The Night Of The Iron Sausage

So, a week ago I went to see Dweezil Zappa and his 'Zappa Plays Zappa' show. This is the second Zappa extravaganza I've seen in a month - the first being the full orchestral performance of the opera 200 Motels (snooty, missing-the-point review attached), finally performed over 40 years after it was cancelled by the Royal Albert Hall on the grounds of obscenity (leading to a famous court case). It took a certain amount of self-justification to attend at least the ZPZ event, simply because about a year before (following a truly excruciating Michael Nesmith gig) I'd sworn on all that's holy that I would NEVER again attend anything that could be termed a gig by a 'legacy act'. Too many disappointing shows performed by creaking old men who should know better had finally worn me down. And rock music, no matter how expertly played, is a creaky, reactionary art form at best these days. (Notable exceptions, because I'm making the rules here, would be Todd Rundgren's full performance of A Wizard, A True Star: because it had never been attempted before, and the likes of King Crimson, because they always tended to challenge audiences despite their mounting age. However having said that, their last performances in 2008 struck me as stale - something that I could never have said before). Unlike jazz, electronica, experimental music and even the classical canon, rock seems to have served a purpose which becomes more irrelevant with each passing day. Let's not try and recreate the glory of our youth, let's go out and find something new etc.

But these are the gross generalisations of an ageing hipster. To return to Zappa, I'd already seen 'The Dweez' perform at his dad's 70th anniversary shows at the Roundhouse, and while I was, of course impressed by the skill of his band, it still had a weird smell of exploitation about it. If his son is so talented, how come I don't know any of HIS tunes (he's released six solo albums, apparently)? My friend Simon Nelson argued that if DZ didn't do it, then no one would be keeping his music alive (a fact negated by the amount of FZ stuff by others on Spotify). And I have nothing but the deepest suspicion for FZ's widow, Gail, who keeps a tight rein on her late husband's back catalogue. But again, this is badly-thought out sophistry based on nothing more than vague unease and the fact that we are still waiting for the release of the Roxy DVD. She's probably a marvellous woman, and Dweezil seems like a very well-balanced, eloquent man.

Anyway… while watching the ZPZ band run through the entire Roxy And Elsewhere album, I felt a little depressed. All the right notes were going on the tape, but it was so, well… dry and academic. The band may be accomplished but you sensed that you may as well have been watching a bunch of quantum physicists discussing string theory up there on stage. The jokes were 'in-jokes' in 1974; repeated in 2013 they were 'in-in-jokes'. A bit like nerds discussing the merits of Star Trek films, it didn't seem to offer any new light on the brilliance of the composer. It was a hyper-real painting of a photograph. Skilful and pointless. But then, something happened in the second half of the show. It may have been the lager, but during the band's rendition of 'The Torture Never Stops' I was granted an epiphany. 

Two things did this. Firstly, Dweezil's solo demonstrated that as a guitarist he's matured. Flash gave way to feeling and it really took flight in an unexpected way. That took me completely by surprise. Maybe I will listen to his next album...

But more important, secondly I found myself really listening to the song for the first time in years. What a truly amazing song it is, too. It contains some of Frank's finest lyrics. Best known for his scatological take on the world of a touring rock band and their sexual shenanigans, only occasionally did his words (albeit finely chosen and delightfully pithy ones) transcend the merely humorous. But, for some reason 'TTNS 'comes across as a superb palimpsest of Zappa's obsessions, his wit and his amused yet objective world view. Let's write 'em down, shall we?

Flies all green 'n buzzin' in his dungeon of despair

Prisoners grumble and piss their clothes and scratch their matted hair

A tiny light from a window hole a hundred yards away

Is all they ever get to know about the regular life in the day;

An' it stinks so bad the stones been chokin'

'N weepin' greenish drops

In the room where the giant fire puffer works

'N the torture never stops

The torture never stops

Slime 'n rot, rats 'n snot 'n vomit on the floor

Fifty ugly soldiers, man, holdin' spears by the iron door

Knives 'n spikes 'n guns 'n the likes of every tool of pain

An' a sinister midget with a bucket an' a mop where the blood goes down the drain;

An' it stinks so bad the stones been chokin'

'N weepin' greenish drops

In the room where the giant fire puffer works

'N the torture never stops

The torture never stops

The torture

The torture

The torture never stops.

Flies all green 'n buzzin' in his dungeon of despair

An evil prince eats a steamin' pig in a chamber right near there

He eats the snouts 'n the trotters first

The loin's 'n the groin's is soon dispersed

His carvin' style is well rehearsed

He stands and shouts

All men be cursed

All men be cursed

All men be cursed

All men be cursed

And disagree, well no-one durst

He's the best of course of all the worst

Some wrong been done, he done it first

(Well, well) An' he stinks so bad, his bones been chokin'

(Yeah) 'N weepin' greenish drops,

(Well) In the night of the iron sausage,

(Well) Where the torture never stops

The torture never stops

The torture

The torture

The torture never stops.

Flies all green 'n buzzin' in his dungeon of despair

Who are all those people that he's locked away up there

Are they crazy?,

Are they sainted?

Are they zeros someone painted?,

It has never been explained since at first it was created

But a dungeon like a sin

Requires naught but lockin' in

Of everything that's ever been

Look at hers

Look at him

That's what's the deal we're dealing in

That's what's the deal we're dealing in

That's what's the deal we're dealing in

That's what's the deal we're dealing in

What, on the surface is a cartoon-y vision of hell is, in fact, a metaphor for something deeply unpleasant and still part of us all. In my mind it conjures the closest thing to a musical equivalent of the comic art of S. Clay Wilson, creator of the infamous Checkered Demon. In the same way David Lynch's best work presents us with a personal inferno that is simultaneously unbearable and utterly fascinating. From Bosch to Jake and Dinos Chapman, this portrayal of eternal torment has validity that always resonates. What Frank is doing here is painting a picture of something we all share: a deeper knowledge that we all create our own hells, our own torture. Like a cynical buddhist, FZ knows that all life is suffering. The evil prince is both the eternal bad-assery that all humanity can never escape, and he's also the sickness and perversion that exists inside of all of us. That's what's the deal we're dealin' in, indeed.

As stated, it's comic book hell for Frank. Just like his predilection for cheap monster movies of the '50s, his love for the kitsch of Halloween seeps through (another good example would be 'Zombie Woof'). It's a marvellously detailed portrayal of perdition ('a sinister midget, with a bucket and a mop, where the blood goes down the drain') that's both horrifying and oddly comforting at the same time. And it's a fine demonstration that his love of words could, when he really cared, approach the condition of poetry. 'In the night of the iron sausage' is so beautifully evocative, transgressive and hilarious.

I think, ultimately, that this (along with the well-documented musicological innovation that he brought to mere 'rock') is why Zappa is still loved and actually deserves to be re-visited by other artists. He wasn't a sardonic misanthrope (or even misogynist, although the original recording of 'TTNS' does feature some disturbing vocal accompaniment by a female accomplice), but a humanist and a realist. His world view was stunted by his profession ('touring makes you crazy'), but when I listen to this song I hear the words of a man who knew that we were all monsters, and that we just needed to understand our equality in the mess we call life.

So now, if someone asks why I would go to a performance of a dead man's music, this is what I will think of. Because if you go that extra mile, and make your business the business of all mankind, then one dead man's work can truly be art. And true art never dies. Which is why NO ONE should ever go to an Oasis tribute gig. Hotcha!