Official Release #29
Originally Released: November 19, 1979
Catalog Number: SRZ-2-1502
Produced by Frank Zappa for Zappa Records

The Musicians:
Frank Zappa—lead guitar, vocals
Warren Cuccurullo—rhythm guitar, vocals
Denny Walley—slide guitar, vocals
Ike Willis—lead vocals
Peter Wolf—keyboards
Arthur Barrow—bass, vocals
Ed Mann—percussion
Vinnie Colaiuta—drums, optometric abandon
Patrick O’Hearn—bass on Outside Now

The Cast:
Central Scrutinizer
L. Ron Hoover
Father Riley B. Jones
Frank Zappa

Joe 
Ike Willis

Sy Borg
Warren Cuccurullo & Ed Mann

Bald-Headed John 
Terry Bozzio

Mary 
Dale Bozzio

Mrs. Borg 
Denny Walley

The Utility Muffin

Research Kitchen Chorus 

Al Malkin, Warren Cuccurullo, Dale Bozzio, Geordie Hormel, Barbara Issak & most of the people who work at Village Recorders (circa 1979).
 

Studios Village Recorders “B” & Ken-Dun “D”

Recording engineer Joe Chicarelli

Re-mix engineers Mick Glossop & Steve Nye

Mastering Bernie Grundman, Bernie Grundman Mastering 2016

Source Original 1979 Analog Master Safety

Cover photo Norman Seeff

Art director/illustrator John William

 

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Eventually it was discovered
That God
Did not want us to be
All the same

This was
Bad News
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary
To the doctrines of
Portion Controlled Servings

Mankind must be made more uniformly
If
The Future
Was going to work

Various ways were sought
To bind us all together
But, alas
Same-ness was unenforceable

It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of
Total Criminalization

Based on the principle that
If we are All crooks
We could at last be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of
The Law

Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
Real Crime
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We’d all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President.
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions

Total Criminalization
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn’t want to be crooks or outlaws,

So, of course, they had to be
Tricked into it . . .
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal