Going For The Money

Lyrics

"Smurf me!"

"Smurf me!"

"Right Howard?"

"Right Jeff, we're going for the money, all the way."

Players On This Track

• Jeff Simmons
• Howard Kaylan

Records On Which This Song Has Appeared

FZ Albums & Side Projects

• Playground Psychotics
• Cheap Thrills

Notes About This Song

Part of "The True Story Of 200 Motels" on Playground Psychotics. This recording was originally featured in Roelof Kiers' documentary film"Frank Zappa" and was taped backstage during the Fillmore West concert in November 1970. The phrase "Smurf me!" that Jeff Simmons and Howard Kaylan joke about was inspired by an advertisement billboard they saw during a tour in The Netherlands. The Belgian comic strip "The Smurfs" had been famous in Europe since 1958, but would only become internationally famous during the 1980s when the Hanna & Barbera TV animated series was broadcast. Zappa and his band interpreted the phrase in a sexual context, which becomes clear in the video footage of this track, where they are seen enjoying the company of some groupies.

"Well, how do you think that the people in America would feel if they knew where the Smurfs came from? They were an advertising device for British Petroleum. When we went to Holland for the first time with the band with Mark and Howard in '70 or '71, the whole place was riddled with fuckin' Smurfs advertising BP. And the joke in the band was "Smurf mee," because on the billboards that's what they said. "Smurf me" spelled "me-e-e." I don't know what it means. But to go from that to what we now have as a family of Smurfs with their own personalities. According to Ahmet, who saw this spectacle on television, he witnessed an interview with a guy who was one of the Smurf voices, taking himself so seriously that it beggared description. I mean, he did about a five-minute routine on this guy." (FZ in The Mother of All Interviews (Part 1).)

Note: Zappa's claim that The Smurfs were once an advertising device for British Petroleum is true, but the characters were already a succesful comic strip years earlier. The phrase "Smurf me" on the billboard was actually Smurf language for "Follow me". The word "me" in Dutch coincidentally means the same in English, but is pronounced differently.

See Also:

• Information about this track
• Video footage from Frank Zappa (1971 Documentary) featuring the dialogue from this track between 2:46 and 3:04