Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch [Original recording remastered]

Frank Zappa | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 2, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Zappa Records
• ASIN: B0000009T4
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,563 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. No, Not Now

2. Valley Girl

3. I Come from Nowhere

4. Drowning Witch

5. Envelopes

6. Teen-Age Prostitute

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Almost perfect album, May 21, 2000

By 

Solo Goodspeed (Granada Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (Audio CD)

I first heard the title cut of this album live in performance in Santa Monica, back around '81, a mind boggling instrumental reminiscent of an expanded version of The Black Page. For that piece alone, this album couldn't release soon enough; I was lucky I had a friend with an audience recording to placate me in the meantime. Ironically, this album gained popularity as being the "Valley Girl" album, and the song is indeed an amusing diversion until the novelty wears off after repeated listenings. "No Not Now", the opener, and "I Come From Nowhere", are this collection's weak points, and should be avoided so as not to diminish the brilliance of the second half, which kicks off with the title cut, builds up in density and intensity with the sonically challenging "Envelopes" (as different a piece from Valley Girl as one could imagine, which one really can't), and finishing with "TeenAge Prostitute" (imagine "I'm So Cute" with a bit of circus music worked in), featuring operatic vocals by Lisa Popeil (daugter of the inventor of the Pocket Fisherman and Kitchen Magician). Now there is more trivia than you needed, but at least this album gets a review from someone who really listened to it. A flawed collection, but the flaws are minimal, with instrumental material that ranks among Zappa's greatest. You make the call.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metallica Ten Years Before, December 15, 2004

By 

Douglas H. Watts (Augusta, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (Audio CD)

I always wished Zappa could have kept the sound and intensity he achieved in "Ship Arriving Too Late ..." for at least one more record.

The first song, "No Not Now" has ridiculously stupid lyrics and an excellent blues/doo-wop melody straight from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" welded to an infectious hardcore popping bass riff.

Valley Girl has one of the most crushing bass and guitar parts heard then or ever in semi-popular music. because moon zappa's vocal is so funny and off the wall it is easy to forget contemplating the weirdness of this song charting in the top 40 at the end of the 1970s with such a heavy and grinding musical chassis.

There is a very surfy California sound to this entire album, part in the rhythm, the guitar sound, bass sound, the drum sound, and the lyrics. In some ways the sound and attitude reminds me of California bands like Agent Orange and the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys. It's a light and carefree sound but also deceptively serious. Because Frank Zappa was practically a southern California native, a desert rat Army brat from deep in the Mojave, I like to think that he had this sound in his skin and bones and on Ship Arriving Too Late ... it just oozed out of his pores.

"I Come From Nowhere" has always been one of my favorite Zappa songs. It fuses some of Frank's most aggressive speed metal rhythm and solo guitar playing, an astoundingly tight rhythm section, a completely insane vocal delivery with lyrics that are as funny and disturbing as "Who Are the Brain Police?"

The opening section of Frank's guitar solo is as violent a piece of music as can be found anywhere and his guitar tone rips your head off. Patrick O'Hearn's astounding bass playing takes the song into a whole different category.

It would take nearly a decade, until Metallica, before music this intense, abrasive and highly structured found any audience.

Side two of Ship Arriving Too Late is a 17 minute medley that defies description. Typical of Frank during this period, it contains a continental plate collision of loosely improvised and difficult, highly rehearsed music all performed live, with Steve Vai all over it on some of the weirdest and hardest live guitar parts ever recorded. Scott Thunes on bass deserves huge accolades for anchoring this bizarre concoction, as does drummer Chad Wackerman. This type of stuff shouldn't work but I love it. Frank sarcastically named a bunch of live CDs "You Can't Do This on Stage Anymore" but hearing this stuff I think he was just telling the truth.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "We're talking Lord God King BU-FU...", April 17, 2004

By 

Patrik Lemberg (Tammisaari Finland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (Audio CD)

SATLTSADW is a short [34 min.] album introducing future-regular time-keepers Chad Wackerman and Scott Thunes; Wackerman plays drums throughout, and Thunes plays bass on four tracks. The album features both studio and live-material, and often both at once (yes, there are over-dubs). It's another album where Steve Vai is credited for "impossible guitar parts", which are performed in e.g. the instrumental composition "Envelopes", and in the heavy-metal-opera-like "Teen-Age Prostitute"; songs that give this album a lot of status, as does the guitar-solo on "Drowning Witch" - it proves that Zappa did right when deciding to keep this drummer and bassist together until the end of his rock'n'roll-band years.
Feminine voices dominate the album; Moon Zappa plays the part of the "Valley Girl" (a hilarious tune), and Lisa Popiel plays the part of the "Teen-Age Prostitute".
The album isn't a must, but is recommended to regular FZ fans, since it--with the exception of "Drowning Witch" and "Envelopes"--only features songs that cannot be heard on any other Zappa album. However, the versions of the two above mentioned tracks are here performed at their best.