"Necessity"

Lyrics

FZ: They're originally just called "The Mothers", and then, uhm, we finally got our record contract with MGM. Some … pinhead there had decided, that, uh, this was a bad name for a group and that no … radio station would ever play our records because, uh, the name was too … risqué. And they were suggesting other things that we should change it to, so we, out of necessity we became The Mothers Of Invention. I would say, just by adding those other two words to it we were able to keep the record company happy.
But naturally, the radio stations did not play the music anyway, 'cos it wasn't about the name of the band, it was what we were singing about and the way the music sounded.
Because at the time, it was … uh … y'know, if you were a good musician, uh, you were a mutherfucker. And "Mothers" was short for collection of mutherfuckers. And, actually, it was kind of presumptuous to, uh, name the band that, because we weren't that good musicians, we're, but by bar band standards in the area we were light years ahead of … our competition, but in terms real musicianship, I'd suppose, we're right down there in the swamp.

Players On This Song

FZ and Nigel Leigh

Records On Which This Song Has Appeared

The MOFO Project/Object (Deluxe Edition)

Notes About This Song

According to booklet: BBC Late Show interview with Nigel Leigh, UMRK, March 1993