Frank Zappa: You Are What You Is (1981)

Things sure have changed big time with Zappa between the 1966 release of Freak Out! and the 1981 released of You Are What You Is. In that time span, he decided to bring an end of the Mothers of Invention name after the release of Bongo Fury in 1975 (because, after all, the Mothers existed in name only since the release of Over-Nite Sensation in 1973). All albums starting with Zoot Allures (1976) were simply released under his own name. He also went through several labels, first Verve from 1966 to 1968, Bizarre from 1968 to 1973, DiscReet from 1973-1978, and Zappa Records from 1978-1980. After that, he launched Barking Pumpkin Records, and first released Tinseltown Rebellion earlier in 1981, as well as the Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar series. Then he released You Are What You Is, which is the album I’m discussing here.

You can tell a lot has changed musically and socially for Zappa in ’81. For this album, he decided to stick strictly to vocal-dominated music. Only one instrumental, guitar-oriented cut is included. Plus this was the dawning of the Reagan administration, so you know what that means: he pokes fun at the conservative establishment, such as yuppies and fundamentalist Christians, both who helped get Reagan elected.

The album opens up with “Teen-Age Wind”, which was basically about a kid bummed that he couldn’t get a ride to a Grateful Dead concert, so he ends up sniffing glue. “Harder Than Your Husband” features Jimmy Carl Black on vocals. It was poking fun at country music, with some sexual undertones. The next couple songs, “Doreen” and “Goblin Girl” aren’t really my thing. That “Goblin Girl” gets on my nerves near the end, because it keeps repeating “The Goblin Girl from the mystery world” ad nauseum. But at least it gets better, for the most part.

“Coneheads” pokes fun at the characters that were once a staple of Saturday Night Live. “Charlie’s Enourmous Mouth” is about cocaine abuse, and how Charlie (who was a lady) overdosed on cocaine. The lyrics are pretty ingenious as well, like “She’s got stuff all around the hole where she put the spoon in/that’s where they call it the nose” and “She’s got dirt all around the hole where they dumped the box in/They call it the grave”. And it’s pretty obvious that cocaine abuse was skyrocketing as the Reagan administration was under way.

“You Are What You Is” is one of the more controversial numbers, involving how a black guy wanted to be white, and a white guy wanted to be black. I actually saw the video to this song, and I was laughing because it poked fun of Ronald Reagan (they had a person who looked just like him in the video) and the Ku Klux Klan (in which Zappa placed a bagel on top of the Klansman’s hood).

“Mudd Club” basically poked fun at the punk rock clubs. Then there’s the trio of songs that gets the most attention, that is “The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”, “Dumb All Over” and “Heavenly Bank Account”. These three songs are highly critical of fundamentalist Christians, the hypocrisies (and how it’s alright to start wars because the Bible says so), and the greedy televangelists. I can only imagine what would have happened if Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition existed at that time, and how Zappa would react?

“Suicide Chump” is an all cheery song about a person who jumps over a bridge to kill himself, which segues in to “Jumbo Go Away”, a song I can live without, especially in the lyric department. “If Only She Woulda” sounds exactly like The Doors, complete with Ray Manzarek-like organ and bass-lines, and Zappa trying to sound a bit like Jim Morrison. The final song is “Drafted Again”, a re-recording of his 1980 single “I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted” (a song that caused problems with Mercury Records, the label that was in charge of Zappa Records). It’s a bit ridiculous, because the song involves small kids being drafted in to war.

You Are What You Is is generally regarded as Zappa’s best ’80s albums. He was really in deep artistic decline by that time, and most of the albums he did afterwards mostly sold to diehard fanatics. But still, this isn’t a bad album, but it’s no Freak Out, Absolutely Free, or We’re Only In It For the Money, either.