In a circle with 11 year olds going round stating each one’s name and favourite song, unsurprisingly I hear them say Old Town Road, Bohemian Rhapsody, Baby Shark and then one long haired girl says A band called the Turtles and a song called Happy Together. I said have you ever heard of Frank Zappa and before I can start to talk about Flo and Eddy and their Happy Together contribution to Live at The Filmore, another kid chimes in – Frank Zappa? The Muffin Man? After that surreal moment, the rest of the day I heard What’s The Ugliest Part of Your Body stuck in my head from my favourite Zappa record, that magical masterpiece We’re Only In It For The Money.

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There is a record I enjoyed so much in recent months, called Whack World by Tierra Whack and one of the things that impressed me was the great zig zagging styles and brief song lengths. I started to think this might become a new thing, maybe still it will. Only today while singing “I think it’s your mind” did I remember Zappa did exactly this kind of thing 50 years ago.