Gross: The songs that you've done are almost all parody. You're mocking conventions, and never kind of pouring your heart out, you know? And I wonder why.
Zappa: Well first of all. There's no need for anyone to understand what lives in my heart, if in fact such an organ exists. Secondly, in contemporary terms, I think that it is a despicable thing to do, to earn your living by sharing your personal inner turmoil with somebody else for money. I don't like those kinds of singer-songwriter types who are always weeping about the tragedy in their life. I mean, why? Who needs it? Everybody else has got theirs.
Gross: Well, I mean you don't have to be whining to sing a good ballad.
Zappa: Well... Yeah but usually they are. And that's the problem.
Gross: Do you feel that there are any things that you have been musically held back from doing because of the lack of commercial potential in it, or do you feel that you've done what you wanted to do no matter what?
Zappa: Well I continue to do what I like to do, but whether or not anybody ever hears it is a matter of access to air-time.
Gross: So you have a lot of things that you are doing at home now that you think most of us probably won't get to hear because it won't get recorded.
Zappa: Oh, it will get recorded, but whether or not you will ever find
the record in a store or ever hear the record played on the air,
that's the question. The material does exist.
