A little more than two decades ago, popular music was under fire by Tipper Gore's PMRC, the Parents' Music Resource Center. Tipper was aghast at popular music's coarsening of the public discourse, especially because a young Karenna Gore had played Prince's Darling Nikki at a party full of politicos. Scandal! Naturally, this meant war! Or, if not war, then censorious legislation!
But Prince didn't really give a rat's ass about arguing for freedom of speech back then; He just toured the country inflicting good music on people. So it was left to Frank Zappa to fight the good fight. Which he did admirably, as evidenced by this clip of Frank Zappa on Crossfire:
In case you needed more evidence that the good die young, Frank Zappa left us in 1993. Meanwhile John Lofton, the voice of the absence of reason featured in this Crossfire clip, has embraced his extremism and is now blogging on some creepy website. John has gone from not liking the same music as me to feeling that I'm not American. But it's okay, I bet Frank Zappa would tolerate me.
I'm sure Frank would tolerate us both, Anil, he was an incredibly tolerant person.
Here in Australia an actor/comedian Garry McDonald created a character Norman Gunston who did hilarious interviews of visiting celebrities. Frank enjoyed the joke so much, including having to put up with a rendition of one his songs on the harmonica (McDonald could play quite well), that he invited McDonald to jam with him on stage.
I love the way Zappa got Lofton to poopoo registering for the vote and standing for office. I didn't think much of his music but his reasoning and politics was heads above the rest. Classic.
Thanks Anil. This video made my day. The best debate I've ever seen. I liked this guy Frank Zappa.
To me what is now the most ironic is that I was just young enough to pay no attention to the PMRC but old enough to own Frank Zappa records and study them. He wasn't 'just' a musician, he was one of the most gifted musicians to ever walk the planet. I never even saw this debate when this was happening, but people just like Mr. Zappa are the ones who, through their music, made me interested in politics and 'getting involved'. People like Mr. Zappa always provided me with a better outlook on the future than Mr. Lofton(s). Get your colon checked people. To lose another great mind to booty cancer just leaves us with a planet of Lofton's, man ain't that a crappy outlook.
i,m a radio announcer in ottawa, canada. i am featuring zappa every monday at 6 a.m. starting dec.1st on www.ckcufm.com. i,m playing everything possible by this genius on air, whether it,s rude, crude, or whatever..i find zappa hilarious and don,t take his music as vulgar crap.
he,s an american genius. tune in.