Zappa
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The Poem
Zappa
He wore the suit to Congress.The tie. The brown loafers. The cigarette.The hair that was never going to cooperatewith anyone’s idea of what a manappearing before the United States Senatewas supposed to look like —and he sat there and said exactly what he thoughtin exactly the language it requiredand the senators looked at himthe way power always looks at the personwho forgot to be afraid of it.
He came as Dirty Harry.Of course he did —the man who worked within the systemby ignoring everything the system required,who carried the badge and the gunand the specific disdain of someone who understoodthat the rules were written by the peoplethe rules were designed to protect.
Harry Callahan in the blue suit.Zappa hair. Cigarette.The .44 aimed directly at the camera,at the committee, at the fence, at the field,at everyone who ever told him to turn it down,clean it up,make it more appropriate for the audiencethey had decided he deserved.
Aimed directly at the camera
Do you feel lucky?Not punk.Do you feel lucky, America?
He was not a sheep.Not a rebel for the sake of it.Not chaos as a marketable identity.A man with specific convictionsarrived at through specific thought,expressed specifically, without apology, until he died —leaving behind more music than most people make decisions in a lifetime.
We lionize him now.This is the question and it is the right question —why do we lionize the revolutionary while living like the sheep?Why do we buy the t-shirt of the person who didn’t care what anyone thoughtand spend Tuesday worrying about what everyone thinks?Why do we hang the poster of the one who made noiseand apologize for our own?
I think it’s this:we know.We know what we are and what we could beand the distance between them is the life we’re actually livingwhile planning the life we would liveif the bills weren’t real and the fear wasn’t realand the judgment of the people around us wasn’t real.
Zappa is the proof that someone chose the other thing.We keep him on the wall as evidence that it was possible.
Cigarette lit. Hair doing what it does.
Do we secretly wish we could make noise?Yes.Every one of us.Every sheep in the field knows the fence is there,knows what’s beyond it,and chooses the field anyway —not because the field is betterbut because the beyond requires somethingwe have decided we cannot afford:the willingness to be completely ungovernable.
Zappa was ungovernable.Not as a pose. As a practice. Daily.From the first note to the Senate testimonyto the compositions so complex they required orchestrasand still sounded like a manwho decided the rules of music were suggestions for other people.
He left an indelible mark.Not because he was famous —because he was completely, specifically, irreducibly himselfin every room he ever entered,including the rooms that required a suitand the restraint of a man who knewthat sometimes the most radical actis to aim the gun calmlyand say exactly what you meanin language so precise it cannot be managedby anyone who ever tried to make him smaller than he was.
They always try to make them smaller.He didn’t let them.
The red is not background.The red is everything that needed to be saidand wasn’t by everyone else in the room.The gun is the music. The music is the question.The question has been aimed at you since 1964and you still haven’t answered it.
Frank is still waiting.Cigarette lit. Hair doing what it does.The blue suit slightly wrongin the way that everything true is slightly wronguntil it becomes the only right thing in the room.
Go ahead.
Make noise.