Them Or Us (The Book)

Front cover for "Them Or Us"

Them or Us is a book written by FZ, initially published by Barfko-Swill (Los Angeles) in 1984 (no ISBN), containing 351 pages. As noted on the cover: This book used to be called Christmas in New Jersey.

A 360-page paperback edition was published by Pinter & Martin in 2010 (ISBN 978-1-905177-56-1).

The front cover is from the same session as the cover of True Glove. The album covers on the back of the original issue, and reproduced as the last page in the 2010 edition, are: Francesco Zappa, Them Or Us, Thing-Fish and The Old Masters.

The foreword explains:

"This cheesy little home-made book was prepared for the amusement of people who already enjoy Zappa music. It is not for intellectuals or other dead people. It is designed to answer one of the more troubling questions related to conceptual continuity: 'How do all of these things that don't have anything to do with each other fit together, forming a larger absurdity?' Your enjoyment of the contents could be anhanced by hearing some of the music described in the text. The albums shown on the back cover contain some of these songs. Other songs derive from Joe's Garage and Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch. This is a story book. It is not a rock & roll biography. This is the only REAL & OFFICIAL FRANK ZAPPA BOOK. All other books attempting to trade on my name are unauthorized and full of misinformation. This book is dedicated to all of the fans who have made the last 20 years of large-scale absurdities possible. This book used to be called Christmas In New Jersey"

In a contemporary interview Zappa explained:

"It's due off the press in 2 weeks in the United States, and it's Three hundred and sixty-something pages and I'm publishing it myself...The first printing is 5000 copies. ...It's a book for people who hate to read, and it's written in the style of a screenplay so that each situation is described in terms of what a camera would see, what the physical action is, what the people say and what they do. And so it takes you very quickly through some complicated situations.... And it's a fiction book and it's very funny. ...the way it works is: the book ... in physics they have this thing that they've been looking for – it's the Unified Field Theory that explains the interrelationship between how gravity works and atomic energy and all this stuff – they're looking for one equation that explains it all and makes it work because right now there's contradictions. And ... let's just say that the book is like a Unified Field Theory that will hold together "Billy The Mountain", "Greggery Peccary", "Joe's Garage" "Them Or Us", "Thing-Fish" ... all these different stories, it shows you how they work together to make one long, really complicated story. And the "Them Or Us" album is only one part of this major release that is coming out this year. There are three other albums that are released at approximately the same time. The Boulez album, the Francesco album, and the "Thing-Fish" album – and the book relates ... The Boulez album is not related to it but all the rest of the stuff is related. And so if you read the book and listen to those three, plus knowing from the past "Joe's Garage", "Billy The Mountain", "Greggery Peccary" then it would make an awful lot of sense to you. But other than that it's very hard to describe. ....People, especially in Europe, when they want to know more about what the lyrics mean, if they can read English the book would help them. And if they can't it'll ... . confuse them very much."

The Index

See: Wiki style index.