One interesting fact about rock legend Frank Zappa was his burning hatred of..

...labor unions.

No, this isn’t a joke.

It started as far as I can tell when Zappa has trouble with stage hands’ unions and later classical musicians’ unions.

In his autobiography, Zappa explains that working with the London Symphony Orchestra was nut-crunchingly brutal. They’d up and leave in the middle of recording sessions for their break, return drink, refuse to play a minute over their scheduled time, and he had to pay scale.

This left a very bad taste in his mouth you can see from interviews...

...and his lyrics.

Here’s a selection from “Flakes” off the Sheik Yerbouti album, demonstrating Zappa’s hatred of laborers.

I am not making this up!

“Stick Together” from The Man From Utopia is equally vituperative.

“When the union tells you it’s time to strike
You tell the motherfucker to take a hike” is a pretty good couplet, I have to admit.

And here’s “Yo Cats” from Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, taking specific aim at the musicians’ union.

Harsh!

Now, contra many, Zappa was not a libertarian or otherwise anything resembling of the right. He was a nihilistic, hedonist atheist who later became a boring doctrinaire Democrat before he died.

He called himself a “Practical Conservative” in his autobiography, but other than hating communism and liking money (a LOT), he was a leftist.

Which is fine, but many on the right try to claim him.

Zappa gets lauded as an anti-censorship voice for opposing the PMRC’s music ratings. But want to know why he really opposed the PMRC?

THE TAX that was going to be put on blank tapes.

Zappa was an interesting, complicated cat, a phenomenally creative musician whom I love to death, yet also a force for cultural destruction.

And likely CIA-backed like many of his ilk.

Anyway, his anti-union stance was just so interesting and unusual.