Tracing Quotations
Frank Zappa? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Iconoclastic musician and composer Frank Zappa was known for his trenchant cultural commentary. Apparently, he once stated that all the good music had already been created by the composers of an earlier era who stereotypically wore wigs. Would you please help me to find a citation Quote Investigator: In …
Continue reading “All the Good Music’s Already Been Written By People With Wigs and Stuff On”
Frank Zappa? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Did the Frank Zappa really say that a proper country needs a beer and an airline? Quote Investigator: In 1989 “The Real Frank Zappa Book” was published by the well-known songwriter and musician, and it included an instance of the remark mentioned above. Zappa was not eager to write …
Continue reading “You Can’t Be a Real Country Unless You Have a Beer and an Airline”
Harlan Ellison? Frank Zappa? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular quotation that expresses the following idea: Hydrogen and stupidity are the two most abundant materials in the universe This notion can be expressed in many different ways. One version has been credited to the SF writer Harlan Ellison, and another version has been …
Continue reading “The Two Most Common Elements in the Universe Are Hydrogen and Stupidity”
Al Capp? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The cartoonist Al Capp was famous for creating the long-running comic strip Li’l Abner. During the 1960s he reportedly described abstract art with the following amusing and acerbic phrase: A product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Today this description could be applied to …
Frank Zappa? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The most outrageously funny quotation that I know of was spoken by the musician Frank Zappa: Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read. The perfect place to say this would have been during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. …
Laurie Anderson? Steve Martin? Frank Zappa? Martin Mull? Elvis Costello? Thelonius Monk? Dear Quote Investigator: I have a difficult riddle for you. A mailing list I belong to has discussed the following quotation several times during the past ten years, and the question of its origin has never been satisfactorily resolved. Writing about music is …
Continue reading “Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture”