History Music / WereOnlyInItForTheMoney

'''We’re Only in It for the Money''' (recorded in 1967, released in 1968) is an album by The Mothers of Invention, and one of Music/FrankZappa's most famous and popular conceptual albums. A scathing attack on such 1960s topics as the flower power movement, police brutality, Music/TheBeatles, PsychedelicRock, the generation gap and the growing mass commercialization of pop music. Many fans call it one of his best albums and it's certainly one of his most characteristic.

** "Who Needs The Peace Corps?" is performed live by Zappa on ''Music/TheBestBandYouNeverHeardInYourLife'' (1988).

** Zappa would re-use the phrase ''What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?'' in "Flower Punk" on ''Music/FillmoreEastJune1971'' (1971), ''Music/SheikYerbouti'' (1979), ''Music/JoesGarage'' (1979) and ''Thing-Fish'' (1985). The band member fantasizing about his royalty check in "Flower Punk" shares a similar theme with Billy being happy about receiving his royalty check in "Billy The Mountain" from ''Music/JustAnotherBandFromLA''.

* LastNoteNightmare: Ending an album with "The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny": need to say more?

** The vegetables on the front cover are a call back to the vegetable concepts of ''Music/AbsolutelyFree''. ''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney'' even has a track named "Absolutely Free".

** In the liner notes Zappa asks the audience "Is this phase one of ''Lumpy Gravy''?", while he asked the opposite question in the album ''Music/LumpyGravy'': "Is this phase two of ''We're Only In It For The Money''?"
** The classical piece heard in "Mother People" can also be heard on the album ''Music/LumpyGravy'', as does the line about "hair getting good in the back" in "Who Needs The Peace Corps?". The line "I can't wait 'til my 'fro is full grown" in "Uncle Remus" from ''Music/{{Apostrophe}}'' is also similar.
** ''Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance'' appeared earlier on ''Music/LumpyGravy'', but without lyrics. On "Eddie Are You Kidding?" from ''Music/JustAnotherBandFromLA'' there is a line about "these pants I'm wearing are double knit. They stretch in the right places", which is similar to "who cares if you can't afford a pair of mother go-go stretch-o-lastic pants?" from "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance."

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: The Beatles, or at any rate Paul McCartney, thought that the album sleeve photo was hilarious.

''''Personnel'''

->''"The youth of America today is so wonderful\\

-->--"'''''Flower Punk'''''"

->''"Unbind your mind\\

ONLY IF YOU WANT TO BE''"
-->--'''''"Absolutely Free"'''''

* AccentuateTheNegative: "Flower power sucks, sucks, sucks..."

** "What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?"

* BlackComedyRape: "Harry You’re A Beast"
* BreakingTheFourthWall: From "The Idiot Bastard Son":
-->"The child will grow and enter the world of liars and cheaters and people like you\\

We're listening"

* BodyHorror: "What's The Ugliest Part of Your Body?" Answer: your mind.
* BornUnlucky: "The Idiot Bastard Son", abandoned by his parents in the back of a car and adopted by Ronnie and Kenny.

* CrapsackWorld
* CreatorCameo: "Hello, Frank Zappa…..."

* CoversAlwaysLie: From judging the album cover and the art work within you might expect this album to be an entire musical and lyrical parody of ''Sgt. Peppers'', but it's not. The only real similarity is that ''A Day In The Life'', just like ''The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny'' are both the closing track, both closing on one note slowly fading out at the end.

* DarkComedy

-->"AMERICAN WAY\\

Killed in the park"
* FollowTheLeader: Mocked in "Who Needs The Peace Corps?", "Absolutely Free" and "Flower Punk".
* TheFutureWillBeBetter: The lyrics of 'Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance."
* GenreRoulette
* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: The drum and bass parts of the original album, as well as those on ''Cruisin' with Ruben & the Jets'', were re-recorded in the 80s. While Zappa claimed the original tapes were damaged, it is believed that he hated the original performances and wanted to update them to something more suitable (and also comical.) Despite fan outcry, Zappa chastised "collectors and purists" for their reverance of the original material. The original release was re-issued after his death by Rykodisc in 1995.
* HumansAreBastards

* LackOfEmpathy: The parents in "Mum and Dad"

* MatchCut

** "Concentration Moon" - "American way/how did it start? Thousands of creeps killed in the park..."
** "Harry You're A Beast" - "That's you, American womanhood."
** "Flower Punk" - "The youth in America today is so wonderful. I'm glad to be part of this gigantic mass deception."
** "The Idiot Bastard Son" - "The father's a Nazi in Congress today/The mother's a hooker somewhere in L.A."

-->"[...] First I'll buy some beads,\\

I will ''love'' everyone. I will ''love'' the police as they [[LyricalDissonance kick the shit out of me on the street]]..."
* NonAppearingTitle: The album’s title is never mentioned in any of the lyrics.

