""If We'd All Been Living In California..."" lyrics
Frank Zappa (The Mothers Of Invention) Lyrics
[FZ:] Ok? Now if you still want to get your name in magazines he wants five hundred dollars a month!
[JCB:] Where does it come from? We worked one gig this month. And now, so, what do we get, two hundred dollars for this gig up here, if we're lucky. If we're lucky, we'll get two hundred. And it'll be two weeks before we get it. Probably. I mean a-... after all, uh... what is all this shit in the, uh, in the newspaper? We sh-, if we got such a big name, how come, uh... we're...
[FZ:] That shit in the news...
[JCB:] We're starving, man! This fucking band is starving! And we've been starving for three years. I realize it takes a long time, but God damn does it take another five, ten years from now?
[FZ:] There's some months when you're not gonna work as much as other months. There's some months when you're gonna make a lot of money, and if you average it out, you do make more than two hundred dollars a month.
[JCB:] Expenses are sure high, too. If we'd all been living in California, it would've been different.
[FZ:] If we'd all been living in California, we wouldn't work at all!
[JCB:] Ah that's - true... Well, we're not working n-now anyway! We worked one gig this month, Frank! What's wrong with getting two months in a row of this good money? Or three months in a row? Then we can afford to take three or four months off and everybody can... After the first month I can get just enough ahead, but if I had two more months, man, I'll get ahead. 'Cause I'm not living very extravagantly, I'll tell you for sure...
[JCB:] Where does it come from? We worked one gig this month. And now, so, what do we get, two hundred dollars for this gig up here, if we're lucky. If we're lucky, we'll get two hundred. And it'll be two weeks before we get it. Probably. I mean a-... after all, uh... what is all this shit in the, uh, in the newspaper? We sh-, if we got such a big name, how come, uh... we're...
[FZ:] That shit in the news...
[JCB:] We're starving, man! This fucking band is starving! And we've been starving for three years. I realize it takes a long time, but God damn does it take another five, ten years from now?
[FZ:] There's some months when you're not gonna work as much as other months. There's some months when you're gonna make a lot of money, and if you average it out, you do make more than two hundred dollars a month.
[JCB:] Expenses are sure high, too. If we'd all been living in California, it would've been different.
[FZ:] If we'd all been living in California, we wouldn't work at all!
[JCB:] Ah that's - true... Well, we're not working n-now anyway! We worked one gig this month, Frank! What's wrong with getting two months in a row of this good money? Or three months in a row? Then we can afford to take three or four months off and everybody can... After the first month I can get just enough ahead, but if I had two more months, man, I'll get ahead. 'Cause I'm not living very extravagantly, I'll tell you for sure...
Writer(s): Frank Zappa
