Apostrophe (') - Music

Music

The first half of the album loosely follows a continuing theme. "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" and "Nanook Rubs It" tell of a dream the singer had where he saw himself as an Eskimo named Nanook.

As the album reaches "Cosmik Debris", the mood changes with a theme about a man who resists drugs from a drug dealer and then robs him.

As was the case with many of Zappa's albums, Apostrophe was a menage of archival and newer recordings (most of Apostrophe (') and Over-Nite Sensation were recorded simultaneously). The older recordings include the basic tracks for: "Excentrifugal Forz" (a Hot Rats outtake) and "Uncle Remus" (from The Grand Wazoo). While the title track also hails (with some possible 1973 overdubbage) from The Grand Wazoo' sessions.

The title track is an instrumental jam featuring Cream bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Jim Gordon. Jack Bruce is credited on the album cover with bass guitar and co-writing the title song. However, in his interview for Polish rock magazine Tylko Rock he jokingly insisted to journalist Wiesław Weiss that he had not played any bass guitar parts on Apostrophe ('), only the cello parts. Bruce learned cello as a child and plays it on some of his other recordings. However, his cello comments regarding Apostrophe (') can't be taken seriously because there is in fact no cello on the title song or on the album. His bass playing on Apostrophe (') does in fact sound at times very much like the bass lines that he played with Cream.

(Tylko Rock, Oct. 1992, pp. 17)

• "WW: Can you tell me something about your cooperation with Frank Zappa?
• JB: Sure, what do you happen to know? (laughs)
• WW: You appeared on his Apostrophe album...
• JB: Yes, as you know, at the time I was recording an album with Carla Bley, far more interesting one... you heard that?
• WW: Yes, Escalator over the Hill...
• JB: Right. So Frank, whom I met earlier, appeared one day in the studio and asked me: "Can you take your cello and go to my session?" So I turned up in a NY studio with my cello, I'm listening to his music, pretty awful, and just don't know what to do with myself, and Frank says to me: "Listen, I would like you to play a sound, like this... whaaaaaang!!!" So I did what he asked me to do. Whaaaaaang!!! That was all. That was my input to Frank Zappa's most popular record! (laughs) "

However, in an interview in Guitar Player Magazine from January 1977, Zappa talks about his experience with Jack Bruce's bass playing on the song:

• Q: What about playing with (bass guitarist) Jack Bruce on Apostrophe?
• FZ: Well, that was just a jam thing that happened because he was a friend of (drummer) Jim Gordon. I found it very difficult to play with him; he's too busy. He doesn't really want to play the bass in terms of root functions; I think he has other things on his mind. But that's the way jam sessions go.