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Cosmik DebrisFrank Zappa

Released: March 22, 1974

Songwriter: Frank Zappa

Producer: Frank Zappa

[Verse 1]
The Mystery Man came over
An' he said: "I'm outta sight!"
He said, for a nominal service charge
I could reach Nirvana tonight
If I was ready, willing and able
To pay him his regular fee
He would drop all the rest of his pressing affairs
And devote his attention to me

[Chorus]
But I said
Look here brother
Who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?!
Now who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?
Look here brother
Don't you waste your time on me

[Verse 2]
The Mystery Man got nervous
An' he fidget around a bit
He reached in the pocket of his Mystery Robe
And he whipped out a shaving kit
Now, I thought it was a razor
And a can of foamin' goo
But he told me right then when the top popped open
There was nothin' his box won't do
With the oil of Aphrodite
An' the dust of the Grand Wazoo
He said:
"You might not believe this, little fella
But it'll cure your Asthma too!"

[Chorus]
And I said
Look here brother
Who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?!
Now what kind of a geroo are you anyway?
Look here brother
Don't you waste your time on me
Don't waste yer time

[Verse 3]
I've got troubles of my own, I said
An' you can't help me out
So take your meditations and your preparations
An' ram it up yer snout
"BUT I GOT A KRISTL BOL!," he said
An' held it to the light
So I snatched it all away from him
An' I showed him how to do it right
I wrapped a newspaper 'round my head
So I'd look like I was Deep
I said some Mumbo Jumbos then
An' told him he was goin' to sleep
I robbed his rings and pocket watch
And everything else I found
I had that sucker hypnotized
He couldn't even make a sound
I proceeded to tell him his future then
As long as he was hanging around
I said "The price of meat has just gone up
An' yer ol' lady has just gone down..."

[Chorus]
Look here brother
Who you jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?
Now is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Don't you know?
You could make more money as a butcher
So don't you waste your time on me
Don't waste it, don't waste your time on me
Ohm shanti, ohm shanti, ohm shanti-ohm
Shanti

Frank Zappa

(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.

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