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Rating:
I would start by quoting some passages from "Abbecedario delle cose mostruose," a ragged medieval bestiary written in macaronic Latin by Aloysius Grunt, a scholar of imaginary zoology and Duke of Plums.
Aloysius, noble yet wild, lived in perpetual seclusion, alien to any contact with those beings, humans, whom he despised more than anything else. Solitude soon led him to extravagant interests and even more extravagant ideas.
He was convinced that there was no salvation in the normal order of things and that only the unheard-of, the unknown, and the monstrous would give meaning to the world. For this reason, all the repellent beasts that then populated the fears of men represented for him the only hope of redemption.
Especially, although he had never seen one, he was obsessed with dragons, offspring of all possible putridness and lords of stagnant waters. In the bestiary, you can read phrases like "The fire that comes out of their mouths is but a laugh" "What I would give to see them even once happily grazing in their total absence of grace!!!"
But let's get to the passage that concerns us closely:
"You can't imagine how joyous it is for dragons to feast on a good soup of warm mice. After gulping down three or four bowls of it, their terrifying expression changes to seraphic, becoming just like that of a gigantic infant just detached from an equally gigantic breast. But it doesn't end here, as this expression is only the prelude to an even more bizarre occurrence: the flying lizards, in fact, suddenly start to dance to the notes of the most bizarre music ever heard, which emanates from their own stomachs. Don't think of thundering belches, but rather of graceful internal noises."
Aloisyus, with great imaginative effort, tries to describe that music and does so with words that almost seem to allude to certain Zappa-like quirks.
"An airy and bonhomous melody blown into the sky by a kind of laughing gas while everything seems to go from pillar to post and from post to pillar."
Damn, it seems he's describing "Peaches en Regalia"!!!! What was Uncle Frank doing in Europe around the year one thousand?
But perhaps Aloysius Grunt is just one of the thousand incarnations of the Zappa spirit, irrespective of whether it's retroactive, backdated, or whatever the hell you call it.
And the Zappa spirit, a kind of opposite of the sublime more sublime than the sublime itself, is one of those things that make the world a better place.
After all, as the poet says, "it is a fart that announces paradise." Certainly not Chopin...
Trallallà...
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Peaches En Regalia (03:40)
Jean-Luc Ponty - Violin, Keyboards
Paul Humphrey - Violin, Drums
Shuggie Otis - Bass, Guitar
Lowell George - Guitar
Captain Beefheart - Harmonica, Keyboards, Vocals
Max Bennett - Bass
Frank Zappa - Bass, Guitar, Percussion, Arranger, Composer, Keyboards,
Vocals, Producer, Octave Bass
John Guerin - Drums
Don "Sugarcane" Harris - Violin, Vocals
Jack Hunt - Engineer
Brian Ingoldsby - Engineer
Dick Kunc - Engineer, Director of Engineering
Cal Schenkel - Design, Cover Design
Ron Selico - Drums
Ian Underwood - Organ, Clarinet, Flute, Guitar, Piano, Saxophone
John Williams - Design
Max Bennet - Bass
Cliff Goldstein - Engineer
03 Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up (05:24)
Frank Zappa (lead guitar, vocals)
Warren Cucurullo (rhythm guitar, vocals)
Denny Walley (slide guitar, vocals)
Ike Willis (lead vocals)
Peter Wolf (keyboards)
Tommy Mars (keyboards)
Arthur Barrow (bass, vocals)
Ed Mann (percussion)
Vinnie Colaiuta (drums)
Jeff (tenor saxophone)
Marginal Chagrin (baritone saxophone)
Stumuk (bass saxophone)
Dale Bozzio (vocals)
Al Malkin (vocals)
Craig Steward (harmonica)
JOE is so disoriented by his disease, he goes in the other room and plays the title cut from an old Jeff Simmons album, and sings along with it.
Joe:
Lucille
Has messed my mind up
But I still love her
Oh I still love her
Lucille
Has messed my mind up
But I still love her
Oh I still love her
Lucille
Has messed my mind up
But I still need her
You know I need her
Whatcha tryna doota me
Lucille?
Whatcha tryna doota me
Lucille?
Whatcha tryna doota me
Lucille?
You got me goin' outa my mind
Lucille
Has tore my heart up
But I still love her
I really love her
Lucille
Has tore my heart up
But I still need her
You know I need her
She treats me like my heart
Is made of stone
She runs around
And leaves me home
All alone
She doesn't answer
When I call her on the phone
She messed up my mind
I'm crying alla the time
Lucille
Has messed my mind up (etc., etc., etc.)
Central Scrutinizer:
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...again, Hi!...It's me again, the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...Joe says Lucille has messed his mind up, but, was it the girl or was it the music? As you can see...girls, music, disease, heartbreak...they all go together...Joe found out the hard way, but his troubles were just beginning...his mind was so messed up...he could hardly do nothin'...He was in a quandary...being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own steaming desires...the guy was a wreck...so...what does he do? For once, he does something SMART...he goes out...and pays a lot of money to L. Ron Hoover... at the First Church of Appliantology!
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