Song of the Day: November 7, 2024

Song of the Day: November 7, 2024

Frank Zappa: Be-Bop Tango

Be-Bop Tango on Amazon Prime Music

Completing this week’s focus on Frank Zappa, today’s song is “Be-Bop Tango” from the 1993 album The Yellow Shark. In 1990, Zappa was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and he spent the last few years of his life working on orchestral and Synclavier compositions. The last album he released before his death on 12/4/93 was a collection of orchestral versions of his old songs with the German chamber music group Ensemble Modern. Yellow Shark was relatively ignored when released, but it is now seen as a perfect end to Zappa’s career. Frank Zappa was nothing if not a compositional visionary, and for those who understand such things, he is recognized along with artists such as Igor Stravinsky and Karlheinz Stockhausen as a great 20th century composer.

To learn more about Frank Zappa, check out his Wikipedia page.

To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.

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2 thoughts on “Song of the Day: November 7, 2024”

  1. Funny anecdote i think about warmly every time I hear Zappa. You may have heard it….Bowie recruited Adrian Belew while he was a member of The Mothers, although Zappa’s tour was wrapping up. Very clandestinely, Bowie met with Belew for dinner to discuss terms and details, and when they walked into the restaurant, who should be sitting there, but Zappa. The following is quoted from a post Belew put up on FB (and reported here: https://www.mnprmagazine.com/news/unveiling-the-infamous-encounter-when-frank-zappa-and-david-bowie-clashed-in-a-legendary-fck-you-captain-tom-moment/ )

    We arrived at the restaurant, went in the front door, and who should be sitting at the very first table but Frank Zappa and the rest of the band! So the three of us sat down with Frank and the band. David, trying to be cordial, motioned to me and said, “Quite a guitar player you have here Frank.”

    And Frank said, “F••• you Captain Tom.” (note: Frank had demoted David from Major Tom to Captain Tom.)

    David persisted, “Oh come on now Frank, surely we can be gentleman about this?”

    Frank said, “F••• you Captain Tom.”

    By this point I was paralyzed. David said, “So you really have nothing to say?” Frank said, “F••• you Captain Tom.”

    David and Coco and I got up and went back out the front door. Getting in the limo David said in his wonderfully British way, “I thought that went rather well!”

    🙂

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