Electric Aunt Jemima (The Track)

Lyrics

Ow ow ow ow
Rundee rundee rundee
Dinny wop wop
Ow ow ow ow
Rundee rundee rundee
Dinny wop wop

Electric Aunt Jemima
Goddess of Love
Khaki Maple Buckwheats
Frizzle on the stove
Queen of my heart
Please hear my plea
Electric Aunt Jemima
Cook a bunch for me

Tried to find a reason
Not to quit my job
Beat me till I'm hungry
Found a punk to rob
Love me Aunt Jemima
Love me now & ever more
(Love me Aunt Jemima)

Dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit-dit
Dit-dit-dit-dit ditty-ditty
Dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit-dit
Dit-dit-dit-dit ditty-ditty
Dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit-dit
Dit-dit-dit-dit ditty-ditty
Dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit-dit dit . . .

Tried to find a raisin
Brownies in the basin
Monza by the street light
Aunt Jemima all night
Holiday & salad days
And days of mouldy mayonnaise
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me Aunt Jemima
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me Aunt Jemima
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me Aunt Jemima
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me Aunt Jemima
Caress me (ah!)
Caress me Aunt Jemima

Mmm, boy, my lips are gettin' heavy
I can't tell when you're telling the truth . . .
I'm not.
How do I know anything you've said to me is . . .
You don't.

Albums In Which This Song Has Appeared

Uncle Meat

Notes About This Song

Aunt Jemima is a brand name for pancake mix, syrup and other breakfast items but "Electric Aunt Jemima" was Zappa's nickname for his guitar amplifier.

I get kind of a laugh out of the fact that other people are going to try and interpret that stuff and come up with some grotesque, I mean really grotesque, interpretations of it. It gives me a certain amount of satisfaction. You can imagine how insane that must get on a song 'Electric Aunt Jemima' which was written about an amplifier. Yes, it's a Standel amplifier, about this big, that I used on a couple of sessions. But there are some other references in the song to a meeting held in the Denny's Coffee Shop in Lancaster California about six or seven years ago at about four o'clock in the morning. Don Vliet, who is otherwise known to the world as Captain Beefheart, and I were sitting in this coffee shop discussing what we were going to do to the music business, and it's the line about 'Monza' because we were discussing the problems of lyrics in the music we were being fed on the radio. I always felt that the music I grew up with, except for the rhythm & blues, was just horrible and I didn't want to be subjected to it and I wished that I'd had something better to choose from. But I couldn't get anything better so we were talking about this and I said, 'Well I'm going to do this', and Don says, 'Well, I'm going to do that', and I said, 'OK, well let's go do that'.

Frank Zappa interview International Times (issue 63) 1969

The amplifier was originally owned by the Greenwich Village folk singer David Blue:

Have you ever heard of an artist named David Blue? ... Well, he used to work in Greenwich Village in the early 60s when we were working there. And he had an old amplifier, it was a Standel, about the same size of a Fender Deluxe and he donated it to our cause when we were short of equipment. And that's the amplifier that turned out to be Electric Aunt Jemima.

Frank Zappa interview, October 20, 1980 on KPFT-FM Houston Texas from the Frank Zappa GSW Project Vol. 22 1980, disc 2 track 4.

In 1967 Don Preston and Meredith Monk had released a record as Aunt Jamina and the United Pancakes.