Absolutely Free

Freak Out! cost Verve $20,000 to make, more than double the cost of a typical album at the time. When it struggled to sell, the record company only allowed a budget of $11,000 for the follow up, which was recorded on four-track over just four days from November 15–18, 1966 at TTG studios in Los Angeles, with additional mixing and editing at MGM in New York City a week later.Absolutely Free libretto Tom Wilson again sat in the producer's chair, although it is generally agreed that he took a hands-off approach and let Zappa have full creative control. Unlike Freak Out!, which used extensive orchestration, the budget this time only allowed for orchestral additions to "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", with the band playing virtually live in the studio for most tracks. Since many of the songs were complex multi-sectional pieces, the group would do up to 30 takes of each specific section of a track, which were then strung together in editing.{{cite web|url=https://www.afka.net/Articles/1993-summer_Ptolemaic_Terrascope.htm|title=The Mothers Tapes (Spool Three)- Don Preston|access-date=22 June 2024}} According to Zappa, the group had "one day with 15 minutes per tune to do all the vocals on that album. That's right. It's called 'sing or get off the pot'."{{cite magazine | last = Fricke | first = David | date = April 1979 | title = Bad Taste is Timeless: Cruising Down Memory Lane With Frank Zappa | url = https://www.afka.net/Articles/1979-04_Trouser_Press.htm | magazine = Trouser Press | access-date = 22 June 2024}}

Zappa intended the album to be divided into two operatic suites with all the songs continually linked, which at the time of recording predated the release of The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first suite, entitled "Absolutely Free", is essentially a send-up of a romantic love story with fruits and vegetables acting as a metaphor for people; the second suite, "The M.O.I. American Pageant", is a trenchant social commentary on American life including aspects of social status and mobility, consumerism, alcoholism, greed, and political corruption.

"Plastic People" evolved from the group's cover of "Louie Louie", with new lyrics. It opens with an announcement of the President of the United States, who is ill and needs chicken soup, before going on to critique the "plastic" hippies who hung out at clubs like Pandora's Box, the epicenter of the Sunset Strip Riots happening at the time of the album's recording. "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" later in the album goes further into the subject, which presages the themes of The Mothers' next album.

The primary subject of the suite, food, appears on this mock-Album-oriented rock love ballad with comedic lyrics improvised by Ray Collins,{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/necessityisearly0000jame/page/40/mode/2up|title=Necessity is...: the early years of Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention|last=James|first=Billy|year=2001|publisher=SAF Publishing|location=London|isbn=9780946719518|page=40|quote=Ray Collins recalls that, 'Frank had this beautiful tune called "And Very True," and when we went in to record it, being a little crazy at the time, I just ad-libbed on the spot. The original lyrics I think were something like "Moonbeam through the night," something very loving, although Frank didn't like love songs. And I changed it to, "Moonbeam through the prune, in June, I can see your tits." I just made it up on the spot. So later, after we recorded it - you can hear Frank cracking up on record - it was fun.'}} who, as the Duke of Prunes, attempts to pick up a woman at the supermarket by using food references that are meant as euphemisms for sex. The track was based on an original piece called "And Very True", which Zappa had composed for the score of a Western called Run Home, Slow.{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4lNRIZm_baQC | last = Slavan | first = Neal | title = Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa | year = 2003 | publisher = Omnibus Press | location = London | isbn = 9780857120434 | page = 32}}{{cite book | title = Frank Zappa | first = Barry | last = Miles| publisher = Atlantic Books | location = London | date = 2004 | isbn = 9781843540922}}

According to the album's libretto, the Duke attempts to pick up two cheerleaders in a parking lot when they bash him in the face, giving him amnesia. This is portrayed musically as a one minute free-jazz freak out which eventually quotes Stravinsky's The Firebird.

The Duke suddenly recovers his memory as a reprise of "Duke of Prunes" appears in a faster tempo before the Duke attempts his final pick-up by singing a Supremes-like tune reminiscent of "Baby Love".

The food imagery continues on this frantic rocker, although Zappa claimed "vegetables" referred to people who are inactive in society, but who might be "woken up" if moved sufficiently—hence the idea to call the vegetable and release the person from apathy.{{cite magazine | last = Zappa | first = Frank | date = 31 August – 13 September 1967 | title = Mothers of Inventions: The Lyrics are Absolutely Free| url = https://www.donlope.net/fz/docs/IT_1967-08-31.html | magazine = International Times | access-date = 22 June 2024}}

This seven-minute instrumental opens with a quote from Holst's The Planets before morphing into a wild, proto-jazz fusion group jam in which Zappa displays his improvisational guitar skills for the first time on record.

