DOES HUMOR BELONG IN MUSIC?: THE LYRICS

I'll continue with two mainstream pop-songs that can be found on the DVD version only. Regarding its rhythm "He's so gay" is for Zappa-standards unusually straightforward. Not only is the meter regular 4/4, about everything is played on beat. Zappa may complain about most pop music going boom-tick-boom-tick in the Real Frank Zappa book. Something that can be confusing however, is that whenever you find Zappa talking about something he dislikes, you'll also find examples of him doing exactly that. In this bottom section it's about rhythmic and harmonic conventions. What makes "He's so gay" sound interesting, specifically on the "Thing-Fish" studio version, is the way the bass part is handled. I don't know how exactly Zappa created this effect, but is has the accent fluctuating between the left and right channel of the stereo field plus it's made up of more than one single bass line. I've notated it via three staves, one for the left channel, one for the right channel and one for the middle. Zappa about always looked for a stable fully deployed stereo field, so this is something unusual. Already around 1970 he started using the possibility of double-channeling a guitar, with the left channel reacting a bit different to the instrument than the right channel. So he continued playing in stereo ever since. Only during the "Burnt weeny sandwich" guitar solo he let an instrument move between right and left via the simple method of using the stereo buttons from the control panel. What's done here with the bass line is a much more sophisticated manner of letting an instrument vacillate.

He's so gay (Thing-Fish), section (midi file)

He's so gay (Thing-Fish), section (transcription).

In case of "Bobby Brown", Zappa's choice for following pop-standards paid off, maybe more than he had expected. With "Baby snakes" on the other side it became a hit, though only in some specific European countries (see the screenhot below from swedishcharts.com). The lyrics about a sexually degenerated male got in the way of getting it aired in English speaking countries. With hindsight the song could better have had conventional lyrics as well.

Below follows the construction of these two songs on DVD, mostly global, but filled in with details for the transcribed sections:

He's so gay
- 0:00 Intro. The song is in Bb.
- 0:05 Theme 1
The trancribed section from "Thing-Fish" from above corresponds with the DVD at 0:51 for its starting point. Bars 1-5 are the tail of theme 1. The spoken words in staff 1 are Brown Moses commenting.
- 1:00 Theme 2
Bars 6-9 contain phrases 1 and 2 from theme 2. Harmonically the song so far mostly has been a series of triads in Bb. During phrase 2 you can see some altered notes turning up. In bar 8 the Bb chord moves down chromatically with a minor second to the A chord. Bar 9 contains the progression Bb-Cm7 (plus Ab)-Bb7-Fm (plus B). So Zappa has briefly modulated here to Bb Mixolydian. Next the example from above stops and phrase 1 gets repeated, followed by a variation upon phrase 2 and a longer coda.
- 1:31 Theme 1 returns.
- 1:57 Theme 3.
- 2:11 Finale. While so far the lyrics of this song have been making fun of gay life, at this point it's given a comic twist. It ends with saying "maybe later we'll all be gay". The example below jumps in at 2:16. It ends with the chord progression I-II 7th-I 7th in Bb (bars 3-6). Ike Willis is starting with an A in bar 5, but lets it resolve to Bb. Also the keyboard part in staff 5 is moving freely through the scale, but neatly ending with the Bb chord.
- 2:26 Bars 6-9. Citation from the Culture Club song with the same title. The melody and chord progression are a variation upon their version. Zappa is using I-II-III-III 7th. If I'm hearing it correctly the last chord has an extra Bb added to it.
- 2:34 Bars 10-11. Transition towards "Bobby Brown". The "He's so gay" track on YCDTOSA VI CD is from the same concert as on the DVD, but doesn't include this transition.
- 2:37 Bars 12-15. Intro in C for "Bobby Brown", still included in the "He's so gay" track.

He's so gay - Bobby Brown, transition (midi file)

He's so gay - Bobby Brown, transition (transcription).

Bobby Brown
- 0:00 Verse. Beat 4 of bar 15 is used as the pick-up bar for "Bobby Brown". Zappa starts singing theme 1 all by himself at first. The general outlines of "Bobby Brown" have been described briefly by Wolfgang Ludwig (see below). I'm filling it in with some details from the "Does humor belong in music" DVD. The song is in C and theme 1 follows the progression I-VI-II 7th-V. The transcription above stops with bar 20 with the II 7th chord.
- 0:25 Refrain.
- 0:42 Verse.
- 1:08 Refrain. At this point the last example below starts. Its chord progression goes as:
Bars 1-2: IV sustained with the chorus singing IV-III-II-I-IV-III-II over it.
Bars 3: III 7th sustained by bass, keyboard and chorus. Zappa sings the lyrics alone.
Bar 4: VI sustained. Zappa continues solo.
Bar 5: II 7th sustained. Zappa now continues with notes of the melody, while the chorus is singing A and C steadily. The rhythm is speech-influenced and can get syncopic at various points. Here you've got a pretty heavy syncope between bars 5 and 6. Also the drummer follows this (main beats are included for these bars). Also bar 8 looks a bit strange on paper.
Bar 6-8: V sustained. Here the chorus is moving rather freely. Zappa sings the lowest notes, the melody itself. The higher notes are sung by Ike Willis, Ray White and Bobby Martin, forming improvised harmonies. In bars 7-8 all four are following their own melodic line. Basically the "Does humor belong in music" version and the original on "Sheik Yerbouti" are the same. It's details like these specific notes by the chorus, that form the difference.
Bars 9-10: Other than on Sheik Yerbouti, you're here having a unisono G note following the "I wonder, wonder" text. On "Sheik Yerbouti" the text is also only using the G, but the accompaniment follows the progression V-IV-III-V and the bass is descending from G to D to ultimately the C of the verse.
- 1:24 Verse. The example below stops here after the first two bars.
- 1:49 Refrain.
- 2:28 End.

Bobby Brown, section (midi file)

Bobby Brown, section (transcription).
Bobby Brown, analysis by W. Ludwig.

There's a number of ways for identifying chords. In the Ludwig study you'll sometimes find a coding, used in Germany only. In my study you'll also find different methods, so a brief overview might at this point be handy for knowing what the German symbols stand for. Even so there are more notational variants.
Chord identification with numbers, related to scales and their tonic:
- In Europe chords are identified by their root note, corresponding with a scale step, identified with the Roman numbers I to VII. Chords are always interpreted as derived from stacking thirds. Two thirds form a 5th chord, three a 7th chord etc. Not all thirds have to be present.
- In the US the same idea gets applied with an extra distinction. Major chords use an uppercase, minor chords a lowercase Roman number.
- The German variant uses the series T-Sp-Dp-S-D-Tp-(VII) instead of I-VII. T stands for tonic, Sp for subdominant parallel etc.
Identification of diatonic chords by their root note plus symbols for the type of chord:
This is the common method in songbooks. The major triad on C gets the symbol "C", the minor triad "Cm", the dominant 7th "C7" etc.
Chords in general:
- By simply mentioning the individual notes in the chord, for instance F-C-E-G-B.
- By naming the intervals as the number of minor seconds between the subsequent notes. F-C-E-G-B then becomes 7-4-3-4.
- This can be refined by identifying the octave the notes are in as well. The central C gets called C4. When you move this C an octave down you get C3, and by going up you get C5. By the standard that A4 has the frequency of 440 Hz, chords can be identified in an absolute manner.