White Ugliness
Contents
Lyrics
Players On This Song
Records On Which This Song Has Appeared
Singles
Zappa Albums & Side Projects
Tribute & Cover Albums
Notes About This Song
“Merry-‘Go-Round” was a song by Wild Man Fischer, a discovery of Zappa’s who’d eventually record the tune for an album on one of Frank’s labels. A funny-farm ex-con, Fischer wrote simplistic, nursery rhyme-type tunes.
Spider’s statement about robotic servitude (or possibly just dehumanization in a commodity society, considering Motorhead’s aligning of women with cars), “The thing is to put a motor in yourself,” refers back to Motorhead’s automobile tales earlier on the album, as well as “Merry-Go-‘Round.”
Louie’s excited recount of ponies trying to kill him ends up as a joke when he talks about picking up sticks to throw at his assailants and Roy interrupts with, “Pick- Up Sticks?” Mentioning the childhood game refers back to the groping for innocence in “Merry-Go-‘Round,” as well as Motorhead’s earlier line about getting “another pickup.” (Even this could be double-edged, considering the nature of his recollections; girls are “picked up.”)
