Inca Roads (song)

"Inca Roads" is the opening track of the Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention 1975 album, One Size Fits All. The song features unusual time signatures, lyrics and vocals, and is one of the first Zappa songs to use xenochrony. The marimba-playing of Zappa's percussionist Ruth Underwood is featured prominently. The song was played in concert from 1973 to 1974, 1979 and 1988.^[1]

Themes

"Inca Roads" for the most part explores the stereotypes of aliens encountering the Incan civilization. These themes, like the album cover of One Size Fits All seem to parody the spirituality of many progressive rock albums around the same era. The lyrics "Did a vehicle come from somewhere out there, just to land in the Andes? Was it round and did it have a motor or was it something different?" imply that a UFO is landing in the Andes mountains. As the song progresses, the lyrics become sillier and seem to mock the beginning of the song. An example of this is "...or did someone build a place or leave a space for Chester's thing to land (Chester's thing... on Ruth). Did a booger-bear come from somewhere out there..." The non-serious nature of these lyrics and even the music itself seem to be mocking other progressive rock bands and their possibly forced divine depth.^[2][3][3]

Song Structure

"Inca Roads" uses such time signatures as: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 3/8, 7/8, 3/16, 5/16, 7/16, 11/16, and possibly others. The song starts with dominant vocals, drums, and marimba, but soon Zappa plays the guitar solo which is where the xenochrony comes in. Zappa had played a massive, iconic guitar solo in late September 1974, live, in Helsinki, Finland. It is this solo (and part of the bass and drums accompaniment) which was "grafted" onto the KCET track, which forms the backbone of this OSFA recording. Later, George Duke plays an equally complex solo in 7/16. On the video, Zappa is seen smiling gleefully, as he plays the backup chords. After a short marimba solo, "Inca Roads" reprises its snappy intro. The song ends with the lyrics "On Ruth, on Ruth, that's Ruth!" acknowledging Underwood for her leading on the marimba.^[2][4] In an interview vocalist and keyboard player George Duke said that Zappa pushed for him to sing on "Inca Roads" and that beforehand Duke had no intentions of singing professionally and was only there to play keyboards. He went on to explain how Zappa had bought him a synthesizer (an instrument which Duke had disliked) and told him he could play around with it if he wanted. This led to Duke playing the synth part on "Inca Roads" as well.^[5]

The Skip

Many early LP copies contain a skip during "Inca Roads" at approximately 4:40 into the track (the end of the solo from Helsinki). This error was a manufacturing defect not caught during the test pressing stage. The album was recalled after the mistake was caught, but a significant number had already been sold. The highly complex nature of the music made it difficult to recognize the error without comparing it to the correct version.

Personnel

• Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
• George Duke – keyboards, synthesizer, lead vocals
• Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, tenor saxophone, vocals
• Chester Thompson – drums
• Tom Fowler – bass
• Ruth Underwood – vibes, marimba, percussion

References