What is the truth behind Frank Zappa and John Lennon’s feud?
There’s no rulebook in rock and roll saying that everyone needs to be friendly towards each other. This isn’t a business that bodes well for someone who burns bridges, but if someone takes advantage of you in the business, it’s up to any musician whether they want to retaliate or forgive and forget. For a man who preached about love and peace so much, though, John Lennon could be cutthroat when he wanted to as well, and Frank Zappa was less than thrilled looking back on everything they did together.
Granted, Zappa working with any of The Beatles was already going to be a strange sell for rock and roll fans. The resident rock weirdo was already becoming a massive phenomenon by the end of the 1960s, but since one of his albums specifically targeted the demographic that the Fab Four birthed in We’re Only In It For The Money, it’s not like he was blasting the band’s best singles in his spare time, either.
By the 1970s, though, things looked like they could work when Lennon approached Zappa to work together. Lennon had been looking to get as far away from his old band’s shadow as he could, and hooking up with someone who had the same avant-garde energy as him was bound to be interesting if only for a few sessions.
While Zappa had the makings of a tune called ‘King Kong’ that had been a live favourite, giving it to Lennon and Yoko Ono was already playing with fire. Even though he came up with the basic arrangement of everything and had Lennon and Ono add their signature spice to everything, Zappa was furious when he saw that Lennon released it under his name, even retitling the song ‘Jamrag’ instead, saying, “Obviously this song has a melody and chord changes – somebody did write it, and it was not them.”
Even for someone who was as cynical as Zappa was during his time, he had every reason to be upset. Anyone may have given their left leg to work with a Beatle, and now that Zappa had that opportunity, he was only being used as another sonic texture rather than receiving top billing with Lennon and Ono. But there was more to Lennon’s side than songwriting theft.
Outside of their collaboration not working out, Lennon said that he never liked the way that Zappa approached his music, calling him “a fuckin’ intellectual”. But it’s easy to see both of them seemingly coming from the same place as well since each of them made strange music that was well ahead of its time but didn’t exactly fit into the neat pop package that everyone wanted them to do.
From the minute they worked together, though, Lennon and Zappa seemed to go in two opposite directions creatively. Lennon had never bothered to learn the ins and outs of music theory, and while a lot of his best material ended up coming from the heart, Zappa was interested in making things even more extravagant, often putting together symphonic rock pieces and making the kind of tunes that poked fun at the idealism that Lennon talked about.
Although there’s a lot to love about Lennon and Zappa’s music, they seem to be mirror images in terms of what people strive for in the industry. Lennon may have been a bit too rudimentary for some people, and Zappa was far too cerebral for many to understand, but somewhere in between both of their styles is the kind of well-rounded artist we all wish we could be.
