STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (24)
By:
December 10, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of proto-punk records from the Sixties (1964–1973, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn. Also check out our proto-punk playlist (a work in progress) at Spotify.
THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION | “WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE?” | 1966
The song begins in mystery. Two throbbing, fuzzy bass notes are answered by guitar, percussion, and flat, wordless male vocals humming, and twice repeating, a simple tune. This is all mysterious too — what are they trying to say? The album is called Freak Out! Are these sounds tribal, part of a ritual language we don’t understand? Jazzbos might remember the old Luis Russell record, “Call of the Freaks.” It was great, weird, almost satanic sounding, but 1966 is long way from 1929. A-bombs and H-bombs saw to that. Remember The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms?
After twenty-five seconds, the first words come from a single male voice:
What will you do if we let you go home
The melody is pleasant, the rhythm calming, until that last word “home,” which is elongated and treated with a haunting echo effect.
And the plastic’s all melted and so is the chrome
Melting plastic isn’t a big deal; a cigarette lighter can do that. Chrome, like the chromium plated steel used for glorious American car bumpers and tailfins, is another matter. This ominous realization, if one could process it so quickly, passes into the song’s eponymous chorus. It’s catchy, with harmony voices, but menacing too:
Whoooooo are the Brain Poliiiiiice?
A brief classical music-like figure follows, then a bridge reprising the song’s previous musical elements. The second verse begins:
What will you do when the label comes off
And the plastic’s all melted and the chrome is too soft
Instead of the expected chorus, however, there comes A SCREAM!!! as wild and shocking as any ever before recorded. It’s not a Wagner opera nor Little Richard, but both would surely recognize its impact, which signals a mad cacophony of noise, pounding rhythms, distorted guitars, and voices intoning “I’m going to die” or “I think I’m gonna die.” Layered and overlapping amid the forty-eight second maelstrom, it’s not quite clear but it’s certain that death is near. And then comes the chorus:
Whoooooo are the Brain Poliiiiiice?
Remember William S. Burroughs’ 1964 novel Nova Express, in which the authoritarian Nova Police battle the outlaw Nova Mob? “So I think maybe I was wrong and everything is cool when I see like fifty young punks have showed in aqualungs carrying fish spears.”
Once more, the song reprises its previous musical themes before the final verse and chorus:
What would you do if the people you knew
Were the plastic that melted and the chromium too
Whoooooo are the Brain Poliiiiiice?
As if to console the listener in this shift to the post-apocalyptic past tense, there follows a pounding, 43-seconds-long instrumental outro including a kazoo solo that predates the first great American kazoo novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, by seven years.
Proto- what?
In Freak Out!’s “notes on the compositions herein,” Mothers leader, composer and lyricist, Frank Zappa wrote of “Who Are The Brain Police?”: “At five o’clock in the morning someone kept singing this in my mind and made me write it down. I will admit to being frightened when I finally played it out and sang the words.”
STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mandy Keifetz on The Trashmen’s SURFIN’ BIRD | Nicholas Rombes on Yoko Ono’s MOVE ON FAST | David Cantwell on ? and the Mysterians’ 96 TEARS | James Parker on The Modern Lovers’ SHE CRACKED | Lynn Peril on The Pleasure Seekers’ WHAT A WAY TO DIE | Lucy Sante on The Count Five’s PSYCHOTIC REACTION | Jonathan Lethem on The Monkees’ YOUR AUNTIE GRIZELDA | Adam McGovern on ELP’s BRAIN SALAD SURGERY | Mimi Lipson on The Shaggs’ MY PAL FOOT FOOT | Eric Weisbard on Frances Faye’s FRANCES AND HER FRIENDS | Annie Zaleski on Suzi Quatro’s CAN THE CAN | Carl Wilson on The Ugly Ducklings’ NOTHIN’ | Josh Glenn on Gillian Hill’s TUT, TUT, TUT, TUT… | Mike Watt on The Stooges’ SHAKE APPEAL | Peter Doyle on The Underdogs’ SITTING IN THE RAIN | Stephanie Burt on Pauline Oliveros’s III | Marc Weidenbaum on Ornette Coleman’s WE NOW INTERRUPT FOR A COMMERCIAL | Anthony Miller on Eno’s NEEDLES IN THE CAMEL’S EYE | Gordon Dahlquist on The Sonics’ STRYCHNINE | David Smay on The New York Dolls’ HUMAN BEING | Michael Grasso on the 13th Floor Elevators’ YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME | Holly Interlandi on Death’s ROCK’N’ROLL VICTIM | Elina Shatkin on Bobby Fuller’s I FOUGHT THE LAW | Brian Berger on The Mothers of Invention’s WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE? | Peggy Nelson on The Kingsmen’s LOUIE LOUIE.
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