Musician: "America Drinks And Goes Home" (Absolutely Free) has a real jazz standard flavor. Did you write it to pay tribute to that style of music, or was it a parody of that genre?
Zappa: It's a very scientific parody of that genre. It's so subtle that you almost wouldn't see it as a parody. It's not a bad tune. The whole essence of that kind of music is that moron II-V-I syndrome, where everything modulates around the earth going II-V-I. It's an exercise in II-V-I stupidity.
Musician: You don't write many things in II-V-I.
Zappa: I've always been against dominant chords resolving to tonic chords. That, to me, is just the bottom line of white person music.
Musician: Isn't that ever present in black person's music?
Zappa: Mmm ... not always the same way – your old stock V-I. You get a lot of IV-Is in black music, and you get a lot of II-Vs, and other stuff. But that goddam V-I, and those goddamn jazz guys with II-V-I, and modulating the fucking thing around the Circle of Fifths. Why they have their nerve!
Musician: In your use of different chord structures, you come up with some really complex things. Is that a result of an overt attempt to do something more original, or is that just what you hear in your head?
Zappa: Since I don't like the sound of II-V-I, theoretically I must also like the sound of something else. And there are of course progressions that I like a lot, and I use them all the time. I go for what I like, rather than just a conscious attempt to wage a war against II-V-I. I just don't like II-V-I, unless you want to use it as a joke.
http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Zappa,_79/8
Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4erJjojjvc
