We're Only in It for the Money

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We're Only in It For the Money is a rock 'n' roll album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. Displaying snippets of styles as diverse as 1950s doo-wop to 1960s surf music to avant-garde orchestral doodlings, the album peaked at #30 on North America's Billboard Music Charts pop albums chart. The album is a parody of hippie culture and Summer of Love and a satire on the superficial nature of life in the United States.

First released in 1968 (see 1968 in music), it was rereleased by Rykodisc in 1986 with newly recorded percussion tracks. Parts censored from the original release were also restored. The album was included in Q magazine's list of the "Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time." Template:RS500

The song "Flower Punk" is based upon "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, who himself features in the cover art.

1 History
2 Censorship
3 Cover art
4 Track listing
5 Personnel
6 Production
7 Charts
8 External links

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History

In 1967, Zappa conceived the idea for an album, Our Man in Nirvana, which would combine the music of his band The Mothers of Invention with comedy routines by Lenny Bruce (who had performed with Zappa at The Fillmore in 1966). [1] However, when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released and Zappa noticed its cultural effect, he felt that the then-popular flower power scene had and would continue to have a major influence on popular culture. Consequently he decided to produce instead a satirical album that parodied every cynical aspect of the fad, Sgt. Pepper, and 1960s US society. [2] The only vestige of the original album idea in We're Only in It... is the phrase "Don't come in me, in me, in me..." in the song "Harry, You're A Beast", a reference to a Lenny Bruce routine about ejaculation. [3]

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Censorship

Initial releases of the album had certain sections of songs edited or removed due to perceived offensiveness. These instances of "censorship" varied depending on release; general consensus is that Frank himself was responsible for the first series of cuts (perhaps in an attempt to stave off exactly what would happen later), while Verve is probably responsible for the second set. These two sets of edits are often distinguished by the monikers "censored" and "heavily censored." Tracks affected include:

"Who Needs the Peace Corps?": a spoken line "I will love the police as they kick the shit out of me" was cut out of the heavily-censored version.
"Concentration Moon": Gary Kellgren's whispered statement describing The Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention as 'shitty' was cut. In one of the more interesting cases of album censorship, three different variations of the cut exist: the most common version (and the one that made it to the '95 reissue) has the line completely cut, the heavily-censored version has only the "shitty" reference cut, while Canadian LP issues seem to include the line intact.
"Absolutely Free": The spoken word lines "I don't do publicity balling for you any more" and remark "Flower power sucks!" were removed on the heavily-censored version.
"Let's Make the Water Turn Black": Several lines of the song are removed from the heavily-censored version.
"Mother People": a verse containing the expletives 'fucking' and 'shitty' was replaced with another; the original was reversed and appended to the track "Hot Poop" (even there, however, "fucking" is absent, and the heavily-censored version omits the backwards verse entirely). (The line is: "Better look around before you say you don't care/Shut your fucking mouth 'bout the length of my hair/how would you survive/if you were alive/shitty little person?")

The 1986 release with new drum and bass tracks reinstated these sections, while the 1995 release with the original musical parts reverted to the "standard" set of US censorship.

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Cover art

Image:FrankZappaWe'reOnlyinItfortheMoneyalbumcover.jpg

The front cover Zappa originally intended to use for the album mimics the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The double Sgt. Pepper cover had a collage of famous people by Peter Blake on the outside and a portrait of the band on the inside. Zappa's record company demurred and put the Sgt. Pepper parody on the inside and the picture of the band on the outside; a later Rykodisc release on CD featured the original photo restored to the front cover. Next to Zappa's head, a speech bubble has him questioning, "Is this phase one of Lumpy Gravy?"

One section of the CD liner art features a series of badge, banknote, and facial hair cut-outs, satirising those of Sgt. Pepper, with some differences; one badge features a small photograph of recording engineer Gary Kellgren and the other is a nipple.

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Track listing

all tracks by Frank Zappa

"Are You Hung Up?" - 1:25
"Who Needs the Peace Corps?" - 2:34
"Concentration Moon" - 2:22
"Mom and Dad" - 2:16
"Telephone Conversation" - 0:49
"Bow Tie Daddy" - 0:33
"Harry, You're a Beast" - 1:21
"What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" - 1:03 Image:Sound-icon.png (song sample, 258KB)
"Absolutely Free" - 3:24
"Flower Punk" - 3:03
"Hot Poop" - 0:26
"Nasal Retentive Calliope Music" - 2:02
"Let's Make the Water Turn Black" - 2:01
"The Idiot Bastard Son" - 3:18
"Lonely Little Girl" - 1:09
"Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" - 1:32
"What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body? (Reprise)" - 1:02
"Mother People" - 2:26
"The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny" - 6:26

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Personnel

Frank Zappa - guitar, piano, vocals, voices
Dick Barber - vocals
Jimmy Carl Black - trumpet, drums, vocals
Eric Clapton - speaking part
Roy Estrada - electric bass, vocals
Bunk Gardner - woodwind
Gary Kellgren - whisper
Billy Mundi - drums, vocals
Don Preston - keyboards
Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood - baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, voices
Spider
Suzy Creamcheese - telephone voice
Ian Underwood - piano, keyboards, voices, woodwind
Pamela Zarubica - vocals