Frank Zappa & Mothers - We're Only In It For The Money Uncensored REV - F Matrix

$

35

Here's a chance to score a copy of the original uncensored 1968 Verve V6 -5045 X Stereo pressing of this landmark LP.
Vinyl reveals very strong bright gloss.  A couple of scuffs are visible when viewed under direct bright light, see pics for details
Sleeve reveals a bit of wear, is overall reasonably clean, see pics for details.

Frank Zappa with the Mothers Of Invention - "We're Only In It For The Money".  

Side-1 MGS 1250 REV-F  / SIDE-2 MGS 1251 REV-F matrixes.

Original uncensored versions of  "Mother People" / "Concentration Moon" / "Who Needs The Peace Corps" / "Harry, You're A Beast" / "Absolutely Free" / "Let's Make the Water Turn Black".

More details about We're Only In It for the Money - the Goldmine 5th edition price guide says that the uncensored version has a matrix number of "V6 5045 MGS 1250-REV-F". The censored version is missing the "-F"

From the beginning, Frank Zappa cultivated a role as voice of the freaks -- imaginative outsiders who didn't fit comfortably into any group. We're Only in It for the Money is the ultimate expression of that sensibility, a satirical masterpiece that simultaneously skewered the hippies and the straights as prisoners of the same narrow-minded, superficial phoniness. Zappa's barbs were vicious and perceptive, and not just humorously so: his seemingly paranoid vision of authoritarian violence against the counterculture was borne out two years later by the Kent State killings. Like Freak Out, We're Only in It for the Money essentially devotes its first half to satire, and its second half to presenting alternatives. Despite some specific references, the first-half suite is still wickedly funny, since its targets remain immediately recognizable. The second half shows where his sympathies lie, with character sketches of Zappa's real-life freak acquaintances, a carefree utopia in "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance," and the strident, unironic protest "Mother People." Regardless of how dark the subject matter, there's a pervasively surreal, whimsical flavor to the music, sort of like Sgt. Pepper as a creepy nightmare. Some of the instruments and most of the vocals have been manipulated to produce odd textures and cartoonish voices; most songs are abbreviated, segue into others through edited snippets of music and dialogue, or are broken into fragments by more snippets, consistently interrupting the album's continuity. Compositionally, though, the music reveals itself as exceptionally strong, and Zappa's politics and satirical instinct have rarely been so focused and relevant, making We're Only in It for the Money quite probably his greatest achievement.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY STEVE HUEY, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

This is Frank Zappa's third and, according to many, greatest album ever (count us in). We proudly present here one of the most derisive, sarcastic, witty, hilarious, caustic, venomous, subversive pieces of cow dung ever hurled in the face of the ruling class and culture establishment. This is truly one of the legendary, fairy-tale pieces of Rock'n'Roll history, a genuine one-of-a-kind.. Miss it now and Freak Out later!!! Track listing: Are You Hung Up? --- Who Needs The Peace Corps? --- Concentration Moon --- Mom & Dad --- Telephone Conversation --- Bow Tie Daddy --- Harry, You're A Beast --- What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? --- Absolutely Free --- Flower Punk --- Hot Poop --- Nasal Retentive Calliope Music --- Let's Make The Water Turn Black --- Idiot Bastard Son! --- Lonely Little Girl --- Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance --- What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? (Reprise) --- Mother People --- Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny.

Original US Vinyl

This controversial album was subject to some censorship when it came out, although it is not entirely clear who instigated/who actually performed the censorship. Later, another version came out, which was even more censored. The first version was censored in the following ways:

• "Harry, You're a Beast" - the "Don't come in me, in me" section was "partially forwards, partially backwards, and shuffled as well". [01:06-01:13]. Due to the edit's complexity, it is likely Zappa's own work.
• "Mother People" - the lines "Better look around before you say you don't care, / Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair, / How would you survive / If you were alive, / Shitty little person?" were cut out, and replaced with "Lemme take a minute and tell you my plan, / Lemme take a minute and tell who I am, / If it doesn't show, / Think you'd better know, / I'm another person", taken from earlier in the song. [This happens at 00:58-01:03.] (However, the cut lines wereon the record, backwards, at the end of side one, in a track called "Hot Poop", but if you reverse the reversed version back and listen to it, you'll find that even there, the word "fuckin'" has been edited out. The stereo balance on the "Hot Poop" excerpt is also reversed as compared with the actual song.) This is also likely to be Zappa's own decision.
• "Concentration Moon" - the line "Also, at the same time, I get to work with the Velvet Underground, which is as shitty a group as Frank Zappa's group" was cut from Gary Kellgren's whispering [01:13]. As at least some copies escaped without this edit--and as this edit is different on the heavily-censored versions--is it possible that this was either a last-minute edit on the US master and/or a record company decision.

