, including Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, and clarinetist and saxophonist Abe Most, best known for his work with the swing bands of the 1930sm – not the least being Benny Goodman's Orchestra.

Abe Most

At first pass, the title track on Sail Away seems like a jingoistic characterization of “immigrants” bound for America. However, on closer examination, the lyrics reveal the perspective of an 18th Century slave trader addressing his human cargo as it arrives in Charleston Bay, South Carolina.

Album Cover for Sail Away / Political Science Single Release

The tracks He Gives Us All His Love and God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) could easily be misinterpreted as celebrations of faith. However, Newman, who was raised as a non-observant Jew, has often said that organized religion never made any sense to him.

In an interview, he recounted a time when, as a teen, he was invited by a classmate to a cotillion (dance) at her country club. He accepted, but received a call from the girl's father to disinvite him. The father said his daughter "never should have invited him because Jews are not allowed at the club". The incident was, understandably, scarring and led Newman toward the atheism that manifests in his lyrics.

Newman performing - mid 70s.

All three of Newman's records on The 500 list are gems -- musical delights with deliciously rich, funny and entertaining lyrics. Of the three, I think I like Sail Away the best. Prior to this week, the only track I knew from this record was, You Can Leave Your Hat On, although I was unaware  Newman had penned it. There is a version by singer Joe Cocker that was made famous in the erotic drama 9 1/2 Weeks) and a Tom Jones take (used delightfully in the comedy The Full Monty).

With The Full Monty in production to be released as an eight-episode television series with the original cast, I expect another iteration recorded by a contemporary pop star will soon be in the contemporary zeitgeist.

The 500 - #356 - 12 Songs - Randy Newman

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 356

Album Title: 12 Songs

Artist: Randy Newman

Genre: Roots Music, Satirical

Recorded: RCA Studios, Hollywood, LA

Released: February, 1970

My age at release: 4 - my guest blogger, Rob Hodson, was 13.

How familiar was I with it before this week: One Song

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Have You Seen My Baby?

This week, I welcome back a guest blogger, Rob Hodson. We have known each other for 20 years having met met and taught together at two schools in London Ontario -- Lorne Avenue and Eagle Heights. Lunchroom breaks, discussing music, film, television, comedy and comic books with Rob were always highlights in my school day. 

Rob is a gifted artist and I leaned heavily on his expertise when developing art activities for my classes. He and his wife, Susan (Susan Day Ceramics on Instagram), have completed several beautiful and socially relevant tiled murals around our city...with more to come. Rob gave me some ideas for my John post in December, 2019, and he returns here to share his thoughts on Randy Newman's second album. Enjoy.

Three London, Ontario, tile-mural examples
completed by Susan and Rob

It's always amazing to me how music can conjure up a time and a place. You can be walking down the street and hear a familiar melody and a funny smile immediately hits your face. You can't really express why, but something clicks inside and you make a connection to an event from years before. To paraphrase a great line I heard years ago, "the music you listened to from the time in your life when you were most happy and free, will always resonate within you". For me, much of that music comes from Randy Newman's 1970 album 12 Songs.

Randy Newman - 12 Songs Album Cover

I was finishing high school and desperate to escape from home when my best friend, and stoner buddy, Chuck Jewitt, was offered a job in Victoria B.C. He had recently completed his training as a Respiratory Technician and asked me to come with him for moral support and a GREAT ADVENTURE. British Columbia was as far away from London, Ontario as you could get while still remaining in the country -- and I jumped at the chance to escape. It was the summer of 1975. I was 18 and Victoria seemed as exotic as Paris in the 1930s.

London to Victoria 4000 km as the crow flies

The train was the cheapest available transportation and, after nine days of uncomfortable but fantastic travel, there we were on the other side of the world -- British Columbia. We spent a day wandering Vancouver until the ferry left and we travelled (across the ocean!) to Victoria. I'd never seen the ocean, never been on a ship, never seen mountains and never seen anything like the girls in the west. On that first trip across to the island, I saw dolphins working in unison to drive fish ahead of them, and a stunningly beautiful girl kissed me for loaning her a cigarette. I felt like I was in Narnia.

