Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention "Andy"

“Andy” (mp3) is the second to last song on the second side of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s One Size Fits All. It’s also the second best song on the album, behind “Inca Roads,” but it has far and away the best individual moment, which starts at 4 minutes and 54 seconds and continues to the end of the song two minutes (how long is a moment?) later. Size comes from what I refer to as Zappa’s “George Duke” era, giving his ever-changing lineup a pianist/vocalist with a limber blues howl. The instrumentation is massive, proggishly traipsing through a series of complex sections under a logic known only to a certain coterie of mathematicians. It’s got xylophone and like six thousand guitar parts, Funkadelic drums and a kick-ass organ/piano/electric guitar section starting at 2:40 that breaks the song down until 3:48, when the “Do you know what I’m really telling you is it something you can understand?” part hits. It makes you forget where you started, and then whammo—Duke comes back with the “Andy divine” break. Which just sets up for the “Ohhhh Andaaay!” part, which is the best part, or moment, where the bottom of all things everywhere just drops out of everything, leaving only the echo of Duke’s piano to fill the massive cracks left between bass and snare drum. This happens for a few seconds. It’s the part that’s awesome.