So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Lyrics submitted by JohnnyLurg
Pound For a Brown Lyrics as written by Frank Vincent Zappa
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
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Instrumental inspired by the group being in London and riding a bus to a gig. A "brown" is Brit slang for what Americans call "mooning," displaying your naked butt out the window of a moving vehicle. Apparently someone offered someone else a pound to do it on the bus. The instrumental (from the album Uncle Meat) is sort of jouncy, you can envision a bus ride.
What a great site! Zing, I was at a Mothers concert at the Albert Hall in the UK in 1969, the last tour by the original Mothers. "Uncle Meat" had just been released, with the first released version of "Brown" on it. Before performing the song, Frank explained it's origins for us. You are correct but I can add more detail: In Frank's words as best I can remember them: "Last time we were here we were met at the airport by a big glass bus with big glass windows so we could see everything outside and everyone outside could see everything inside. As we were driving to the hotel, Jimmy Carl Black said to Bunk Gardner "I bet you a pound you won't do a brown out in this here bus". Bunk did a swift conversion in to Sterling currency and had his pants off in no time!." Frank then explained the construction of the song thus: "The first part is a happy bouncy part to describe how the Mothers of Invention just love to go cruising around the countryside in a big glass windowed bus. This changes in to a less melodic section which describes the altercation between Jimmy and Bunk" I can't remember anymore from there. I witnessed the section of the concert that is at the end of "Burnt Weeny Sandwich" including the "invasion" of the stage, which was actually by a small party of U.S. kids aged about 12. No idea how they came to be there. The rest of the Albert Hall crowd stayed politiley and quietly in tirre seats, apart from the idiot freaking out about "get the unifroms of that stage MAAANN!!!"
@zing1 I'm British and I've never ever heard of "a brown" being slang for mooning. I've checked the online urban dictionary and neither has it. The urban dictionary does say "brown" can be slang for heroin, although FZ was anti-drug so the title probably isn't advocating drug use, more likely satirising it.
@zing1 I'm British and have never heard a moon being known as a brown...Your making this up. A brown is possibly a glass of Brown Ale. Drinking Brown Ale on a bus that cost's a nicker in 1967 pounds, shilling and Pence...............