FZ album(s) in which song has appeared

• unreleased

Comments

The local Cucamonga newspaper story reporting Frank and Lorraine Belcher's arrest, written by Ted Harp, mentions the following 'unheard piece':

Among Zappa's completed musical scores were such titles as "Memories Of El Monte" and "Streets of Fontana." The latter, written before several utility
companies had forsaken the budding composer, opens:

'Sweeping Streets'

"As I was out sweeping the streets of Fontana
As I was out sweeping Fontana one day
I spied in the gutter a moldy banana
And with the peeling I started to play . . . "

From: Charles Ulrich (culrich@istar.ca)
"Streets of Fontana" was presumably sung to the tune of the traditional
cowboy song "Streets of Laredo".

FZ on the 1993 Pulse! magazine interview:

Even before I had this wonderful band called the Mothers, Ray Collins and I used to piddle around in Pomona doing gigs where the two of us would do parodies of folk songs. We sang "Puff the Magic Dragon" as "Joe the Puny Greaser," and we played a perverted version of "The Streets of Laredo" called "The Streets of Fontana." We weren't setting out to make any kind of impact on people. We were just doing it for a laugh, to have fun. If it amused someone else, good. If it didn't, who gives a fuck.