BC Ferry - Current Day

Barely a week after we arrived in Victoria I got a job as a dishwasher at the Keg restaurant right in the heart of the city. It overlooked the inner harbour and the sun set on the water as boat-planes landed and sailboats came and went on shimmering golden waves. For a poor boy from the dull plains of southern Ontario it seemed a place of almost magical beauty. As I worked my way up from dishwasher to prep chef to line cook and finally to waiter and bartender, I made friends with the other members of the staff. The place was huge, the first Keg in Canada, and I learned a work ethic that has lasted me to this day.

The Keg - Victoria - 2018 photo, with harbour view in windows 

I was working in the kitchen when one of the waiters, Jeremy Ball, was talking to another guy about about an album they'd just heard the night before. It was, he said, this weird prog-rock mix of piano, guitar and bizarre sounds and he couldn't get it out of his head, but he couldn't remember the name of the band or the album either. -- common party problem. He and the other guy started doing riffs and lyrics cobbled together from drug influenced memories. They could only remember a few isolated lyrics. I listened and said: “It sounds like Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Karn Evil 9 from Brain Salad Surgery?” 

Album Cover for Brain Salad Surgery by 
Emerson, Lake and Palmer

That was it and, for Jeremy, this gave me immediate credibility.  Jeremy, it turned out, was an Audiophile. He was into music with a capital M. All kinds, every kind, but it had to be really, really well made and had to be played on a really, really, good music system. As the nights of work went by he and I talked more and more about music. We'd both been hooked into classical music by the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. We'd both been the only kids at our high school into the progressive rock band King Crimson and we loved the swampy-blues-rock of Little Feat. Most importantly, perhaps, we considered it an outrage that The Tubes weren't considered music gods by more people.

Album Cover for A Clockwork Orange Soundtrack

You have to remember that back then, TV was the lowest of the low.
Almost nobody my age had a TV. If they did, they wouldn't watch anything but late night monster movies with the sound off and the music on. When a twenty-something moved into a new place, the first thing they did was set up the stereo. Nothing else really mattered and very often you truly had nothing else -- Ikea minimalism, long before it was stylish.


Chuck and I had been forced to leave our stereos and albums behind in Ontario and we were saving up to buy a good system. Jeremy was having a party one night after work and by three or four in the morning, it was just a few of us diehards left. His stereo system was like nothing I had ever seen before. The turntable looked like a glistening oil derrick. It had gyroscopes to to balance the album
perfectly. It had a belt drive and you could adjust the speed to make music sound faster and more exciting just like real disc jockeys used to do in the old days. The tone arm took ten seconds to slowly lower to meet the vinyl as gently as a kiss. The speakers were from Germany, six inches thick and hung on the wall strategically for the absolute optimum sound. It was like a cathedral. He carefully cleaned each album with an anti-static brush before and after (!) listening to a side. Nobody was allowed to touch the system except him, and I would never have dared even if he'd asked me.

I was flipping through his vast collection and the artwork on the album cover for 12  Songs caught my eye. A simple black and white photo which struck me as funny right off. A small chair, for a child to sit in and on the other side a rocking chair. In between, a television. Brain candy from the cradle to the grave.

Don't think, just watch. 

I'd never heard of Randy Newman and neither had anyone other than Jeremy and although the album had been released in 1970, five years earlier, it was not what you'd call a hot seller. I did some research and by 1975 it had sold only a meager 4500 copies, despite being publicly adored by Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. 

The album starts off with these almost silly horns honking away to introduce Have You Seen My Baby? The song is less than 3 minutes long, but it pulls you in as a story of a man who just desperately misses the fun and the joy, that a woman (his baby) once brought into his life. 

