"We're talking about words...

...and I don't believe that there is any word that needs to be suppressed." -- Frank Zappa, Crossfire, March 28, 1986

In that fascinating clip that echo posted, Zappa takes the position that there's no combination of words that would need to be censored. He's absolutely right.

The panel on the show repeatedly dances around the issue of Prince's "Sister", without ever referencing it directly. In 1986, Prince singing about his 'lovely and loose' 32-year old sister seemed outrageous. That's only two years before Straight Outta Compton, and six years before Ice T would sing about killing cops. For entertainment's sake, I wish we could have reconvened this panel twenty years later to get their reaction to Eminem's "Kim", wherein he depicts the brutal murder of his wife. Novak & Co. would probably be stunned to learn that TIME would name The Marshall Mathers LP one of its All-Time 100 Albums.

What really fascinates me in that clip is how cyclical the arguments are. At one point, Zappa says that he's more concerned with America's progress towards becoming a 'fascist theocracy' than he is with dirty pop lyrics. Great minds think alike! In 2005, Harold Bloom would say to Charlie Rose in all seriousness, "I'm a very frightened man. At 75, I find that increasingly I'm living in a theocracy." Both men would have done better to stick to the subject at hand, which brings me back to this old chestnut of censorship.

The 'X-rated' music of David Allan Coe couldn't be more obviously offensive. A song like "Nigger Fucker" is so thoroughly racist that, though it was recorded in jest, it's relegated Coe to the dunce's corner with all the other problematic artists like Wagner. Discussion of these artists apparently must never forget to reference whichever issue it is that got them in to hot water: Stockhausen will never escape reference to his comments about 9/11; Sinead O'Connor's brilliance will always be qualified by her stunt on SNL. Before the arguments run their course, there's a good chance Hitler will have been referenced and someone will posit that the only responsible thing to do is ban or boycott their work.

These cyclical arguments are more appropriately considered thought ruts. As an optimist, I tend to imagine these perennial debates as a car trapped in a snow bank. To free the car, you have to rock it back and forth over the same ground for what seems like an eternity. Hopefully, retreading these arguments decade after decade ends up getting us somewhere.

The goal for those of us on Zappa's side of the argument, or at least for me, isn't to get to a world that openly embraces offensive art. The ideal would be to get to a point where such work isn't sequestered artificially. Let the work sink or swim on its own merits.

Zappa's Estate

NPR posted a disappointing article about Frank Zappa's estate trying to stop people from performing his music. From his widow:

"Somebody goes out there, plays music — it's not played very well; it doesn't sound anything like what the composer intended...And they are telling the audience that's never heard it before that this is Frank Zappa's music. It's not. It's some wretched version of it."

It is Zappa's music. Get over it.

Every composer has to deal with lousy performances. The issue for an estate is to set some clear goals and run with them. If they want to establish a performance practice, that's fantastic. Go for it. But they'll be far better served by working constructively towards that goal, rather than by litigiously.

Apparently, Gail Zappa's been sending out cease-and-desist letters to cover bands, accusing them of 'identity theft'. Not only is that a waste of time in pursuit of a patently false legal argument, she's wasting the estate's resources on billable hours for her lawyers. The Zappa estate would see better returns on that money by setting up a performance course or even a center.

There's no real distinction made in the article between the styles of Zappa's music. It's not clear, for instance, if Gail objects to a bar band covering "Dinah Moe Humm" or if it's strictly the quasi-classical music that she wants reproduced accurately. It seems like she's trying to protect every note Zappa ever wrote. Either way, she's establishing a reputation that will end up turning people away from her husband's music rather than exposing more people to it.

Having worked with my fair share of difficult estates, I can attest to the soul-weariness that creeps in after a few sharp exchanges or ultimatums. Estates' reputations precede them, and artists will quickly learn to not even bother with an estate that's known to be troublesome. James Joyce scholarship is slowly emerging from an ice age brought on by the shenanigans of the writer's grandson, Stephen. There's simply no upside to being so controlling. The control these heirs seek ends up being more pernicious than anything else, and no one really comes out a winner.

Frank Zappa, "Charle Ives"