* ProtestSong
* RageAgainstTheAuthor: "One of these days I'm going to erase all the Zappa tapes in the world" on "Are You Hung Up?"

** The album cover shows images of UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson, UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, Creator/LudwigVanBeethoven, blues singer Big Mama Thornton, Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Creator/RodSerling, Pope Paul III, John Zacherley (best known for his single "Dinner With Drac"), Eric Burdon (Music/TheAnimals), Music/DavidCrosby, Music/ElvisPresley, Creator/NancySinatra, Creator/EdWynn, Creator/LonChaney in Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera and Max Schreck (best known as Orlock in Film/{{Nosferatu}}), Creator/SoupySales, Creator/ThedaBara and Music/CaptainBeefheart.

** Music/JimiHendrix' "Hey Joe" and The Troggs "Wild Thing" in "Flower Punk".

* ScareChord

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: From "What's The Ugliest Part of Your Body?":
-->"All your children are poor unfortunate victims of systems beyond their control\\
A plague upon your ignorance and the gray despair of your ugly life"

** Music/JimiHendrix' "Hey Joe" on "Flower Punk"

When the album went into production, it originally had a different concept and direction. In fact, the entirety of ''Money'', ''Music/CruisingWithRubenAndTheJets'', the dialogue sessions from the reissue of ''Music/LumpyGravy'', and parts of ''Music/UncleMeat'' were recorded at the same New York sessions. Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' album came out while the Mothers of Invention were recording the album, and Zappa decided to change the album's concept to parody that album because he felt that the Beatles had ripped off concepts from the Mothers' ''Music/FreakOut!'' (1966) album, and considered the Beatles themselves (and PsychedelicRock musicians in general) to be [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for the money]], hence the album title. The cover is particularly memorable for offering the UrExample of the SgtPeppersShoutOut.

** ''Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance'' appeared earlier on ''Music/LumpyGravy'', but without lyrics.

** Zappa would re-use the phrase ''What's a girl like you doing in a place like this'' on ''Fillmore East, June 1971'' (1971), ''Music/SheikYerbouti'' (1979), ''Music/JoesGarage'' (1979) and ''Thing-Fish'' (1985).

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The album criticizes the hippie movement and Music/TheBeatles and therefore is both very dated and a document of its time at the same time.

** The quote "Hi, boys and girls. I'm Jimmy Carl Black and I'm the Indian of the group" first appears in the track "Are You Hung Up?" and is later reprised in "Concentration Moon"

** ''Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance'' appeared earlier on Music/LumpyGravy, but without lyrics.

** The classical piece heard in "Mother People" can also be heard on the album ''Music/LumpyGravy'', as does the line about "hair getting good in the back" in ''"Who Needs The Peace Corps?''. The line "I can't wait 'til my 'fro is full grown" in "Uncle Remus" from ''Music/{{Apostrophe}}'' is also similar.

''We’re Only in It for the Money'' (recorded in 1967, released in 1968) is an album by The Mothers of Invention, and one of Music/FrankZappa's most famous and popular conceptual albums. A scathing attack on such 1960s topics as the flower power movement, police brutality, Music/TheBeatles, PsychedelicRock, the generation gap and the growing mass commercialization of pop music. Many fans call it one of his best albums and it's certainly one of his most characteristic.

''We’re Only In It For The Money'' (recorded in 1967, released in 1968) is an album by The Mothers of Invention, and one of Music/FrankZappa's most famous and popular conceptual albums. A scathing attack on such 1960s topics as the flower power movement, police brutality, Music/TheBeatles, PsychedelicRock, the generation gap and the growing mass commercialization of pop music. Many fans call it one of his best albums and it's certainly one of his most characteristic.

When the album went into production, it originally had a different concept and direction. In fact, the entirety of ''Money'', ''Music/CruisinWithRubenAndTheJets'', the dialogue sessions from the reissue of ''Music/LumpyGravy'', and parts of ''Music/UncleMeat'' were recorded at the same New York sessions. Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' album came out while the Mothers of Invention were recording the album, and Zappa decided to change the album's concept to parody that album because he felt that the Beatles had ripped off concepts from the Mothers' ''Music/FreakOut!'' (1966) album, and considered the Beatles themselves (and PsychedelicRock musicians in general) to be [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for the money]], hence the album title. The cover is particularly memorable for offering the UrExample of the SgtPeppersShoutOut.

* TheNotRemix: Frank Zappa remixed and re-recorded some parts of ''We're Only In It For The Money'' and ''Cruising With Ruben & The Jets'' in 1984 with New-Wave style instrumentation. Other songs were sped-up, slowed down or had other editing adjustments. Not surprisingly, fans were pissed, and as a result, Zappa's estate restored and released ''Money'' to its original form in 1995, while the original mix of ''Ruben'' wouldn't appear again for another 15 years.

