‘Hungry Freaks, Daddy’: The Frank Zappa riff that ripped off The Rolling Stones
A titan of musical innovation and experimentation, Frank Zappa was a true original. His weird and wonderful mind produced some of the most expansive and beloved records of the 1960s and beyond, typifying the psychedelic age and introducing audiences to a vast range of far-out sounds, from progressive jazz to musique concrète and everything in between. Still, even a musician as endlessly original as Zappa could not help but pull from the infectious world of 1960s pop rock.
After all, the swinging sixties produced an unparalleled wealth of incredible rock and roll music. The shores of Britain seemed particularly adept at soundtracking the era, and The Rolling Stones quickly became the poster boys for this period of British invasion in the United States. Originally founded as a blues outfit under the leadership of Brian Jones, the London group quickly adopted rebellious personas and, after some encouragement from Andrew Loog Oldham, began to write their own original material.
The songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is one of the all-time greatest collaborations in rock music. Together, the pair have crafted some of the most iconic and enduring rock and roll anthems of all time, even if it took them a few attempts to truly hit their stride. Their first joint effort was the distinctly un-Stones ‘As Tears Go By’, which became a hit for Marianne Faithfull, but the pair became particularly successful in their songwriting after visiting the United States in 1964.
Their trip across the Atlantic was a monumental moment in the history of the band and in the history of rock and roll. Taking inspiration from the blossoming world of R&B, gospel, and blues in the States, Jagger and Richards produced multiple now-iconic tracks, including the seminal ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. Recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California, the track quickly became a defining anthem for the Stones upon its widespread release in June 1965.
Topping the charts both in the US and the UK, the prevalence of ‘Satisfaction’ was unavoidable, especially for somebody as ingrained in rock and roll as Frank Zappa. The Mothers of Invention songwriter regularly praised the Stones, going as far as to claim that their work was superior to that of The Beatles. Perhaps the most prominent example of his love of the Rolling Stones, however, comes on the opening track of his 1966 album Freak Out!.
An odd composition, even for Zappa, ‘Hungry Freaks, Daddy’ opens with a typically fuzzy, psychedelic guitar riff before delving into the songwriter’s endearingly strange lyrics, addressed to ‘Mr. America’. However, if you can cut through the layers of distortion and fuzz, you might find that the guitar riff for the song is almost identical to Keith Richards’ iconic riff for ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’.
Zappa never explicitly commented on these sonic similarities. However, he was known during his early days for luring audiences in with seemingly normal instrumentation, with the mass appeal of songs like ‘Satisfaction’, before delving into something mind-bending and expansive. Truthfully, the guitar riff might have emerged simply as a result of Zappa’s love and respect for The Rolling Stones and their songwriting repertoire.
Either way, impressing Frank Zappa to the extent that he rips off your guitar riff is a mark of ultimate rock and roll success bestowed on very few musicians. The songwriter was famously hard to please when it came to mainstream rock, but his love of the Stones just goes to show the universality of the British Invasion period during the mid-1960s and the intense quality of the Jagger-Richards partnership.
