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Miles Archer

(24,241 posts)
Thu Oct 16, 2025, 12:11 PM Oct 2025

Turns out Zappa's "Joe's Garage" (1979) is now a prescient fable for 2025, and the ages

It was Zappa's magnum opus screed against the recording industry, but take out "recording industry" and insert "Trump's second term" and you're good to go.

I base this on the running narrative from the "Central Scrutinizer"...Zappa, who gleefully revels in the cruelty of always dreaming big dreams guitarist "Joe" getting his spirit thoroughly crushed in the machine.

Zappa fans know what I'm talking about. Everyone else, probably not so much. But I'm listening to "Watermelon in Easter Hay" right now, and listened to the Scrutinizer intro, and said to myself "TRUMP."

That's what 2025 has been all about...cruelty, breaking those who can be broken, and threatening a legal hellscape for those who can't. Just crushing them till there's nothing left.

I miss Frank ALL THE TIME, but part of me is glad that he's not here to witness it. It's everything he predicted, but unbelievably much worse.

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Turns out Zappa's "Joe's Garage" (1979) is now a prescient fable for 2025, and the ages (Original Post) Miles Archer Oct 2025 OP
Zappa was the prophet we didn't know we needed! Initech Oct 2025 #1
Zappa was a musical genius with... lame54 Oct 2025 #2
On my playlist...and I recall a relevant quote. pecosbob Oct 2025 #3

Initech

(109,237 posts)
1. Zappa was the prophet we didn't know we needed!
Thu Oct 16, 2025, 12:19 PM
Oct 2025

Same with George Carlin - those two saw the future and they knew it was going to be bad. They warned us about what was coming through song and comedy.

pecosbob

(8,486 posts)
3. On my playlist...and I recall a relevant quote.
Thu Oct 16, 2025, 02:20 PM
Oct 2025

Trying to play a solo in this band is like trying to grow watermelons in Easter hay.

The story of Joe's Garage reminds me a lot of Philip K. Dick's novels. Ultimately, of course it is a tale of defeat by an inherently unjust system. Joe's imaginings are a refuge to which he's fled after repeated prison rape.

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