The second was censored in these ways also:

• "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" - the "kick the shit out of me on the street" bit was censored.
• "Absolutely Free" - the word "balling" was censored from "I don't do publicity balling for you anymore".
• "Absolutely Free" - the words "flower power sucks" were cut (although, the echoes of the word "sucks" can still be heard under the ensuing verse).
• "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" - the lines "And I still remember Mama with her apron and her pad / Feeding all the boys at Ed's Cafe" were inexplicably cut out. Zappa offered the explanation that someone thought the word "pad" referred to a "sanitary napkin".
• "Hot Poop" - the backwards "Mother People" verse was cut, so that "Hot Poop" was reduced to Gary Kellgren's whispering and a snork. Crazy obsessives will be thrilled to note that this snork is, in fact, a different snork than the one on the regular version.

(Zappa had no idea that the second version had been manufactured, and happened to hear it in Europe - they played "Let's Make the Water Turn Black", with bits cut out, as he was picking up an award, and he was so upset he didn't accept the award: he thought the censors deserved it better, because it was their record now, after all the changes they had made. From Harry de Swart, January 2000:

The Dutch music award "Edison" for We're Only In It for the Money, which was refused by Zappa because of censorship and which he gave to Hitweek is still owned by Willem de Ridder of Hitweek. He has the award standing on his mantlepiece.)

Attention: Some copies were accidentally made with one side "heavily censored" and the other side just "censored". Also, Harry de Swart reports a US copy, "heavily censored" but with half the Velvet Underground line intact ("shitty" part only cut).

As for the (X), the X is on the sleeve but not on the label. On the label, the sides are MGS 1250 and MGS1251.

"TYPO ALERT: on the Verve LP label calliope is spelled caliope."

SOUND QUALITY

A reader writes:

MORE PIECES TO THE PUZZLE - CANADIAN?

From David Goodwin:

I have a vinyl copy with the Velvet Underground line. With "shitty." This is not supposed to exist.

And yes, I mean the original mix, and I'm not deluded in any way. I own 6 vinyl copies of this album (I really like this album), and this is the only one with it. From what I understand, none are supposed to have it. Naturally, the '95 remaster doesn't have it. So why does this one have it?

I'm not home currently, so I can't describe matrix numbers and somesuch, but here's what I know about it. Firstly, the sound quality is quite a bit better than a few of the other pressings I have ... it's very crisp (while others can be dull). This suggests near-first pressing to me. Also, unlike other versions I have, this one has the record inserted from the inside of the gatefold (think of the gatefold opened towards you like a book ... while the record is normally inserted in the extreme right flap of the right-hand panel, on this one it's inserted on the left, inner side of the right-hand panel). [The "unipak" sleeve - Ed.] It's apparently a Canadian pressing. The CDR I have of the mono version doesn't have it. It's stereo. Also, the closest I've ever gotten previous to this re. original mixes with the Velvet line is the Transparency comp, which is still missing the "shitty" part. Stereo vinyl, "uncensored" version, with the Velvet line but with everything else still there (missing "Mother People" verse, "Harry, You're a Beast" shuffle-fest).

From Harry:

I know that on all of my European versions and the US heavily censored version the Velvet line exists but all miss the "which is as shitty a group" bit. I know Ryan Davenport has a different censored Canadian version.

From Fast Frank:

A guy I played in a band with back in high school (1970) had this album. On it, the guy doing all the whispering sez something about the Mothers being as shitty a band as the Velvet Underground. My copy of the album did not have this - at the time I wondered about it, but hadn't thought about it since.

From Ryan Davenport:

The Canadian version has three pieces which were censored, two of them from the normal censored US version and one from the heavily censored US version:

• Harry, You're A Beast
• Mother People
• Hot Poop

As you can see, it doesn't line up with the US versions in any case, even if they were to take one side from the normal censored version and the other side from the heavily censored version. The Canadian vinyl does have its own matrix numbers, but Canadian records usually did. They were pressed in Canada, not the US, so they usually had different matrix numbers. The Canadian matrix numbers are V6-5045 S1 and V6-5045 S2. One of my copies is a non-gatefold reissue with black labels dating from 1973. The other is an original gatefold issue with blue labels. Both of these records have the same matrix numbers.

