The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”: Frank Zappa and Postmodernism Joseph Staub

“The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”: Frank Zappa and Postmodernism

Joseph Staub

“Mr. America, walk on by your schools that do not teach. Mr. America, walk on by the

minds that won't be reached.” This is the line that opens the Mothers of Invention’s debut album

Freak Out!, released in 1966. It is the first of countless examples of postmodern criticism evident

in the compositions of Frank Zappa, the leader of the Mothers of Invention who would go on to

release a repertoire of 62 albums before his death in 1993. Zappa, who believed that music is

always a commentary on society, spent his entire career satirizing and commenting on the

problems he saw in American society. In the lyrics mentioned above, taken from a song entitled

“Hungry Freaks, Daddy”, Zappa is making a criticism of both hippie culture and the society that

it was rebelling against. Through criticisms like these and the way that they are integrated into

the overall compositions on the 1969 Mothers of Invention album Uncle Meat, it is apparent that

lyrics and music of Frank Zappa exemplify the idea of postmodern music.

The idea of postmodern music is complex, featuring many individual aspects that are not

all present in every composition that could be called postmodern. There are, however, two major

themes that are common among postmodern music that are important in order to categorize a

piece as postmodern. The first is a constant shift or fluctuation in styles accompanied by an

overlap of these styles, which combined is known as polystylism or stylistic pluralism. The other

is a critique of some aspect of society that the composer finds issue with, usually in an attempt to

influence or incite change. According to music theorist and cultural historian Leonard B. Meyer,

music in the postmodern era, which he defines as beginning in 1945, consists of many different

styles existing at once but in constant fluctuation in terms of commercial popularity and use by

artists (Meyer 227). The idea of postmodern music as criticism began in earnest with the rise of

the hippie movement in the late 1960s, which shared many ideological positions with the punk

movement of the 1970s. These movements sought to take music from being simply

entertainment to a form of protest and political and social commentary.

The career genesis of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention occurred around

the same time as the hippie movement began to take hold in America, and Zappa mirrored much

of the postmodern criticism that came out of the hippie movement. Having come from the same

society that influenced the launch of the hippie movement, Zappa saw many of the same

problems in society that were being protested by hippies. Zappa, however, placed himself

somewhere between “normal” society and the hippie movement, constantly commenting on and

criticizing both entities. This is especially apparent on his compositions released in the 1960s, a

time where there was great conflict between everyday society and various counterculture

movements. Zappa and the Mothers recorded ten albums during that time, and none is more

representative of that conflict and postmodernism than Uncle Meat, the Mothers’ fifth album.

Even before examining Zappa’s lyrics, one can discover an interesting use of postmodern

criticism that many listeners may not recognize. When discussing Uncle Meat, music theorist

James Borders states that “by juxtaposing different musical genres, Zappa, who considered

himself a composer foremost, was attacking the entrenched critical and academic establishments

whose members distinguished categorically between art and popular music, particularly as

regards structural and tonal complexity” (Borders 119). This quote firmly entrenches Uncle Meat

in the ideological territory of postmodernism by describing how Zappa uses the idea of stylistic

plurality as a societal critique, fulfilling both major themes of postmodern music. The way in

which Zappa, aware of the dichotomy between “art music” and popular music that was pervasive

at the time, uses polystylism to integrate the two recognized categories of music is a unique use

of postmodern criticism without even using words. By blending various styles throughout the

album, Zappa, who constantly presented himself as both a rock star and a knowledgeable art

musician (Grier 78), metaphorically thumbs his nose at the elite circles of both “art music” and

popular music who believed that the two categories would never be able to mix in any

meaningful or effective way.

Zappa’s use of polystylism is not the only societal critique present on Uncle Meat. When

one examines the lyrics of the album, they appear at first glance to consist mainly of gibberish

and random phrases. Because much of the album is instrumental, when there are lyrics, one

would normally expect them to tell a story or make a statement about society, as Zappa was

usually one to do. Zappa songs like “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” “Bobby Brown Goes Down,”

and “Would You Go All the Way?” are examples of the former while “Who Are the Brain

Police?,” “America Drinks & Goes Home,” and “Who Needs the Peace Corps?” are examples of

the latter. It is in the lack of traditional lyrics on Uncle Meat, however, that Zappa makes one of

his most interesting critiques, a critique of the listener themselves. Zappa purposefully subverts

the normal expectation of the listener lyrical content in order to change the way that music is

listened to and what is expected of music. At the same time, Zappa is also criticizing the

seemingly mindless and naïve lyrics of rock songs from the 1950s and 60s that audiences have

come to expect from popular music. “The songs retain certain stylistic mannerisms of the period,

specifically the vacuous lyrics and the vocal timbres, but set them in a new harmonic context”

(Grier 86). Grier notes that Zappa is combining these mannerisms of the period with the

aforementioned stylistic pluralism to create something unique that continues to overturn

audience expectations in a very postmodern way.

Frank Zappa’s use of stylistic pluralism and other forms of societal critique on the 1969

Mothers of Invention album Uncle Meatmake the album an important example of postmodern

composition and represent the larger postmodern implications of Zappa’s overall work. On the

album, no two songs sound the same, and Zappa uses every note and every word to present some

form of critique, sometimes, as in the case of the lyrics, very visibly, and sometimes, as in the

case of his use of stylistic pluralism, much more subtly. In Zappa’s own words, “The Meek Shall

Inherit Nothing,” a sentiment which Zappa echoed throughout his career as he continued to use

various styles and forms of music to comment on an ever-changing society.

Works Cited

Borders, James. “Form and the Concept Album: Aspects of Modernism in Frank Zappa's Early Releases.” Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2001, pp. 118-160. https://www.jstor.org/stable/833535

Grier, James. “The Mothers of Invention and "Uncle Meat": Alienation, Anachronism and a Double Variation.” Acta MusicologicaI, Vol. 73, No. 1, 2001, pp. 77-95. https://www.jstor.org/stable/932810.

Meyer, Leonard B. “from Music, the Arts, and Ideas.” Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, Volume 7, edited by Robert P. Morgan, New York, W.W. Norton, 1998.

Zappa, Frank. Lyrics to “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”. Genius, 2018. https://genius.com/Frank-zappahungry-freaks-daddy-lyrics.