A reprise of "Call Any Vegetable", somewhat slower and bluesier with harmonica accompaniment, in which Zappa instructs his listeners how to call to vegetables. The speed then increases to a very fast tempo before ending on a series of sexual pants.

The second suite opens with this send-up of a lounge ballad, sung deliberately off-tempo as if the singer is very drunk, to illustrate the empty phoniness of American culture. This is followed by quotes from Fucik's "Entrance of the Gladiators" and the overture to Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, for a cartoonish circus ambience.

One of Zappa's doo-wop parodies, although there are oblique insertions of quotes from Stravinsky and Debussy. The lyrical content skewers high school social cliques, as a self-absorbed jock finds he's losing status with the pom-pom girls.

This relatively straightforward, fast-paced rocker critiques the makers of violent children's toys and compares them to the child's equally plastic parents. It closes with several overlapping voices attempting to sell the listener toy bombs, rockets, intestines, brass knuckles, and other grotesque products.

The character of Suzy Creamcheese, a groupie, was first introduced on Freak Out! Here we learn more about her desire to be "in" as she drops acid, stays out all night on Sunset Strip, steals her boyfriend's stash of drugs and attends a protest march in Berkeley. Zappa admitted that the rocker was one of the most difficult songs for The Mothers to learn to play due to its dizzying change of time signatures, moving between 4/4, 8/8, 9/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8 and back to 4/4.{{cite magazine | last = Kofsky | first = Frank | date = October 1967 | title = Frank Zappa: The Mothers of Invention | url = https://www.afka.net/Articles/1967-09_Jazz_Pop.htm | magazine = Jazz & Pop | access-date = 22 June 2024}}

Described by François Couture of AllMusic as a "condensed two-hour musical", the album's longest song, at over seven minutes, moves through 22 distinct sections covering psychedelia, chamber music, Sprechstimme, garage rock, classical, music hall, doo-wop, The Beach Boys, electronics, and more.{{cite magazine | last = Atkins | first = Jamie | date = 26 May 2024 | title = Absolutely Free: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's Early Classic | url = https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/frank-zappa-and-the-mothers-of-invention-absolutely-free-feature/ | magazine = Udiscover Music | access-date = 22 June 2024}} It is the only track on the album to feature outside orchestration, which climaxes the piece. There is also a homemade synthesizer played by Don Preston, one of the earliest appearances of such an instrument on a rock record. The song's primary subject is corruption in politics, as a city hall official fantasizes sleeping with a thirteen-year-old girl in graphic detail. The line "I'd like to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn" apparently held up the album's release, as an MGM exec protested its inclusion and wanted to change the line to "I'd like to make her do a crossword puzzle on the back of TV Guide."

A reprise of "America Drinks" set at the "Pompadour-a-Go-Go", this is a similar piano-based lounge ballad Zappa penned in 1964 over which sounds of drinking, gambling, and slot machines get louder until the song fades and only the sounds of drunk partygoers' grotesque laughs and screams remain, meant to illustrate the casual disrespect such audiences have for the performers. There is a stylistic similarity between this number and the later Beatles B-side "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" as well as The Rolling Stones' "On with the Show".

The album was planned for release in January 1967 but ran into trouble when Verve objected to Zappa's idea of printing the lyrics on the back cover, as well as to the phrase "war means work for all" on a billboard included in the illustrated collage which had also been constructed by Zappa. Months passed before a compromise was reached: the lyrics would not be printed on the album, but it was allowed for an ad to be placed in the gatefold for listeners to send one dollar for a complete libretto booklet containing lyrics and plot explanations.

{{Music ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1Score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}{{cite web |url= https://www.allmusic.com/album/absolutely-free-mw0000198347 |title=Absolutely Free – The Mothers of Invention |first=Steve |last=Huey |publisher=AllMusic |access-date=26 June 2011}}

| rev2 = Encyclopedia of Popular Music

| rev2Score = {{Rating|5|5}}{{cite book|last=Larkin|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=Encyclopedia of Popular Music|year=2002|publisher=Omnibus Press|edition=4th|isbn=978-0857125958|title-link=Encyclopedia of Popular Music}}

| rev3 = The Great Rock Bible

| rev3score = 8/10{{cite book|title=The Great Rock Bible|last=Strong|first=Martin C.|author-link=Martin C. Strong|edition=1st|year=2024|isbn=978-1-9127-3328-6|publisher=Red Planet Books}}

| rev4 = Kerrang!

