Despite his sad passing over thirty years ago, Frank Zappa’s spirit continues to permeate pop culture. He is best remembered as one of rock’s foremost experimentalists, blending guitar music with avant-garde spirit and sardonic lyrics to such an impact, that it paved the way for the likes of Steely Dan, Mike Patton and Primus in the future. Elsewhere, though, his hot takes also remain a clear reminder of just how unique the American was, and offer insight into the complex machinery of his psyche.
As made clear when listening to tracks such as the divisive ‘Bobby Brown’ or his razor-sharp takedown of Scientology ‘A Token of My Extreme’, Zappa was no stranger to offending people. In fact, it was an intrinsic part of his act. Whether listeners agreed with his lyrics or not, his intense lyrics chime with the boundary-pushing nature of his sonics.
Although Zappa’s opinions encompassed everything from politics to the American youth, one area that he particularly specialised in critiquing was music. As expected, some of his most prominent peers were not safe from the lashings of his acid tongue. This included the most celebrated band of the classic rock period, and arguably the most consequential of all time, The Beatles.
In typical fashion, Zappa was having none of the ‘Fab Four’. He famously lampooned the artwork of 1968’s Sgt. Pepper’s on the original cover of The Mothers of Invention’s third album from that year, the pointedly named We’re Only In It For The Money. The record featured early Zappa classics such as ‘Are You Hung Up?’, ‘Absolutely Free’ and ‘Flower Punk’, three obvious takedowns of the hippie movement that The Beatles embodied thanks to the stellar psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s.
“Everybody else thought they were God!” Zappa said of The Beatles. “I think that was not correct. They were just a good commercial group.” Whilst anyone can find agreement with some of what Zappa says here, it is made unfathomable when we note that he preferred The Monkees, the ultimate commercial group and fodder for teenyboppers everywhere.”
Naturally, those closest to Zappa were acutely aware of the true range of his feelings towards the world’s most famous band. This includes Pauline Butcher, his PA from 1967 to 1971, who years later, would offer a more balanced take on his thoughts on the Liverpudlian quartet.
Speaking to Louder Sound in 2012, some 19 years after Zappa’s passing, Butcher explained why Zappa was so vociferously opposed to groups such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. She revealed that his hatred for them, and the way he positioned himself as their antithesis, came out of necessity more than anything, and was for marketing reasons.
Offering a different side to Zappa’s character, Butcher explained: “He worked out he wasn’t a pretty boy like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he didn’t play their kind of music, he didn’t even like it, and if he was going to get himself heard he was going to have to do something radically different. He went out of his way to have outrageous photographs taken: the one on the toilet, the one with his pigtails sticking out like a spaniel, dressing up in women’s clothes. All these things were calculated because he had to get himself attention.”
