Posted

Sep 10th 2008

Mood

Disturbed

Music

Frank Zappa - Billy the Mountain

So, I just finished listening to Frank Zappa - Billy the Mountain. For those of you (IE: everyone) who don't know, Billy the Mountain is a 30 minute song about Billy - who is a mountain, and his wife Ethel - who is a tree who grew on his shoulder. The entire song has a FULL WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE to explain what the hell is going on. Billy's eyes are a pair of caves, and his mouth is a cliff, which he often hacks up boulders from.

It basically starts with Billy getting a royalties check (ostensibly because of all the postcards and commercials he's been in) and coughing up a boulder that crushes the car of the guy who brought his check. Billy then tells Ethel that they're going to be going on vacation in New York. But first, they're going to Las Vegas.

Confused yet? It gets worse. They go to Las Vegas, crushing all kinds of things along the way, and eventually the news starts reporting about all kinds of things about the mountain and the tree - most notably that Ethel was once an active communist, and later that they have a confirmation that she STILL IS an active communist, and possibly a practitioner of witchcraft.
Eventually, there's a phonecall made to a phone... located in a suitcase... which brings in Studebacher Hoch, who is a resident "superhero". He takes down all the things that have happened, then promises to help out.
There's also a dance lesson, and the statement of the widely accepted place of Hoch's birth - next to the frozen beef pies in a supermarket, underneath Joni Mitchell's autographed picture, next to Elliot Robert's bank book, next to a boat in which David Crosby was arrested while throwing away his "stash." ....
Anyway, he then takes some cardboard boxes, some tinfoil, and some Aunt Jemima syrup, hides between some cars and makes the boxes and tinfoil into wings and puts them under his arms. Then he goes into some random phone booth, strips off his pants and spreads the syrup over his legs.
Once this attracts the flies, he makes sure they basically go everywhere on his legs and in his boxers (....), then leans over, puts his head between his legs and tells all the flies he wants to go to New York. Since he has a reputation of "treating flies alright," they take him and the phone booth to Billy.
Still with me? Good. Hoch is now standing on Billy's cliff (IE his mouth). He first tries to reason with the two but Ethel protests, so he tries to threaten them. Billy just laughs, causing the cliff to move... and since Hoch is on the edge, he loses his balance and falls 200 feet to his death. The moral of the story is "a mountain is something you don't want to fuck with."

..... I think I just got a 37 year old contact high from that song.