The next song, Let's Burn Down the Cornfield is another lament for love. Slow, sad, angry and basically about a man who is willing to burn the world for the woman he loves. Mama Told Me Not To Come has all the trademarks of Newman's funny, sly and sarcastic view of society and the world. The song has been recording by a very wide and weird group of performers, topping the charts earlier that year when recorded by Three Dog Night.

Yellow Man was the first of many Newman songs to engage publicly with the systemic racism in the U.S. The lyrics are sad and sarcastic and daringly deceptive because of their simplicity. It was music that was revolutionary because it dared to be quiet. It was hardcore because it was thoughtful. As disco was just beginning to explode this was an album full of twangy guitars and subtle riffs, but also ripe with irony, vision and humour. It wasn't sophisticated, but it certainly wasn't easy either and that has been the core of Newman's work for the last fifty years. Additionally, this album introduced me to one of my absolute favourites, Ry Cooder, whose guitar work is soft, sly and brilliant.

Ry Cooder (mid-70s)

Newman comes by his musical chops honestly. His family contained many musicians that did everything from conducting orchestras to scoring films. Just shortly after 12 Songs was released, Mick Jagger
asked Newman to do the score for his 1970 rock film Performance. 

Movie Poster for Performance (1970)

This opportunity set Newman on the path to becoming a mainstay as a film score composer. He is responsible for the soundtrack to more than 25 motion pictures,  including all four of the Toy Story movies.

One of the early reviews for 12 Songs read: “Once you get used to his voice the album is pretty good.” High praise, and I'll bet Newman laughed his ass off when he heard it.

The 500 - #394 - Good Old Boys - Randy Newman

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 394

Album Title: Good Old Boys
Artist: Randy Newman
Genre:  Roots Rock, Country Rock, Satire
Recorded: Warner Brothers' Studio, Hollywood, CA (72-74)
Released: September, 1974
My age at release: 9
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: Marie

Recently, the Canadian subscription channel Crave re-released Chappelle's Show, an early 2000s American sketch comedy program created by and starring comedian Dave Chappelle. The groundbreaking and critically acclaimed series challenged racial stereotypes through provocative and controversial satire. 

In one sketch, a spoof of the PBS news program Frontline, we meet Clayton Bigsby a blind, white supremacist who is unaware that he is black. In another, a parody of modern day professional sports drafts, various multiracial celebrities are "claimed" by a single race. Tiger Woods, who is African-American-Thai-Chinese, is drafted by The Blacks, while Jewish-African-American Lenny Kravitz is selected by a Hasidic Rabbi representing the Jewish Team.

Clayton Bigsby - Black White Supremacist (top)
and Racial Draft from Chappelle's Show

The show is not for everyone. It doesn't only push the envelope, it bursts right through it. This week's record, Good Old Boys, by Randy Newman does the same. Released in 1974, the record pulls no punches as it addresses issues including institutional racism, poverty and homelessness. It was originally intended to be a concept record, perhaps even a musical, about a character named Johnny Cutler, a regular guy from the deep south. However, only the "kernel of this concept" survived and the record featured a number of unrelated tracks.

Much like Chappelle's Show, no one is spared from Newman's satirical assault. On the opening track, Rednecks, his narrator, Cutler, lists the negative stereotypes regularly associated with men from the deep south. However, as the song continues, Cutler turns his attention to the hypocrisy of northern liberals who claimed to be racially enlightened -- a polite fallacy obscuring a reality of racial segregation, which occurred through practices such as redlining or the phenomenon of white flight. In either situation, caustic or polite, African-American communities are marginalized.

I have always loved satire. Blazing Saddles, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and Dr. Strangelove were among my favourite films before I was old enough to fully appreciate the full force of their satirical messages. They are that rare breed of film that could appeal to all ages, for entirely different reasons. They brilliantly blend simple, slapstick comedy with powerful social commentary. The uncomfortable but titillating thrill I got from those films was captured in a delightfully provocative 34 minutes of music from Newman on this, his first of three records on The 500.