I'm somewhat wiser now...

"Go cry on somebody else's shoulder
I'm somewhat wiser now, and one whole year older."
Mothers of Invention - Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder

We've been listening through Zappa's first album with the Mothers of Invention in class. Freak Out! is... well... interesting.

I didn't really know what to expect from this CD. It was written with what sounds like something me and my friends call "music ADD" - inability to stick to one type of music, or one song for too long. One song on this CD will be rock, the next is doo-wop, the next avant-garde experimental, the kind of stuff you would expect someone like Pink Floyd to do (except obviously written years before they began doing this).

I didn't like every song I heard, that's for sure. While the subject matter was easy enough to understand with both the lyrics and commentary from the teacher, it was just not the kind of music I would normally listen to. There were a few tracks I thoroughly enjoyed, just from a musical point of view - Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder, Who Are The Brain Police, and Wowie Zowie, among others.

This first album has some recurring themes; American values and society (and how he doesn't like them), relationships (mostly making fun of them, though), and authority issues. The latter stems from the group he hung out with at the time, affectionately known as the Freaks. These people were not your typical crowd of the day, and many had long hair (*gasp*). Because of this, they were constantly getting in trouble with the law, for no good reason. This hit home with me - in every generation, there's at least one or two groups that get picked on by authority for the way they look. In Zappa's day, it was the Freaks - in mine, some of them are the goths and emo kids. Even in my father's youth (he was in high school in the 70s), he was watched carefully by store managers and cops for having long hair.

Zappa also used the album art of the Freak Out! album to further illustrate his views and ideas. From liner notes explaining who songs were written for and why, to lists of people he found influential, Zappa used the sleeve as a blank canvas, and also as a marketing tool.

I think I'll have to listen to this album over again. I can't fully appreciate something with just one listen.