Frank Zappa

Released: October 14, 1988

Featuring: Sting

Songwriter: Andy Summers Sting

Producer: Frank Zappa

FZ: Alright . . . Now, this afternoon on my way down the elevator we stopped at the lobby, and I was introduced to a man named Sting who I'd never met before. And, he's a very nice man, and he came to the show tonight and I just talked to him in the dressing room a little while ago and I said: "How would you, Mr. Sting, like to come up on stage and perform with us?" Now

Sting: How's [...]. It's not in my nature to kick a man when he's down. When I saw the first part of the show I realised I had to come up here and tell you something. Well, four years ago Jimmy Swaggart said this about me: He said this here song by The Police, "Murder By Numbers," was written by SATAN! Performed by the sons of SATAN! BEELZEBUB! LUCIFER! THE HORNED ONE! I wrote the fuckin' song, alright?

Once that you've decided on a killing
First you make a stone of your heart
If you find that your hands are still willing
Then you can turn a murder into art

There really isn't any need for bloodshed
You just do it with a little more finesse
If you can slip a tablet into someone's coffee
Then it avoids an awful lot of mess because

It's murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC

Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less

Because a murder is like anything you take to
It's a habit-forming need for more and more
You can bump off every member of your family
And anybody else you find a bore

Because it's murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
I said murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers one two three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers A B C D E

FZ: Mr. Sting! Ladies and gentlemen . . . Mr. Sting!
Ike: Sting!
FZ: Thank you! "Murder By Numbers" . . . And then, suddenly

(1940-1993) Composer, guitarist, singer, and bandleader Frank Zappa was a singular musical figure during a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1960s to the ‘90s. His disparate influences included doo wop music and avant-garde classical music; although he led groups that could be called rock & roll bands for much of his career, he used them to create a hybrid style that bordered on jazz and complicated, modern serious music, sometimes inducing orchestras to play along.

As if his music were not challenging enough, he overlay it with highly satirical and sometimes abstractly humorous lyrics and song titles that marked him as coming out of a provocative literary tradition that included Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and edgy comedians like Lenny Bruce. Nominally, he was a popular musician, but his recordings rarely earned significant airplay or sales, yet he was able to gain control of his recorded work and issue it successfully through his own labels while also touring internationally, in part because of the respect he earned from a dedicated cult of fans and many serious musicians, and also because he was an articulate spokesman who promoted himself into a media star through extensive interviews he considered to be a part of his creative effort just like his music.

The Mothers of Invention, the ‘60s group he led, often seemed to offer a parody of popular music and the counterculture (although he affected long hair and jeans, Zappa was openly scornful of hippies and drug use). By the '80s, he was testifying before Congress in opposition to censorship (and editing his testimony into one of his albums). But these comic and serious sides were complementary, not contradictory.

From the album

Broadway the Hard Way (1988)

Frank Zappa popular songs

Murder by NumbersFrank Zappa

Frank Zappa