The last line of the song “Unless we extend her” is a self reference to the song Caroline Hard-Core Ecstasy off of Bong Fury where the lyric is “She couldn’t talk cause her mouth had been extendered”. That song is about a woman getting a man to step on her with boots for pleasure. This self referential stuff is all of Zappa’s work and is apart of his so-called “Conceptual Continuity”
This song was new for the 1988 tour, but part of the music for it was played during the end of year 1976 run of shows in NYC with the NBC Orchestra horn section sitting in. Frank played a little piece of this music within a longer piece titled The Purple Lagoon, introducing it with, "We have an insert, with a little bit of S&M allusion." Frank was sitting on this great music for 12 years before he ever played it in full. Nothing ever went to waste.
@@MikeMacabre Nice way to put it. Between 1966 and 1993, he released 57 albums, many of them double albums. The official count is 62, but that included reissues of old albums... Since his passing, even more albums than that have been released and tons more to come. UMG bought the rights to everything to do with Zappa, right down to his "image likeness." They're going to get bang for their buck, and all the music in the voluminous vault is theirs to do with as they wish.
Frank introduced ths song at some shows with the approximated words: "And now - Madison Avenue, where all men are white, and women sell detergent!" Keep in mind that it was usually preceded by a certain song depicting Wall Street as a place where masculinized women and feminised men, near-indistinguishable, continually belittle and exploit one another.
I love Frank's sense of humor. I'm not necessarily a fan of his instrumental pieces, but then I'm not a fan of instrumental work no matter who does it. Classical music being the exception. I've only heard 1 or 2 Captain Beefheart songs, which were fine but I don't remember which songs I listened to.
When I was 16 (in 1976) I started earning more than kid's money. Not a lot, but enough to start buying small stuff just because I could. I bought some second hand albums just because I liked the sleeve art. It forced me to like shit that might be shit. *The Spotlight Kid* Zappa'd my till then Led Zepp'd little mind (though TSK is "considered" a weak album).
✅🎼Thanks for this reaction. I've heard many hilarious / satirical Zappa numbers, but probably have ten times as many to go, and certainly not this one before. Yeah, loved the solo. And the musicianship and jazz / weird / improvisational like creativity is outstanding, as always. On a vaguely related note, have you enjoyed any of the albums/songs by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band?
@@MikeMacabre You've plunged me back into his world which I mostly paid attention to when I was 16, and not so much since. I'm going to be super busy for a few days but plan to get the hour it'll take to watch the BBC documentary footage about him, narrated by no less than John Peel -- who I now realize is probably the reason I bought The Spotlight Kid album in 1976. At the start of the documentary, John Peel says something to the effect that in his opinion Beefheart was the most important rock artist to emerge from the 1960s and 1970s! Then comes an interview with Zappa who said that as a kid he spent a lot of time hanging out with Beefheart at the latters' house. Some pennies have dropped for me. Anyhoo, like I said, I will be checking stuff out and dropping a suggestion or two once I find what I think is solid gold. Might take a week or two. Keep reacting to other stuff and I'll drop in when I can and share a link or three.
Frank's own comment on this song was: "The whole idea of what constitutes a woman in the United States has, to a degree, been manufactured for you by some guys who got together on Madison Avenue and said : this is what a woman looks like, this is how a woman acts, and this is what a woman does. It's completely fake, but that's what you've been merchandised."
@@MikeMacabre city of tiny lites ‘77 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YBbH6EsNBAQ.htmlsi=PcIPCcwypdgBE-9v from baby snakes video is great.
@@MikeMacabre or Punkys whips, from same show, featuring Terry Bozzio on drums and vocals. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gSUHGcVda0g.htmlsi=QY35z4CzntvdEo0v
