Zappa's earliest influences were 1950s pop and rock (such as doo-wop and rhythm and blues), and 20th-century classical composers including Igor Stravinsky and Edgard Varèse. His output was divided between adventurous instrumental compositions and succinct, catchy rock songs with ribald, satirical, or comically absurd lyrics. On stage he demanded virtuosity and spontaneity from his musicians, and employed many performers who would later go on to achieve fame in their own rights. He directed and released a number of films featuring himself, his musicians and entourage, including 200 Motels and Baby Snakes.
His career started in 1955. His earliest recordings date from the mid-1960s, and include collaborations with his school friend Captain Beefheart. In 1965 he joined a bar-band called The Soul Giants, quickly dominating its musical direction and rechristening it The Mothers. Their first release (as The Mothers of Invention; the name alteration requested by their record company) was the 1966 double album Freak Out!. The line-up of the Mothers gradually expanded to accommodate Zappa's increasingly ambitious and avant-garde music, but by 1969 he decided to work outside the band structure, focusing on his solo career, and effectively disbanding the Mothers in 1971.
The beginnings of his solo career in the late sixties and early seventies was characterised by a strong free jazz influence, with albums containing little, if any, lyrical content, such as Hot Rats, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo. Towards the mid-seventies his albums became more rock-orientated, with a combination of Jazz Fusion instrumentation and Rock song structures. This more accessible sound bore reasonable mainstream appeal, especially with the release of the well-advertised albums Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe (') (which both went Gold), but Zappa's unpredictably eclectic output never led to solid mainstream recognition. He received uniformly lukewarm reviews from popular music publications such as Rolling Stone throughout his career. In his late seventies' output, the gulf between his humorous songs and more lengthy, complex instrumental music widened, and albums, such as Zappa in New York, Joe's Garage: Acts I, II & III, and Sleep Dirt displayed, by track, both sides firmly segregated.
Zappa saw a second run of success in the early eighties with the release of many albums with predominantly comedic rock songs, but later continued to experiment with virtually every style of music through the eighties, and was productive as ever until his death. His output in this later-career period included two albums of strikingly original classical music with the London Symphony Orchestra, an electronic take on 18th-century chamber music (written by the obscure Italian composer 'Francesco Zappa', no relation), an album of Synclavier compositions (misleadingly titled Jazz From Hell which garnered a Grammy award), a double-CD release of electric guitar instrumental music (the laconically titled Guitar) and a plenitude of official live releases, revisiting fan-favourites as well as showcasing Zappa's talent for reinventing the music of others; his version of Stairway to Heaven becoming a word-of-mouth favourite.
Zappa produced almost all of his own albums, spending many hours in the studio recording and manipulating tracks, and was always at the forefront of emerging technologies; from tape editing, collage, multitrack and overdubbing in the sixties to digital recording, electronic instruments and sampling in the eighties. Conversely, Zappa was also a obsessive self-archivist, recording virtually every one of his live performances, and often using live recordings of new material without needing to enter the studio. The archive of tapes at his family home in Los Angeles continues to be a source of posthumous releases for the Zappa Family Trust. He was also noted as a spotter of talent and his shifting line-up of musicians included Lowell George, Jean-Luc Ponty, Terry Bozzio, Chad Wackerman, George Duke, Mike Keneally, Adrian Belew and Steve Vai, as well as giving Alice Cooper his first break in music and working again with his old collaborator Captain Beefheart when his career was in decline.
In the late 1980s he became active in politics, campaigning against the PMRC's music censorship scheme and acting as culture and trade representative for Czechoslovakia in 1989; and considered running as an independent candidate for president of the US.
His death in Los Angeles, California, on 4th December 1993 came three years after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Return of the Son of Monster Magnet
Frank Zappa Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Yes
Suzy Creamcheese?
Yes
This is the voice of your conscience baby, uh I just want to
Check one thing out with you, do you mind dear?
What?
Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what's got into you?
Cream...
Aha, oohoo, aha, oohoo...
Creamcheese
What's happening man?
America's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
It really makes it.
Cream-cheese.
Ooo aha, oohoo, aha, oohoo
Hahahahahaha.
