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Frank was well known for quoting lots of music (from as little as a few bars, to as long as a full cover), from composers he liked or popular themes to illustrate a particular lyrical passage or to fit a context. Also in his solos he constantly quoted himself and others...

If you can think of any of these quotes, or if you can spot a mystery quote, post it here, so we can compile a Zappa Musical Quotation Dictionary. If you can find an alternative or original performance on YouTube or something, pleasea link it here.

Let start with an example:

In Playground Psychotics, in the track Divan, after Zappa translates the German phrase to "At the right hand of God's big rumba" the next bars are a quote of a famous Brazilian tune, from the Chorinho genre, not a rumba, called Tico-Tico No Fubá from Zequinha de Abreu, which was immortalized in the voice of Carmem Miranda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFwNXoEzRgY

or a more easely recognizable version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vt2VKNCyGM

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

On 'Make A Jazz Noise Here':

The words 'Star wars won't work' are the female background responder's melody in Sun Ra's 'Space Is The Place' -- sing 'Space-is-the-place' instead of 'Star-wars-won't-work' - get the picture?

The way I see it, Mr_ G_G, this thread is gonna be dynamite!

I don't dare to touch the Louie Louie subject, or Duke Of Prunes... so for now I'll mention that Call Any Vegetable covers a few bars from Holst's Jupiter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6NopU9K_8M
1:45 and on...

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wow! this is huge! great find BBP
i would like to see more of these examples

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In Vienna 1974-10-11 FZ quoted an old Austrian song from Marx Augustin that was composed in 1679: Oh Du lieber Augustin.

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What's the ugliest part of your body ?

clues: iink

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

quotes from
The Rite of Spring
Octandre

are plentiful and varied

and that thing from the Seeds I can never remember the name of but always seem to come after mention of hippies or love-ins or that sort o fthing. You know what I mean, there's a bunch of 'em in several official releases.

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" . . . On the outside now . . ."

"Bamboozled By love" has that epic classic from Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart" as background for the solo.

Just kidding, I am not that up on the classical stuff to call them by name, all though I do hear them.

I don't think it matters. You're right with the Yes song. I'm not really 'up' in the classical thing either, it just happened to be what I remembered at the time as that's been in my view finder more lately. Of course, there is the 'doo-doo-doo-doo-doot' of that ever-popular csn hit Suite Judy Blue Eyes the '71 band would turn to. Maybe even on cue. Woah! I just burned my pants!

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" . . . On the outside now . . ."

Punky's Whips - "Isn't It Romantic?"

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

In that case "Easymeat" is a take off on "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins, although I'm not so sure the cords and notes are very prevelent, they may just be making fun of it like "I Have Been In You" is making fun of "I'm In You" by Peter Frampton. I am not sure if these would count in this thread.

Well, this is a great question. It doesn't have a musical referent exactly like you said but very much can be seen the same as far as content, right? I just don't know the Phil Collins song. Maybe someone else can help out here. My guess would be the subject matter is in fact analogous but so would Work With Me Annie, depending on context of course and there are a whole bunch of other examples.
Then again Easy Meat has such a wide appeal, it's content socially is related to Teenage Prostitute, you could say or Pick Me I'm Clean even. Though some might say this isn't right ,that the actual identification of I Have Been In You with the Peter Frampton song that fz himself explicitly points out can't be extended to other examples that he didn't talk about on record. Which opens another can of worms.
I'll stick with the music.

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" . . . On the outside now . . ."

I'm not sure were I read about the Easy connections or wether it was an FZ qoute or not, but I had heard it before. The Phil Collins song "she's an easy lover" was done with Philip Bailey a popular 80's singer, if you ever listen to popular music radio I am sure you have heard this song before.

We're Turning Again and Rhymin' Man are prime examples of pieces constructed around the quoting technique...

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

My personal favorite is at the very very end of Catholic Girls you can hear the opera song, La Donna E Mobile from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto . Sung, "la la la la-la-la".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCFEk6Y8TmM

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GuacamoleQueenGuacamoleQueenGuacamoleQueen

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i'm not sure about this, but i think "easy meat" came out before "easy lover", so i doubt frank was quoting phil & phil.

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One two, buckle my shoe!

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I don't know for sure, I was just regurgitating something I read or saw somewhere, could have been someone dumber than me (which is hard to find). I can always rely on the resourceful forum members to clear the air or debate trying.

You could probly write a book about all the quotes in "Billy the Mountain"!

you can't miss the "Tonight Show" riff !


There is also the "Hawaiin Punch" thingi in a lot of other songs....

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"You can fly like a Penguin when you're dealing with Turkeys."

And let's not forget Flower Punk vs Hey Joe...
and the "Dah Dah Dah Daaaah... Hey Punk, I think I love you" (Flower Punk vs Wild Thing (The Troggs)

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There is also a very evident guitar (sitar sounding) quote to Jewish Princess around that time in Catholic Girls...


I once tried to raise that discussion about that resemblance:

http://www.zappa.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=603

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

"Easy Lover" came out in 1984. The first officially released version of "Easy Meat" was recorded in 1980, although the first performances of the song were in 1970.

Maybe it was the reverse Easy Lover was a take off on Easy Meat...LOL

out of context but I love the line 'they were mellow they were yellow they were wearing smelly blankets....'
arf

edit: actually the whole song has me laughing my tits off