Elephant Beer

Written by ?

FZ album(s) in which song has appeared

Tour(s) on which song is known to have been performed (main source: FZShows, v. 7.1)

Comments

Biffy The Elephant Shrew, quoted by Foggy G, "The Songs That Were Played," We're Only In It For The Touring

"Elephant Beer" is a long boogie/shuffle performed at the Copenhagen show. I don't know if it was performed more than once. The (possibly impromptu) lyrics are relevant only to Denmark, home of Carlsberg "Elephant Beer." It includes conceptual continuity with "Sofa" [...]. The song features a short Underwood sax solo and longer solos by Zappa and Preston.

Byron "swagshoah" Holmes, March 28, 2016

The song was an impromptu boogie performed only once during the late show in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1971-11-21. There's no real clue as to who composed it, though Kaylan singing the words and Underwood, Preston and Zappa all played solos. To date it hasn't been officially released on any album.

The lyrics, as best I could transcribe them, are as follows:

Woah, Denmark . . . is gonna be the death of me!
Woah, Denmark, oooh . . . you're gonna be the death of me!
We lost all our equipment, babe,
Fucking around out on the streets!
Woah, Elephant Beer . . . is gonna be the death of my guts!
Woah, Elephant Beer . . . 'gwine to be the death of my guts!
Oh, you losers/boozers [???] drink that Pilsner
And all that "dein geheime Schmutz"!

There's not much else known about this tune, which is a shame because it's a real nice song (it's possible it might have been reworked into something else).

Oscar Bianco, February 15, 2008

This is a long number (11 minutes) where The Mothers sounds more like Creedence Clearwater Revival or something like that. It's a rock bluesy piece where F&E keep repeating "The elephant beer." You may know that the elephant is in the logo of Carlsberg beer that is the city beer of Copenhagen.

 

 

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