Beyond that, I might not even be alive.
Then earlier this week, I saw the news on Page A1 that a letter jacket bearing the crest of Springfield’s 1950 Class A state basketball championship soon will go on display at the Heritage Center like the Shroud of Turin — and it hit me.
It never really ends.
Whether you loved it or hated it, high school is forever.
Frank Zappa once observed, “Life is like high school with money,” and, as always, he was right.
I was in 11th grade when, using my third-quarter report card of A’s and B’s as justification for why my mom should reward me with a new CD, I acquired “Freak Out,” the first album by Zappa and his Mothers of Invention.
In the back of the minivan on the way home, I cracked open the jewel case and started reading the booklet.
The first thing I read were Zappa’s “notes on the compositions included herein.”
“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system,” he wrote for “Hungry Freaks, Daddy,” the very first song. “Forget about the senior prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. This song has no message. Rise for the flag salute.”
Whoa.
This album was made clear back in 1966 — and yet it clicked with me, in 1990-something, on a level nothing else had.
I had to have it all, not realizing at the time that I’d potentially have to stay in school for an additional 70 quarters in order for my mom to buy me all of Zappa’s albums. (He was that prolific.)
The Mothers had to have been one radical (not to mention talented) unit in the late ’60s — able to play the music of Stravinsky, the ’50s doo-wop of The Crows and longer stuff borrowing from free jazz all within minutes of each other.
And it was all topped off by Zappa’s satirical disdain for the absurdity of the teenage years in general and high school in particular.
That obsession played out over an entire album in 1968 with “Cruising With Ruben and the Jets,” Zappa’s homage to the rhythm and blues (and adolescent themes) of his own high school days.
Or as he called it back then, “an album of greasy love songs and cretin simplicity.”
Zappa Records earlier this month finally reissued “Ruben” via zappa.com in the form we’ve been waiting years to hear.
Now called “Greasy Love Songs,” the CD marks the first time the original vinyl mix of the album has been heard since ’68, in addition to a handful of related extras. (Plus an amusing essay by Cheech Marin in which he recalls auditioning as a singer for Zappa back then.)
This is better than Brian Wilson finishing “Smile” — better than the re-release of “Let it Be” without the strings.
Until now, the only version available on CD was a tacky remix from the ’80s in which Zappa re-recorded the album’s bass and drum tracks.
But this is how it should sound — a baker’s dozen of doo-wop-inspired songs that simultaneously are played straight and also act as a vehicle for Zappa’s send-up of 1950s youth culture.
The standout track remains the album closer, “Stuff Up the Cracks,” about a guy who threatens to take his life if his gal leaves him. If that’s not enough, it also features one of Zappa’s nastiest guitar solos.
The extras are sweet, too, with a never-before-heard, over-the-top 1967 crack at “Valerie,” a pleading, 1960 song by Jackie and the Starlites.
This stuff will change your life, although it pains me to admit I never did drop out of school.
And I still went to the prom.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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