Farrell McNulty

As big a fan as I am of psychedelic rock, Sgt Pepper, the hippie movement, et al, I thought this album was hysterically funny and it has some great individual tracks in their own right, such as "Mom & Dad", about cops going to far and shooting anti-war protestors. Three tracks in particular make a sideways reference to the content on the Pepper album: Mother People begins with a sound effect and a directive to "do it again, do it again", referring to the Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise at the end of the Beatles album. Zappa - "we are the other people, we are the other people" Beatles - "We're Sgt peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", and both segue into their respective album finales...The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny, fading in with an upper octave piano chord, and of course "A Day In the Life" concludes with a much lower register, much heavier piano chord of its own. The artwork is also spot-on. It was intended for the front cover to parody Pepper's front cover with the crowd in the garden, only with a thunderstorm and a garden of rotting vegetables. However, MGM/Verve forced the Mothers to switch it out with the intended gatefold photo of the Mothers against a yellow background, only in drag instead of Victorian band uniforms. Cooler heads prevailed (calmer, more rationally thinking minds as well as "hipper" and "more with it") and reissues in the 90s and 2000s began featuring the intended artwork and intended layout for "We're Only In It for the Money". It doesn't sound ONE BIT like the Beatles album, but it looks a lot like it, and it's hilarious, too. I'd say get yourself a copy.