This blew my mind! Never heard Primus cover Zappa before. I knew Ler is a big fan, but this is just fantastic! I really need to hunt down more of the shows from the Seas of Cheese & Hallucino-genetic tours…RIP primuslive
Whoever we are Wherever we’re from We shoulda noticed by now Our behavior is dumb And if our chances Expect to improve It’s gonna take a lot more Than tryin’ to remove The other race Or the other whatever From the face Of the planet altogether
They call it the earth Which is a dumb kinda name But they named it right 'Cause we behave the same… We are dumb all over Dumb all over, Yes we are Dumb all over, Near 'n far Dumb all over, Black ‘n white People, we is not wrapped tight
Nurds on the left Nurds on the right Religous fanatics On the air every night Sayin’ the bible Tells the story Makes the details Sound real gory 'Bout what to do If the geeks over there Don’t believe in the book We got over here
You can’t run a race Without no feet 'N pretty soon There won’t be no street For dummies to jog on Or doggies to dog on Religous fanatics Can make it be all gone (I mean it won’t blow up ‘N disappear It’ll just look ugly For a thousand years…)
You can’t run a country By a book of religion Not by a heap Or a lump or a smidgeon Of foolish rules Of ancient date Designed to make You all feel great While you fold, spindle And mutilate Those unbelievers From a neighboring state
To arms! to arms! Hooray! that’s great Two legs ain’t bad Unless there’s a crate They ship the parts To mama in For souvenirs: two ears (get down!) Not his, not hers, (but what the hey?) The good book says: (“it gotta be that way!”) But their book says: “Revenge the crusades… With whips 'n chains 'N hand grenades…” Two arms? two arms? Have another and another Our God says: “There ain’t no other!” Our God says “It’s all okay!” Our God says “This is the way!”
It says in the book: “Burn 'n destroy… 'N repent, 'n redeem 'N revenge, 'n deploy 'N rumble thee forth To the land of the unbelieving scum on the other side 'Cause they don’t go for what’s in the book 'N that makes ‘em bad So verily we must choppeth them up And stompeth them down Or rent a nice french bomb To poof them out of existance While leaving their real estate just where we need it To use again For temples in which to praise our god (“cause he can really take care of business!”)
And when his humble tv servant With humble white hair And humble glasses And a nice brown suit And maybe a blond wife who takes phone calls Tells us our God says It’s okay to do this stuff Then we gotta do it, ‘Cause if we don’t do it, We ain’t gwine up to hebbin! (Depending on which book you’re using at the Time… can’t use theirs… it don’t work …it’s all lies… gotta use mine…) Ain’t that right? That’s what they say Every night… Every day… Hey, we can’t really be dumb If we’re just following god’s orders Hey, let’s get serious… God knows what he’s doin’ He wrote this book here An’ the book says: He made us all to be just like him,” So… If we’re dumb… Then God is dumb… (An’ maybe even a little ugly on the side)
I had Zappa on cassette on my walkman cycling to school in '85 on repeat...Sheik Yerbouti, other side Tinseltown Rebellion. Yo mama, Flakes and Wild Love, Easy Meat, Blue Light, Pick me i'm clean. To me it did have a big impact on composing music myself.
I have seen him live in Rotterdam , Broadway the hard way.
I never had the chance to see him, and glad that you did. This particular song stood out to me on an album of mostly great songs (I never cared for the conehead song) as outrageous in the best way, an indictment of humanity. Years later I see no flaw in the critique unfortunately.
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