Absolutely Free is the second album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on May 26, 1967, by Verve Records. Much like their 1966 debut Freak Out!, the album blends complex musical composition with political and social satire. Its blend of jazz, classical, avant-garde and rock idioms within multi-sectional, suite-like compositions, referred to on the album cover as two “oratorios” (with librettos available by mail order), is seen as an important and influential precursor to progressive rock and rock operas. The band had been augmented since Freak Out! by the addition of woodwinds player Bunk Gardner, keyboardist Don Preston, rhythm guitarist Jim Fielder, and drummer Billy Mundi; Fielder quit the group before the album was released, and his name was removed from the album credits.

Background and recording

Freak Out! cost Verve $20,000 to make, more than double the cost of a typical album at the time. When it struggled to sell, the record company only allowed a budget of $11,000 for the follow up, which was recorded on four-track over just four days from November 15–18, 1966 at TTG studios in Los Angeles, with additional mixing and editing at MGM in New York City a week later. Tom Wilson again sat in the producer's chair, although it is generally agreed that he took a hands-off approach and let Zappa have full creative control. Unlike Freak Out!, which used extensive orchestration, the budget this time only allowed for orchestral additions to "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", with the band playing virtually live in the studio for most tracks. Since many of the songs were complex multi-sectional pieces, the group would do up to 30 takes of each specific section of a track, which were then strung together in editing. According to Zappa, the group had "one day with 15 minutes per tune to do all the vocals on that album. That's right. It's called 'sing or get off the pot'."

Songs

The album presented two oratorios, with all the songs continually linked, narratively, and musically, which at the time of recording predated the release of The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first suite, entitled "Absolutely Free", is essentially a send-up of a romantic love story with fruits and vegetables acting as a metaphor for people; the second suite, "The M.O.I. American Pageant", is a trenchant social commentary on American life including aspects of social status and mobility, consumerism, alcoholism, greed, and political corruption.

"Plastic People"

"Plastic People" evolved from the group's cover of "Louie Louie", with new lyrics. It opens with an announcement of the President of the United States, who is ill and needs chicken soup, before going on to critique the "plastic" hippies who hung out at nightclubs like Pandora's Box, the epicenter of the Sunset Strip Riots happening at the time of the album's recording. who, as the Duke of Prunes, attempts to pick up a woman at the supermarket by using food references that are meant as euphemisms for sex.

"Amnesia Vivace"

According to the album's libretto, the Duke attempts to pick up two cheerleaders in a parking lot when they bash him in the face with a rock, giving him amnesia.

"Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin"

This seven-minute instrumental opens with a quote from Gustav Holst's The Planets before morphing into a wild, proto-jazz fusion group jam in which Zappa displays his improvisational guitar skills for the first time on record.

"Soft-Cell Conclusion"

A reprise of "Call Any Vegetable", somewhat slower and bluesier with harmonica accompaniment, in which Zappa instructs his listeners how to call to vegetables. The speed then increases to a very fast tempo before ending on a series of sexual pants.

"America Drinks"

The second suite opens with this send-up of a lounge ballad, sung deliberately off-tempo as if the singer is very drunk, to illustrate the emptiness and falseness of American culture. This is followed by quotes from Fucik's "Entrance of the Gladiators" and the overture to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, to give a cartoonish circus feel.

"Status Back Baby"

One of Zappa's doo-wop parodies, although there are oblique insertions of quotes from Stravinsky and Debussy. The lyrical content skewers high school social cliques, as a self-absorbed jock finds he's losing status with the pom-pom girls.

"Brown Shoes Don't Make It"

Described by François Couture of AllMusic as a "condensed two-hour musical", the album's longest song, at over seven minutes, moves through 22 distinct sections covering psychedelia, chamber music, Sprechstimme, garage rock, classical, music hall, doo-wop, The Beach Boys, electronics, and more. It is the only track on the album to feature outside orchestration, which climaxes the piece. There is also a homemade synthesizer played by Don Preston, one of the earliest appearances of such an instrument on a rock record. The song's primary subject is corruption in politics, as a city hall official fantasizes sleeping with a thirteen-year-old girl in graphic detail. The line "I'd like to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn" apparently held up the album's release, as an MGM exec protested its inclusion and wanted to change the line to "I'd like to make her do a crossword puzzle on the back of TV Guide."

| rev2 = Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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| rev3 = The Great Rock Bible

| rev3score = 8/10

| rev4 = Kerrang!

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| rev5 = MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide

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| rev6score = 9/10

| rev7 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide

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| rev8score = 5/5

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|rev10Score = B−

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Release and reception

The album was released on May 26, 1967. This was the same day as the UK release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which also had printed lyrics and no gaps between its songs; had Absolutely Frees release not been significantly delayed by issues over its cover art and lyrics, it would have predated The Beatles in these innovations. The album fared much better overall than Freak Out!, charting at #41 on Billboard and becoming a favorite of the underground.

In a contemporary review, Billboard magazine wondered whether the band were putting their audience on, but concluded that the album would rack up huge sales. Retrospectively, the album has received high praise as an early peak for Zappa's lyrical and compositional innovation, which had evolved considerably since Freak Out!. AllMusic calls it a "fabulously inventive record, bursting at the seams with ideas"

Versions

The UK-67 release (Verve VLP/SVLP 9174) came in a laminated flip-back cover, with a Mike Raven poem at the reverse that was not on any other issue.

The CD reissue adds, between sides one and two, two songs that were featured on a rare Verve single of the time. The songs from the single, "Why Dontcha Do Me Right?" (titled "Why Don't You Do Me Right" on the 45) and "Big Leg Emma", were both described as "an attempt to make dumb music to appeal to dumb teenagers".

Track listing

Personnel

The Mothers of Invention

  • Frank Zappa – guitar, conductor, vocals
  • Jimmy Carl Black – drums, vocals
  • Ray Collins – vocals, tambourine, harmonica
  • Roy Estrada – bass, vocals
  • Billy Mundi – drums, percussion
  • Don Preston – keyboards
  • Jim Fielder (Uncredited) – guitar, piano
  • Bunk Gardner – woodwinds

Additional musicians

  • Suzy Creamcheese (Lisa Cohen) – vocals on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • John Balkin – bass on "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" and "America Drinks"
  • Jim Getzoff – violin on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • Marshall Sosson – violin on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • Alvin Dinkin – viola on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • Armand Kaproff – cello on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • Don Ellis – trumpet on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • John Rotella – contrabass clarinet on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"
  • Herb Cohen – cash register machine sounds on "America Drinks & Goes Home"
  • Terry Gilliam, girlfriend and others – voices in "America Drinks & Goes Home"

;Note

(Jim Sherwood was credited as a member of The Mothers on the album's original release, but he actually joined the band during the recording of We're Only in It for the Money, and he isn't featured on this album.)

Production

  • Frank Zappa – producer, arranger, layout design, cover art, collage, liner notes
  • Tom Wilson – producer
  • Val Valentin – director of engineering
  • Ami Hadani – engineer
  • David Greene – remixing
  • Doug Sax – mastering
  • Ferenc Dobronyi – cover design
  • Cal Schenkel – cover design
  • Alice Ochs – cover photo, artwork
  • Jerry Deiter – photography

Charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

! Chart (1967)

! Peak<br />position

|-

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References

  • Lyrics and information
  • Release details
  • "The Meaning of Cordovans" reporter Hugh Sidey recalls the event when he saw Lyndon B. Johnson wearing the wrong shoes