Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch [Original recording remastered]

From the Label
Who'd have thunk it: FZ was listening to his daughter Moon imitate some of the "valley girls" she'd encountered in high school, and asked her to put that unique monologue on tape. Matching Moon's efforts with a catchy little tune composed for the occasion, FZ scored an honest-to-God hit single (#32 on the singles chart, his highest-ever charting single in America), and a national trend of sorts. "Valley Girl" also garnered FZ his second Grammy nomination, for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

This was one of the very few single-vinyl albums that FZ released during the later part of his career, but the six tracks cover a variety of ground, from the instrumental workouts on the title track to the operatic "Teenage Prostitute," one of the overlooked comedic gems of the Zappa catalogue.

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch,Frank Zappa,Rykodisc,Album Rock,Comedy Rock,Hard Rock,Jazz-Rock,Pop,Prog-Rock/Art Rock,Rock,Rock/Pop

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch [Original recording remastered]

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Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch...
Zappa got into a lot of unsuspecting teenagers' minds with this album...hehehehe
Zappa's best release
Metallica Ten Years Before
"We're talking Lord God King BU-FU..."

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch
Frank Zappa
Manufacturer: Zappa Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0000009T4
Release Date: 1995-05-02

Tracks:

No Not Now
Valley Girl
I Come From Nowhere
Drowning Witch
Envelopes
Teen-Age Prostitute

Customer Reviews:

Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch..........2007-06-04

Frankly, I bought this album for the Song, "Valley Girl" which was a hit in the early 80's from Frank's daughter Moon! I had forgotten about his level of musicianship - that man had skills! Four stars!!

Zappa got into a lot of unsuspecting teenagers' minds with this album...hehehehe.......2006-09-24

One of the greatest things about this album is that, thanks to the song Valley Girl, a lot of people who would never even think about owning a Zappa album bought one. So all the teenagers who really dug the Valley Girl song actually got to listen to 5 other great Zappa tracks. Granted, there's probably a few of them out there who played the album once, and never played it again. But they always say to themselves "what was that really long song on side two? I never heard anything like that. I can't get it out of my head! AARRGGHH!!!!" The stuff got inside their heads, and stayed there. I do rather like this album, especially the title track (the 12 minute one) and No Not Now. Envelopes is OK (I prefer the LSO version), and I do like Valley Girl.

Zappa's best release.......2006-03-31

(of the four I have)
I can't say that I am a diehard Zappa fan, but I immensely enjoy this album. Frank Zappa is amazing at writing music.

The album:
No Not Now: Probably the worst on the album, but it is a good listen every once in a while (whenever I find the time to listen to the album all the way through). 3/5

Valley Girl: Frank Zappa's hit song. Insanely funny. I've heard that this song is where the term Valley Girl actually comes from. Wouldn't surprise me if Zappa had coined it. He was an extremely unique and influential guy. 5/5

I Come From Nowhere: The lyrics are decent (although the first stanza is excellent). The real star here is the music, which is excellent. 4.5/5

Drowning Witch: The star of the album. The lyrics are pretty good, but again, the music is what makes the song great. 5/5

Envelopes: Zappa can really write instrumentals. This is one of his best that I've heard so far. 5/5

Teen-Age Prostitute: A decent end to the album. It's kinda cute. 4/5

An excellent album put out by Zappa. 5/5

Metallica Ten Years Before.......2004-12-15

I always wished Zappa could have kept the sound and intensity he achieved in "Ship Arriving Too Late ..." for at least one more record.

The first song, "No Not Now" has ridiculously stupid lyrics and an excellent blues/doo-wop melody straight from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" welded to an infectious hardcore popping bass riff.

Valley Girl has one of the most crushing bass and guitar parts heard then or ever in semi-popular music. because moon zappa's vocal is so funny and off the wall it is easy to forget contemplating the weirdness of this song charting in the top 40 at the end of the 1970s with such a heavy and grinding musical chassis.

There is a very surfy California sound to this entire album, part in the rhythm, the guitar sound, bass sound, the drum sound, and the lyrics. In some ways the sound and attitude reminds me of California bands like Agent Orange and the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys. It's a light and carefree sound but also deceptively serious. Because Frank Zappa was practically a southern California native, a desert rat Army brat from deep in the Mojave, I like to think that he had this sound in his skin and bones and on Ship Arriving Too Late ... it just oozed out of his pores.

"I Come From Nowhere" has always been one of my favorite Zappa songs. It fuses some of Frank's most aggressive speed metal rhythm and solo guitar playing, an astoundingly tight rhythm section, a completely insane vocal delivery with lyrics that are as funny and disturbing as "Who Are the Brain Police?"

The opening section of Frank's guitar solo is as violent a piece of music as can be found anywhere and his guitar tone rips your head off. Patrick O'Hearn's astounding bass playing takes the song into a whole different category.

It would take nearly a decade, until Metallica, before music this intense, abrasive and highly structured found any audience.

Side two of Ship Arriving Too Late is a 17 minute medley that defies description. Typical of Frank during this period, it contains a continental plate collision of loosely improvised and difficult, highly rehearsed music all performed live, with Steve Vai all over it on some of the weirdest and hardest live guitar parts ever recorded. Scott Thunes on bass deserves huge accolades for anchoring this bizarre concoction, as does drummer Chad Wackerman. This type of stuff shouldn't work but I love it. Frank sarcastically named a bunch of live CDs "You Can't Do This on Stage Anymore" but hearing this stuff I think he was just telling the truth.

"We're talking Lord God King BU-FU...".......2004-04-17

SATLTSADW is a short [34 min.] album introducing future-regular time-keepers Chad Wackerman and Scott Thunes; Wackerman plays drums throughout, and Thunes plays bass on four tracks. The album features both studio and live-material, and often both at once (yes, there are over-dubs). It's another album where Steve Vai is credited for "impossible guitar parts", which are performed in e.g. the instrumental composition "Envelopes", and in the heavy-metal-opera-like "Teen-Age Prostitute"; songs that give this album a lot of status, as does the guitar-solo on "Drowning Witch" - it proves that Zappa did right when deciding to keep this drummer and bassist together until the end of his rock'n'roll-band years.
Feminine voices dominate the album; Moon Zappa plays the part of the "Valley Girl" (a hilarious tune), and Lisa Popiel plays the part of the "Teen-Age Prostitute".
The album isn't a must, but is recommended to regular FZ fans, since it--with the exception of "Drowning Witch" and "Envelopes"--only features songs that cannot be heard on any other Zappa album. However, the versions of the two above mentioned tracks are here performed at their best.

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Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch

Manufacturer: Zappa Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000B5YBWW

Product Description

1. No Not Now~~~ 2. Valley Girl~~~ 3. I Come From Nowhere~~~ 4. Drowning Witch~~~ 5. Envelopes~~~ 6. Teen-age Prostitute

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