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Once upon a time somebody say to me (this is the dog talkin' now) What is your Conceptual Continuity Well, I told him right then (Fido said) It should be easy to see The crux of the biscuit is the Apostrophe(')... --Frank Zappa, "Stink Foot"
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A big ol' list of Uncle Frank's gigs --
Some interesting comments I received
Other Zappa Pages --
Links to Zappa-related pages
Last update: 3/22/97
What is Conceptual Continuity?
In a nutshell, the idea is that Zappa considered everything he did to be
part of a single, lifelong piece of work. Conceptual Continuity clues are,
in effect, cross-references between various songs. Now, most artists have
themes and motifs that recur throughout their careers, and Zappa is no
different. But this CC stuff operates on a slightly different level, sorta
like the glue that binds it all together.
Zappa had this to say about it in The Real Frank Zappa Book, on page 139:
Project/Object is a term I have used to describe the overall concept of my work in various mediums. Each project (in whatever realm), or interview connected to it, is part of a larger object, for which there is no "technical name."And then, on page 140:
In the case of the Project/Object, you may find a little poodle over here, a little blow job over there, ect., etc. I am not obsessed by poodles or blow jobs, however; these words (and others of equal insignificance), along with pictorial images and melodic themes, recur throughout the albums, interviews, films, videos (and this book) for no other reason than to unify the "collection."If the concept of CC interests you enough to investigate further, I'd suggest also taking a look at Vladimir Sovetov's excellent ARF: Frank Zappa Scholars Web Page and Robbert Heederik's very extensive Frank Zappa FAQ. I'd also invite you to drop in on the alt.fan.frank-zappa newsgroup, where CC is frequently a topic of discussion.
So what the heck are you doing, Ray?
When I first set up my home page a couple
years ago, one of the very first ideas I had was to put some Zappa stuff
on it. But then I did some Web surfing and found out that Zappa seems
to be one of the most well-represented musicians on the Web. As a fan, I
was pleased to see all this material, but as far as my own Web site was
concerned, it didn't seem there was anything left for me to bring to the
party.
But more recently, when I found the Zappa newsgroup on Usenet, I realized there was a great deal of interest in Conceptual Continuity. Further, none of the existing Web pages, as far as I could tell, treated CC with any more than a passing mention. Aha! This was where I could make a contribution.
So... The main idea here is to catalog as many Conceptual Continuity clues as I can, presenting them on the Web site here with appropriate cross-links to help make the connections clear and easy to follow.
With more than 60 Zappa albums available (many being two-disc sets), there's an enormous amount of material to sift through and deal with. I don't think I have any hope of getting the catalog to a state in which I could call it complete, but I do hope to get enough material here to make it interesting. The fact that many of the albums have lyric sheets helps quite a bit, of course, and I'm really hoping for help from other fans.
So what's your method here, eh?
For the most part, I'm looking for--and hoping people send me--any
example of cross-references between Zappa songs. In many cases, it'll
be a judgment call as to whether something should qualify as CC or not,
but I'll try to be as inclusive as possible.
I'm not cataloging CC clues if the references are wholly within a single album, especially if it's a "concept album" such as Joe's Garage or Thing-Fish. These cross-references would exist independently from any notions of CC. I will, of course, catalog CC clues that link these albums with other albums.
What does it all mean?
The inevitable question. Me, I'm not inclined to think there's much to be
gained from trying to interpret all this stuff.
Going back to Zappa's comments in the book (quoted above), he apparently chose the images and themes arbitrarily because he wanted something connecting everything, but he didn't think it mattered what it was. That's good enough for me, and I'll take him at his word. It's still fun to play around with it.
However, if you can use any of this to figure out some overall meaning to Zappa's work, please let me know.
Since writing the above, I've exchanged e-mail with a few people discussing the purpose of CC. In these exchanges, I floated my own theory, and now I'll break down and put it here. I take a clue from Ben Watson's book Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play. On page 85, Watson quotes a Zappa interview with Frank Kofsky, discussing all the stuff going in the song "America Drinks and Goes Home." The quote concludes with the comment
Those things are so carefully constructed that it breaks my heart that people don't dig into them and see all the levels that I put into them.
Notice Zappa uses plural forms here. "Those things" and "them." He's not just talking about the one specific song under discussion. He's generalizing. So my guess is that Conceptual Continuity might be a trick to get people to listen more closely. Dig into all that background chatter in "America Drinks and Goes Home" and see if you can find any CC clues.
In alphabetical order...
Enough encouragement from Manning Bartlett to get me going seriously, as well as the expectation of material.
Marco Bazzoli
István Fekete, who's been sending large lists of clues, contributing monumental amounts of material.
Miguel Fliguer
Juhani Heinonen
Bobby Love
Dave Lynch, who provided more encouragement to do this, and who has sent some stuff I haven't stuck in here yet, but will.
Stu Mark, who contributed most of the blow job references.
Matt-a-roo, who suggested the "neck biting" topic.
Patrick Neve who contributed yet more encouragement and sent a whole bunch of stuff--printed out, it was about seven pages of CC references. Patrick, you're a hero.
Joseph Sever and Chris Ekman, from whom I stole a posting in alt.fan.frank-zappa documenting "Louie Louie" quotes.
Dwayne P. Smith
Vladimir Sovetov
Stephen Thompson, who sent a repectable list of various items.
David Walley, from whose book No Commercial Potential I lifted a thing or two. I recommend the book. Buy it. I also have David to thank for pointing me to the URL for the PMRC transcripts, which is now on the "links" page.