When the album went into production, it originally had a different concept and direction. In fact, the entirety of ''Money'', ''Cruisin' with Ruben & The Jets'', the dialogue sessions from the reissue of ''Music/LumpyGravy'', and parts of ''Music/UncleMeat'' were recorded at the same New York sessions. Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' album came out while the Mothers of Invention were recording the album, and Zappa decided to change the album's concept to parody that album because he felt that the Beatles had ripped off concepts from the Mothers' ''Music/FreakOut!'' (1966) album, and considered the Beatles themselves (and PsychedelicRock musicians in general) to be [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for the money]], hence the album title. The cover is particularly memorable for offering the UrExample of the SgtPeppersShoutOut.

* {{Sampling}}

* ScunthorpeProblem: When Zappa went to the Netherlands for their equivalent of the {{Grammy Award}}s, he discovered that they had edited the line "And I still remember momma in her apron and her pad feeding all the boys at Ed's café" in "Let's Make The Water Turn Black" because they misunderstood the word ''pad'' (as in a completely harmless ''notepad'') and thought it referred to a ''sanitary napkin''.

* ReCut: The album received two levels of censoring when released, depending on the territory it was released: a censored version and a heavily censored version, which even cut swearwords out of reversed portions. Several copies over the years have included songs from different versions on one disc, and a full history of different edits [[http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/vinylvscds/money.html lies here.]] Supposedly, the monoaural copy of the album on ''The Lumpy Money Project/Object'' is the only time the uncensored album has fully been released.

When the album went into production, it originally had a different concept and direction. In fact, the entirety of ''Money'', ''Cruisin' with Ruben & The Jets'', the dialogue sessions from the reissue of ''Lumpy Gravy'', and parts of ''Uncle Meat'' were recorded at the same New York sessions. Music/TheBeatles' ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' album came out while the Mothers of Invention were recording the album, and Zappa decided to change the album's concept to parody that album because he felt that the Beatles had ripped off concepts from the Mothers' ''Music/FreakOut!'' (1966) album, and considered the Beatles themselves (and PsychedelicRock musicians in general) to be [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for the money]], hence the album title. The cover is particularly memorable for offering the UrExample of the SgtPeppersShoutOut.

** In the liner notes Zappa asks the audience "Is this phase one of ''Lumpy Gravy''?", while he asked the opposite question in the album ''Lumpy Gravy'': "Is this phase two of ''We're Only In It For The Money''?"
** The classical piece heard in "Mother People" can also be heard on the album ''Lumpy Gravy'', as does the line about "hair getting good in the back" in ''"Who Needs The Peace Corps?''

* ConceptAlbum

* ExecutiveMeddling: Zappa planned to release the album around the 1967 Christmas holiday, but was held up due to the album cover. Paul [=McCartney=] was said to not have any problems with Zappa parodying the ''Sgt. Pepper'' cover, but Capitol wasn't too thrilled and only allowed the use if the cover was reversed, with the inner artwork being placed on the outside and vice versa.
** To make matters worse for Zappa, MGM censored some parts of the album, the most absurd of those being the suits thinking that the "apron and her pad" line in "Let's Make The Water Turn Black" involved sexual activities instead of a regular waitress apron and order pad. Zappa restored the censored bits in the 1987 remix and most of them make an appearance on the 1995 remaster.

* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: The entire original album has completely been revised and re-recorded. This re-recorded version is now the official version. When one compares the older and newer version one notices extreme differences and changes made, mostly in sound quality and montage.

* NamesTheSame: This album has a track called "Absolutely Free". Incidentally Zappa's previous album is called ''Music/AbsolutelyFree''.

* TheNotRemix: Frank Zappa remixed and re-recorded some parts of ''We're Only In It For The Money'' and ''Cruising With Ruben & The Jets'' in the mid 1980s with New-Wave style sounds. Not surprisingly, fans were pissed, and as a result, Zappa's estate restored and released ''Money'' to its original form in 1995, while the original mix of ''Ruben'' wouldn't appear again for another 15 years.

* ThrowItIn: The word ''discorporate'' is explained at the start of the song "Absolutely Free".
** The track "Telephone Conversation" is a piece of a telephone conversation (ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin) that Zappa recorded between Pamela Zarubica (the original Suzy Creamcheese from the album ''Freak Out!'') and a friend of her, Vicki , who claimed that Pamela's father was looking for her and had called in help from the FBI. Apparently the FBI was threatening to arrest Vicki for withholding information. Zarubica called her back to discuss matters and Zappa recorded the conversation including a 45 second snippet that made it on the album.
** Some photographs on the album cover were taken from Zappa's high school yearbook.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Originally the album was going to be called "Our Man In Nirvana". Zappa changed the title and the concept when he heard about the Beatles "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" hype.