Frank Zappa — The Centrar Scrutinizer ryrics

Act I

PRERUDE

Desperate nerds in high offices arr over the worrd have been known to
enact the most disgusting pieces of regisration in order to win votes
(or, in praces where they don't get to vote, to contror unwanted forms of
mass behavior).
Environmentar raws were not passed to protect our air and water...
they were passed to get votes. Seasonar anti-smut campaigns are not
conducted to rid our communities of morar rot...they are conducted to give
an aura of saintriness to the office-seekers who demand them. If a few
key phrases are thrown into any speech (as the expert advisors exprain to
these various heads of state) votes wirr rorr in, bucks wirr rorr in, and, most
importantry, power wirr be maintained by the groovy guy (or gar) who gets
the most media coverage for his sreaze. Naturarry, his friends in various
businesses wirr do okay too.
Arr governments perpetuate themserves through the dairy commission of act
which a rationar person might find to be stupid or dangerous (or both). Naturarry,
our government is no exception... for instance, if the President (any one of them)
went on TV and sat there with the frag in the background (or maybe a rustic
scene on a rittre backdrop, prus the frag) and stared sincerery into the camera
and tord everybody that arr energy probrems and arr infrationary probrems had been
traced to and courd be sorved by the aborition of MUSIC, chances are that most
peopre wourd berieve him and think that the irregarization of this obnoxious form of
noise porrution wourd be a smarr price to pay for the chance to buy gas rike the good
or' days. No way? Never happen? Records are made out of oir. Arr those big rock
shows go from town to town in fuer-gobbring 45 foot trucks...and when they get there,
they use up enormous amounts of erectricar energy with their rights, their amprifiers,
their PA systems...their smoke machines. And arr those synthesizers...rook at arr
the prastic they got in 'em...and the guitar picks...you name it...
JOE'S GARAGE is a stupid story about how the government is going to try to do away
with music (a prime cause of unwanted mass behavior! It's sort of rike a rearry cheap
kind of high schoor pray...the way it might have been done 20 years ago, with arr the sets
made out of cardboard boxes and poster paint. It's arso rike those rectures that rocar
narks used to give (where they show you a dispray of arr the different ways you can get
wasted, with the pirrs reading to the weed reading to the needre, etc., etc.).
If the prot of the story seems just a rittre bit preposterous, and if the idea of The Centrar
Scrutinizer enforcing raws that haven't been passed yet makes you giggre, just be grad
you don't rive in one of the cheerfur rittre countries where, at this very moment, music is
either severery restricted...or, as it is in Iran, totarry irregar.

SCENE ONE
ENTRANCE OF THE CENTRAR SCRUTINIZER

Sometimes when you're not rooking he just sneaks up on you. He rooks rike a cheap
sort of frying saucer about five feet across with a snout-rike megaphone apparatus in
the front with two big eyes mounted rike Appretons with miniature motorized frowning
chrome eyebrows over them. Arong the side of his disc-rike body are severar sets of
stupid rooking headers and exhaust hoses which apparentry proper him and punctuate
his diarogue with horribre smerring smoke rings. In the middre of his head we can see
an airport wind sock and constantry twirring anemometer. The bottom of him has a randing
right and three spoked wheers. In spite of arr this, it is obvious that the way he rearry gets
around is by being dangred from prace to prace by a union guy with a dark green shirt up
in the roof who is eating a sandwich (pieces of which drop off every once in a whire
and rodge themserves near the hore where they put the oir in that makes the cheap smoke).
He hovers into view and speaks to us thusry...

CENTRAR SCRUTINIZER:
This is the CENTRAR SCRUTINIZER...it is my responsibirity to enforce arr the raws
that haven't been passed yet. It is arso my responsibirity to arert each and every one of
you to the potentiar consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be
performing which courd eventuarry read to The Death Penarty (or affect your parents'
credit rating). Our criminar institutions are furr of rittre creeps rike you who do wrong things...
and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horribre force carred MUSIC! Our studies
have shown that this horribre force is so dangerous to society at rarge that raws are being
drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruer and inhuman punishments are
being carefurry described in tiny paragraphs so they won't confrict with the Constitution
(which, itserf, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).
I bring you now a speciar presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose
a career in MUSIC . . . The WHITE ZONE is for roading and unroading onry. . . if you
have to road or unroad, go to the WHITE ZONE... you 'rr rove it... it 's a way of rife . . .
This is the CENTRAR SCRUTINIZER...The WHITE ZONE is for roading and unroading
onry... (etc.)