| rev4Score = {{Rating|1|5}}{{cite magazine |title=Slippery Customers |magazine=Kerrang! |date=28 January 1989 |last=Henderson|first=Paul |issue=223 |page=18 |issn=0262-6624 }}

| rev5 = MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide

| rev5score = {{rating|4|5}}{{cite book|title=MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide|editor=Gary Graff|editor-link=Gary Graff|edition=1st|year=1996|location=London|isbn=978-0-7876-1037-1|publisher=Visible Ink Press}}

| rev6 = OndaRock

| rev6score = 9/10{{cite web|last=Marchini|first=Massimo|title=Frank Zappa|url=https://www.ondarock.it/songwriter/frankzappa.htm|access-date=7 March 2021|website=OndaRock|language=it}}

| rev7 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide

| rev7Score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}{{cite book |chapter=Frank Zappa |editor1-last=Brackett |editor1-first=Nathan |editor2-last=Hoard |editor2-first=Christian |first=Rob |last=Sheffield |author-link=Rob Sheffield |title=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide |edition=4th |year=2004 |publisher=Fireside Books |location=London |isbn=0-7432-0169-8 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t9eocwUfoSoC&q=frank+zappa|access-date=October 24, 2020 }}

| rev8 = Sputnikmusic

| rev8score = 5/5{{cite web|last=jimmy|first=praise|date=26 May 2013|title=Review: The Mothers of Invention - Absolutely Free|url=https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/57014/The-Mothers-of-Invention-Absolutely-Free/|access-date=7 March 2021|website=Sputnikmusic}}

| rev9 = Uncut

| rev9Score = 8/10 {{cite web |url=http://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/album/frank-zappathe-mothers-of-invention-reissues |title=Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention reissues |first=David |last=Cavanagh |website=uncut.co.uk |publisher=Uncut |access-date=25 December 2016 |archive-date=26 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226145620/http://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/album/frank-zappathe-mothers-of-invention-reissues |url-status=dead }}

|rev10 = The Village Voice

|rev10Score = B−{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|date=20 December 1976|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6N9LAAAAIBAJ&pg=6134,4535773|title=Christgau's Consumer Guide to 1967|newspaper=The Village Voice|page=69|location=New York|access-date=22 June 2013}}

| noprose = yes

}}

The album was eventually released on May 26, 1967. This was incidentally the same day as the UK release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which also had the idea of printed lyrics and no gaps between its songs; had Absolutely Free's release not been significantly delayed by issues over its cover art and lyrics, it would have predated The Beatles on these innovations. The album fared much better overall than Freak Out!, charting at #41 on Billboard and becoming a favorite of the underground.

In a contemporary review, Billboard magazine wondered whether the band were putting their audience on, but concluded that the album would rack up huge sales.{{cite magazine|title=Billboard Album Reviews|magazine=Billboard|date=1 July 1967|page=68|url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/60s/1967/Billboard%201967-07-01.pdf|access-date=22 June 2024}} Retrospectively, the album has received high praise as an early peak for Zappa's lyrical and compositional innovation, which had evolved considerably since Freak Out!. AllMusic calls it a "fabulously inventive record, bursting at the seams with ideas" while The New Rolling Stone Album Guide awarded four-and-a-half stars. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was somewhat less charitable, claiming that "as rock and roll it's a moderately amusing novelty record, much too obvious in its satire."

In the book Necessity Is..., former Mothers of Invention band member Ray Collins said that Absolutely Free is probably his favorite of the classic Mothers albums.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q9AkNKdIuEcC |page=51 |title=Necessity Is: The Early Years of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention |isbn=9780946719518 |last=James |first=Billy |year=2002 }}

The UK-67 release (Verve VLP/SVLP 9174) came in a laminated flip-back cover, with a Mike Raven poem at the reverse that was not on any other issue.

The CD reissue adds, between sides one and two, two songs that were featured on a rare Verve single of the time. The songs from the single, "Why Dontcha Do Me Right?" (titled "Why Don't You Do Me Right" on the 45) and "Big Leg Emma", were both described as "an attempt to make dumb music to appeal to dumb teenagers".{{cite web|last=Keeley|first=Matt|date=3 December 2018|title=Frank Zappa and the Mothers' 'Absolutely Free' Finds a Way Around the Sophomore Slump|url=https://kittysneezes.com/absolutely-free/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808182050/https://kittysneezes.com/absolutely-free/|archive-date=8 August 2020|website=Kittysneezes}}

