Who Are The Brain Police?

Interesting comments above. But get with the programme guys. Which professionals "police" the brains, or at least the thoughts that come from it? Answer = psychiatrists. They are known as the brain police. "When we let you go home" refers to being discharged from a mental or psychiatric hospital. A psychiatric diagnosis is known as a "label". The ideas about plastic and chrome are the delusional ruminations of a madman.

Apart from the more common Psychiatric / Criminal / Government / Society type meanings...

You could also interpret it as talking about running out of resources, and/or losing big corporations that sell products.

What will you do when all the resources / products are gone?.. Die die.

It could also be looked seen as growing older and less attractive.

And the plastic's all melted, And so is the chrome?

What will you do when the label comes off, And the plastic's all melted, And the chrome is too soft?

What will you do when your looks are fading and your body is becoming soft / old.

This song, to me at least, is about someone who breaks away from societies norms and doesnt know what to do, because that individual has only lived within the confieds of the norm.

I agree with Dressed2Depress it is definatly very Orwellion-like.

The narrator is taking on the identity of an authoritative figure talking to you, someone who has escaped the psycological prison we are trapped in (especially in the western world) and the labels that are placed on all of us since birth, from all the propaganda that is shoved down our throats each and every day. Also the fact that our peers are the ones that keep us in the prison because ridicule of being abnormal is the only thing keeping us from being truley free.

Zappa said in reference to it: "A lot of people police their own brains. They're like citizen soldiers, so to speak. I've seen people who will willingly arrest, try and punish their own brains. Now that's really sad. That's vigilante brain policism. It's not even official, it's like self-imposed. ... It's hard to pin it down to one central agency when you realize that so many people are willing to do it to themselves. I mean, the people who want to become amateur brain police, their numbers grow every day – people who say to themselves, 'I couldn't possibly consider that', and then spank themselves for even getting that far. So, you don't even need to blame it on a central brain police agency. You've got plenty of people who willingly subject themselves to this self-mutilation." I think he uses plastic and chrome/chromium to mean both what we generally think of as being solid(ly) (chrome) real or reasonable and what we feel is more pliable or we're less sure about (plastic) is all 'melted', meaning we've lost the ability to stand on or accept our own ideas or convictions we've come to through perfectly logical reasoning if it sounds too controversial or may be outside the box of what polite society thinks.

[Edit: I wanted to clarify my point.]

oh yeaaaaaa this is Stravinsky-esqe for sure

Well I think it relates to the book 1984 by George Orwell, in which the Thought Police liquidate those who are deemed guilty of "Thoughtcrime". Zappa is drawing parelells between the conformity of 1960's America and Orwell's dystopian nightmare...

also, one possible interpretation would be that the first line "What will you do if we let you go home?" could be a police interrogation and the abrasive middle section, in which the line "I think I'm gonna die" is repeated, mimics torture.

All thoughts above are great - also could be a reflection about the fakeness of American society - something Frank often satires - especially in the first 3 MOTHERS albums.

WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE may be a reflection of the media bullcrap being fed to society from the 50's into the 60's (especially television - Frank comes back to this in I AM THE SLIME)- or how BIG BUSINESS runs things. We believe what they tell us/sell us...etc.

Frank points out things like: Chrome, plastic and labels. All important products of industry. Chrome for the automobile, labels for all material items and plastic which at that time was becoming a growing industry, making items cheaper to create but sometimes crummier quality.

What will happen to us if we don't have all these wonderful items big business have sold us???

I remember I was driving home late one night, I was tired and this song came on my mp3 player and about half way through It got to the "I think im going to die" part and I thought at the time it was saying your going to die, anyway it really freaked me out the only time music has ever scared me.

Interesting to read everyone's thoughts here. I do think the song fits the general pattern of Zappa targeting conformity and the sometimes invisible constraints individuals impose on their own thinking. It's not incidental that Zappa considered the hippy movement to be just one more manifestation of mass conformity as evidenced in his other songs. Interviews with Zappa reveal that he remained bitter throughout his life that the LA recording industry favored bands emulating The Byrds to his own experimental approach in the mid-60s. David Crosby tells a revealing anecdote about Zappa standing under his window playing "Who Are the Brain Police?" full blast.