MORE CENSORSHIP TALK

From TFaulconer:

The censored version of We're Only In It for the Money was released for only a brief time in 1968. Ironically, given MGM's disdain for the group's original name, the censored version seems to have been issued with a sticker affixed to the cover of the album itself (immediately over Jimmy Carl Black's head) that simply said "THE MOTHERS". From Neal Umphred's Goldmine Price Guide to Collectible Albums (4th edition):

"Original pressings included the lines "I will love the police as they kick the shit out of me" in the song "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" and "And I still remember Mama with her apron and her pad / feeding all the boys at Ed's Cafe" in the song "Let's Make the Water Turn Black." Later pressings have both of these lines pruned from the tapes ... And exactly who the editing was done for is a bit of a mystery: The rarity of the edited version of the album indicates that it had little, if any distribution." [A personal aside here: A friend of mine, Robert Evans, was involved in booking rock'n roll shows into Wilkes-Barre, PA, back in the late '60s and early '70s. After staging a triumphant show with the Mothers, he later entertained the group, apparently hitting it off with Zappa, who presented Bob with a copy of the edited album as a gift, telling him how rare the album was more than twenty years ago!]

Also, I remember that at least one European MGM/Verve/Polygram anthology issued in the '70s (this particular one commonly known as "Transparency") utilized lengthly excerpts from the censored version of We're Only In It for the Money, instead of the original.

Yet more details about We're Only In It for the Money - the Goldmine 5th edition price guide says that the uncensored version has a matrix number of "V6 5045 MGS 1250-REV-F". The censored version is missing the "-F". And both my black label non-gatefold and blue label gatefold (both Canadian pressings) show "V6 5045 S1" on side 1, "V6 5045 S2" on side 2. Do you suppose the censored version was only ever available in the US [as opposed to Canada]?

In spite of all this censorship, the lyric sheet always mirrored the original, censored version, and was never changed to reflect what was actually on the heavily censored (or much later, uncensored) record. Biffyshrew elaborates:

Well, most of the bits that were cut were little "asides" that weren't on the lyric sheet anyway, such as "publicity balling" and "flower power sucks", and the "Harry" and "Mother People" lines were already censored. So the only "offensive" thing they left in the printed lyrics on the "heavily censored" edition was the "I still remember Mama" verse. Maybe the person who did the censoring didn't even know that the words were on the cover, or maybe they thought it was all right to print (then it's "literature") but not to say. (This is the reverse of records like Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers or Procol Harum's Home, where words like "fuck" and "piss" that are on the record are censored from the lyric sheet.)

Another point to consider is why Zappa didn't reinstate the missing lines from "Harry" and "Mother People" on the lyric sheets of the remixed versions - both theOld Masters LP and the original Ryko CD still indicate that those lines are censored. Perhaps on the LP it was thought to be too much trouble to re-typeset the whole thing, but on the CD the lyrics were specially typeset anyway. So why not correct them?

More info from Record Collector magazine #93, May 1987 (quoted by Mikael Agardsson):

The first release for Bizarre Productions should have appeared in the shops around August 1967 but was delayed following problems over the sleeve. Legend has it that Zappa phoned Paul McCartney to ask his permission to parody the Sgt Pepper cover. McCartney referred him to the Beatles' office saying, "That's what business managers are for", whereupon Zappa snapped back, "That's what artists are for, to tell the business managers what to do". In any event, EMI/Capitol objected and following a five month delay, Money was released with the sleeve reversed. It's rumoured that some copies exist with the sleeve printed as originally planned (with the group photo on the inside), but these are almost certainly all test pressings which never reached the shops.

Despite the reversed sleeve, Money was still a precise and masterful parody of Sgt Pepper in every way. US pressings had no separations between the tracks and one song, "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?", also had a "Reprise" as on the Beatles record. A "cut-out" insert card was even included with early US pressings.

Contrary to popular belief, Suzy Creamcheese's "publicity balling" line was not edited on US pressings (at least, not on early pressings), but another song, "Mother People", did suffer at the hands of MGM. Luckily, Zappa knew in advance that a verse would have to be edited out and had time to insert a note in the lyrics which read: "The verse that really goes here has been censored out and recorded backwards in a special section at the end of side one". The offending verse was thus moved to form part of a very short track titled "Hot Poop". The uncensored version of "Mother People" was eventually released on the compilation albumMothermania [In an alternate mono mix - Ed.].

As part of a belated push for Money, Zappa ran a series of adverts in Marvel comics during April 1969, the first time a rock album had been advertised in this way.