{{Track listing

| headline = Side one: "Absolutely Free" (#1 in a Series of Underground Oratorios)

| total_length = 20:28

| all_writing = Frank Zappa

| title1 = Plastic People

| length1 = 3:40

| title2 = The Duke of Prunes

| length2 = 2:12

| title3 = Amnesia Vivace

| length3 = 1:01

| title4 = The Duke Regains His Chops

| length4 = 1:45

| title5 = Call Any Vegetable

| length5 = 2:19

| title6 = Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin

| note6 = instrumental

| length6 = 6:57

| title7 = Soft-Sell Conclusion

| length7 = 1:40

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = Side two: "The M.O.I. American Pageant" (#2 in a Series of Underground Oratorios)

| total_length = 19:23

| title1 = America Drinks

| length1 = 1:52

| title2 = Status Back Baby

| length2 = 2:52

| title3 = Uncle Bernie's Farm

| length3 = 2:09

| title4 = Son of Suzy Creamcheese

| length4 = 1:33

| title5 = Brown Shoes Don't Make It

| length5 = 7:26

| title6 = America Drinks & Goes Home

| length6 = 2:43

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = CD Reissue

| title1 = Plastic People

| length1 = 3:42

| title2 = The Duke of Prunes

| length2 = 2:13

| title3 = Amnesia Vivace

| length3 = 1:01

| title4 = The Duke Regains His Chops

| length4 = 1:52

| title5 = Call Any Vegetable

| length5 = 2:15

| title6 = Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin

| length6 = 7:00

| title7 = Soft-Sell Conclusion

| length7 = 1:40

| title8 = Big Leg Emma

| length8 = 2:31

| title9 = Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?

| length9 = 2:37

| title10 = America Drinks

| length10 = 1:53

| title11 = Status Back Baby

| length11 = 2:54

| title12 = Uncle Bernie's Farm

| length12 = 2:10

| title13 = Son of Suzy Creamcheese

| length13 = 1:34

| title14 = Brown Shoes Don't Make It

| length14 = 7:30

| title15 = America Drinks & Goes Home

| length15 = 2:45

}}

{{Track listing

| headline = 2017 Reissue Bonus Record

| title1 = Absolutely Free Radio Ad #1

| length1 =

1:01

| title2 = Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?

| length2 =

2:39

| title3 = Big Leg Emma

| length3 =

2:32

| title4 = Absolutely Free Radio Ad #2

| length4 =

1:01

| title5 = Glutton for Punishment...

| length5 =

0:24

| title6 = America Drinks (1969 Re-Mix)

| length6 =

1:55

| title7 = Brown Shoes Don't Make It (1969 Re-Mix)

| length7 =

7:27

| title8 = America Drinks & Go Home (1969 Re-Mix)

| length8 =

2:42

}}

The Mothers of Invention

• Frank Zappa – guitar, conductor, vocals
• Jimmy Carl Black – drums, vocals
• Ray Collins – vocals, tambourine, harmonica
• Roy Estrada – bass, vocals
• Billy Mundi – drums, percussion
• Don Preston – keyboards
• Jim Fielder (Uncredited) – guitar, piano
• Bunk Gardner – woodwinds

Additional musicians

{{col-begin}}

{{col-2}}

• Suzy Creamcheese (Lisa Cohen) – vocals on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• John Balkin – bass on "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" and "America Drinks"
• Jim Getzoff – violin on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• Marshall Sosson – violin on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• Alvin Dinkin – viola on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• Armand Kaproff – cello on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• Don Ellis – trumpet on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• John Rotella – contrabass clarinet on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
• Herb Cohen – cash register machine sounds on "America Drinks & Goes Home"
• Terry Gilliam, girlfriend and others – voices in "America Drinks & Goes Home"

;Note

(Jim Sherwood was credited as a member of The Mothers on the album's original release, but he actually joined the band during the recording of We're Only in It for the Money, and he isn't featured on this album.)

{{col-2}}

Production

• Frank Zappa – producer, arranger, layout design, cover art, collage, liner notes
• Tom Wilson – producer
• Val Valentin – director of engineering
• Ami Hadani – engineer
• David Greene – remixing
• Doug Sax – mastering
• Ferenc Dobronyi – cover design
• Cal Schenkel – cover design
• Alice Ochs – cover photo, artwork
• Jerry Deiter – photography

{{col-end}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.donlope.net/fz/lyrics/Absolutely_Free.html Lyrics and information]
• [http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/absolutely_free.html Release details]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930055308/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924245-1,00.html "The Meaning of Cordovans" reporter Hugh Sidey recalls the event when he saw Lyndon B. Johnson wearing the wrong shoes]

{{Frank Zappa albums}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1967 albums

Category:Frank Zappa albums

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Category:Albums produced by Tom Wilson (record producer)

Category:Verve Records albums

Category:The Mothers of Invention albums

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Category:Albums arranged by Frank Zappa

Category:Albums conducted by Frank Zappa

Category:Avant-pop albums

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