THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,966) Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention — “Trouble Every Day”
One of Frank Zappa’s (see #793) greatest achievements, this “[t]otal masterpiece. . . [has] some of the best lyrics that Zappa ever wrote.” (mikedavies395, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo4EnABWB4Y) Zappa’s blistering take on the ‘65 Watts riots is “probably the finest song on social/racial problems in the history of rock and roll” (caribman10, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo4EnABWB4Y), and it garnered him his first record deal.
Françoise Couture writes:
“Trouble Every Day” became the most enduring song from the Mothers of Invention’s first LP, Freak Out. It was written as a straightforward rock song, its message being more important at first than its musical value. Zappa wrote it following racial riots. It is a charge against racism, mob violence, and the way the media treat this type of “news.” . . . It is one of the rare songs on which Zappa assumed lead vocals in the Mothers’ early days. By 1974, the song had undergone a transformation: it had been slowed down and given a slightly bluesy feel. A horn section hook had been added and a few verses eliminated to make way for an extended guitar solo. It appeared in this form on the [live] 1974 LP Roxy & Elsewhere under the title “More Trouble Every Day.” From this point onward, Zappa will use either title[] but will only play this second version. Lyrics were often updated to meet with contemporary events, like in the “Swaggart Version” found on The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life. The Freak Out version . . . was released as a DJ-only single by Verve in 1966 (wrongly titled “Trouble Comin” Every Day”), but it is a fair assumption to say it didn’t receive much (or any) airplay. The piece was performed, in either of its incarnations, throughout Zappa’s career, and was released in five different official recordings (on Freak Out, Roxy & Elsewhere, Does Humor Belong in Music?, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, and You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5).
https://www.allmusic.com/song/trouble-every-day-mt0044284068
Wikipedia expresses the received wisdom about the song:
[Zappa] composed the lyrics while watching continuous televised news coverage of the Watts Riots. Originally dubbed “The Watts Riot Song”, the piece reflects Zappa’s anger toward systemic racism, the conditions behind the unrest, and the way mainstream news transformed tragedy into spectacle. . . . The lyrics document Zappa’s response to the Watts riots, confronting poverty, racial injustice, police violence, and the voyeuristic tone of television journalism.
OK, that is just plain silly. You can’t pigeonhole Zappa — he was a lot more nuanced and sophisticated than that. Yes, he condemned racism and economic inequality, but he also condemned mob violence. “Watched while everybody on his street would take a turn to stomp n’ smash n’ bash n’ crash n’ slash n’ bust n’ burn” “Watched a mob just turn and bite ’em And they say it served ’em right Because a few of them are white”
“Funny that the Buffalo Springfield [see #1,555] wrote a song about white kids who couldn’t get into a nightclub and everybody thought it was the second coming…but before that, Frank had written probably the finest song on social/racial problems in the history of rock and roll, and most people have never heard it.” (caribman10, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo4EnABWB4Y) So funny, and so true!
Frank Zappa tells the story:
Tom Wilson, who was producing records for MGM at the time, came to the Whiskey A-Go-Go . . . . He heard us sing “The Watts Riot Song (Trouble Every Day).” He stayed for five minutes, said “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” slapped me on the back, shook my hand and said, “Wonderful. We’re gonna make a record of you. Goodbye.” I didn’t see him again for four months. He thought we were a rhythm and blues band. He probably went back to New York and said, “I signed me another rhythm and blues band from the Coast. They got this song about the riot. It’s a protest song. They’ll do a couple of singles and maybe they’ll die out”. He came back to town just before we were going to do our first recording session. We had a little chat in his room and that was when he first discovered that that wasn’t all that we played. Things started changing. We decided not to make a single, we’d make an album instead. He wouldn’t give me an idea of what the budget would be for the album, but the average rock and roll album costs about $5,000. The start-to-finish cost of FREAK OUT was somewhere around $21,000. . . . Wilson was sticking his neck out. He laid his job on the line by producing the album. MGM felt that they had spent too much money on the album and they were about to let it die, but it started selling all over the place.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014231444/http://zappa.com/fz/interviews/006_19680600.html (Hit Parader, June 1968)
Here is the single version:
Live ’74:
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