A minute man, crazy man, it's happening man, flashing man
Flashing man, flashing man, crazy man,
It really makes it
Flashing man
Aha oohoo, aha oohoo, ...
Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese,
Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese,
Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese,
Creamcheese.
HAHA HIHI HAHA HIHI. Creamcheese, creamcheese...
Did you pick up on that?
Creamcheese...
The lyrics to Frank Zappa's song Return of the Son of Monster Magnet are quite puzzling, to say the least. The song starts with a dialogue between a voice and a character named Suzy Creamcheese. The voice seems to be Suzy's conscience and asks her what's going on with her. The following lines featuring AAAAAAAH, HMMMMMMMM, ahahahah, oo-oo-oo and Cream... are just noises and there's no apparent meaning to them. Then we hear Suzy asking what's happening, and the voice answers that America is wonderful and it really makes it. This line may refer to the American Dream or how the country is perceived as a paradise. After this, the lyrics become a bit incomprehensible with lines such as "flashing man" and "minute man."
It's hard to discern a clear meaning behind these lyrics, but some interpretations suggest that the song refers to the psychedelic movement of the '60s and how it affected American culture. Suzy Creamcheese might represent a typical hippie girl of the time, who's high and experiencing the wonders of LSD, while the voice could be her sober conscience reminding her of her true self. The song could also be a commentary on how the media influenced the perception of America and how it was marketed as a land of happiness and prosperity.
Line by Line Meaning
Suzy?
Addressing someone named Suzy
Yes
Yes, I'm here
Suzy Creamcheese?
Addressing someone named Suzy Creamcheese
Yes
Yes, that's me
This is the voice of your conscience baby, uh I just want to Check one thing out with you, do you mind dear? What?
I'm your conscience and I want to talk to you about something. Is it okay to discuss this?
Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what's got into you?
Hey Suzy Creamcheese, what's going on with you?
AAAAAAAAH, HMMMMMMMM, ahahahah, oo-oo-oo Cream... Aha, oohoo, aha, oohoo... Creamcheese
Various sounds
What's happening man? America's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. It really makes it. Cream-cheese.
What's going on? America is amazing! It really makes a difference. Cream-cheese.
Ooo aha, oohoo, aha, oohoo Hahahahahaha.
More sounds
A minute man, crazy man, it's happening man, flashing man Flashing man, flashing man, crazy man, It really makes it Flashing man
There's a lot going on, it's crazy and exciting! It's a wild ride!
Aha oohoo, aha oohoo, ... Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, Creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, creamcheese, Creamcheese.
More sounds and repeating the name
HAHA HIHI HAHA HIHI. Creamcheese, creamcheese...
Laughing and repeating the name
Did you pick up on that? Creamcheese...
Did you catch that? The name Creamcheese.
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
kim pisarski
If you come to a party and they were playing this, you know you're in the right place!
Kafka's Trial
This record could clear a room of unwanted guests in no time at all .Te he he .
Jérôme Nicolas
My neighbors are going to kill me.
Randall Kennedy
Can and has.
Thomas Brown
I love the reference
Rob Cerasuolo
I will not have my house filled with filthy perverts...unless Frank approves. 🤪
Zolar Czakl
Zappa didn't have the proper budget to fully realize this masterpiece.
What you're hearing here is just the rhythm track of what was supposed to be so much more. Shame it never got completed.
MichaelHansenFUN
In the middle of the week of recording, Zappa told him "I would like to rent $500 worth of percussion equipment for a session that starts at midnight on Friday and I want to bring all the freaks from Sunset Boulevard into the studio to do something special." Wilson agreed. The material was worked into "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet".[1] In a November 1967 radio interview (posthumously included as part of the 2006 MOFO album), Zappa is heard complaining that the version of "Monster Magnet" released on Freak Out! was in fact an unfinished piece; the percussion track was intended to serve as the foundation for an even more complex piece, but MGM refused to approve the studio time needed to record the intended overdubs that would have complete the composition, and so it was released (to Zappa's great dissatisfaction) in this unfinished form.[15][16]
james gagliardi
buh-buh-but...it what it became is a demonishly devine creation.
Randa Salines
Is hard to imagine that nowadays a major or even an independent company would allow something like this lmao