Pumpkin

Frank Zappa with pumpkin, during one of his Halloween concerts, late 1970s.

Pumpkins are a part of Zappa's Conceptual Continuity. Zappa used the word as a nickname for his wife, Gail Zappa.

References

• On Absolutely Free Zappa refers to pumpkins on the track Invocation & Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin and on Soft-Sell Conclusion, where Zappa says: "The pumpkin is breathing hard." After some sexual sounds he concludes the track with the exclamation: "What a pumpkin!". In the sleeve of the record a picture of Zappa and his wife, Gail Zappa, can be seen. A small caption refers to her as "my pumpkin".

• Item nr. 49 on the Data For Sensitive or Critical-sensitive Position names "Gail Pumpkin" as Zappa's Fave rave.

• On the cover art of One Size Fits All, Gail is mentioned as the star "Pumpkin".

• Zappa later named the record company Barking Pumpkin Records after Gail's smoker's cough, which made her a "barking pumpkin" in his opinion. The logo of "Barking Pumpkin" feature a jack-o-lantern pumpkin saying "Arf!", while a cat says "Holy shit!" in Chinese.

• The mail order number of Barfko-Swill was named "818-Pumpkin".

• Pumpkin was also a character on Jeepers' Creepers Theater.