Harbor Lights
Harbor Lights is a 1937 song by songwriter Jimmy Kennedy and composer Wilhelm Grosz (under the pseudonym Hugh Williams). It has become a standard, covered by artists like Sammy Kaye, Elvis Presley, the Platters and many others.
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa covered Harbor Lights at the Civic Center in Des Moines, Indiana (30 November 1980). [1] and at the Warner Theatre, Washington D.C. (8 February 1988). [2]
Frank Zappa about Harbor Lights
"We once played a horrible venue -- some kind of sports hall -- in southern Illinois. The band was set up on the floor, and our amplifiers were playing straight into a concrete wall about two stories high, with the audience at the top of it -- looking down. Can you visualize that? It was the worst setup imaginable. So, naturally, I decided to try some 'audience participation' (like we can barely see them, and I want them to 'participate.' Surrrrre you do). I divided them into five sections, according to the way the seats fanned out -- each section was going to be a different part of a mass chorus of maybe five thousand people. I said, "Now, you guys over here, you're going to sing 'Harbor Lights.' ' They had never even heard of "Harbor Lights," but we showed them how it goes. Then I said to each of the other sections, "You are going to sing 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.' You're going to sing the opening bassoon solo from The Rite Of Spring. You're going to sing the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, and you lucky folks over there get 'Ave Maria.' I'll show you when to come in." What a noise that was." - Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book.
