"The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" is a musical composition by American Frank Zappa. It originally released as Greggery Peccary on the album Studio Tan in 1978. A slightly different version was also included on the Läther album; while Läther was recorded in 1977, it was officially released in 1996. An instrumental version appears on the Wazoo CD featuring the original Wazoo ensemble; this version debuted at the Hollywood Bowl on September 10, 1972. The version is in four movements totalling 33.05 minutes on the CD. The song is an epic lasting nearly 21 minutes, mocking the rock opera style and reprising the extended story format used in "Billy the Mountain"; to some extent, it also continues the lengthy adventures outlined in the "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow Suite". The piece required a large number of personnel to record, and received its basic tracking during The Grand Wazoo and Waka/Jawaka sessions in mid-1972. The piece remained unfinished at the time of release of those two LPs (later that year). Zappa would return to the recording on and off until its completion during the recording sessions for One Size Fits All in 1974. The long interludes of avant-garde classical arrangement that are prevalent in the track made for a much more sophisticated sound than "Billy the Mountain". Nonetheless, Zappa's use of absurdist humor and political commentary remains prominent in this piece.
Story Greggery Peccary is a small peccary, named after the actor Gregory Peck, and lives among the peccary population, which ranges from Texas to Paraguay and sometimes as far west as Catalina. Peccaries are notable for having a white collar pattern on their fur, but Greggery is part of a "bold new breed" of peccary that also has a wide tie below his collar, distinguishing it as a particularly exceptional swine. Greggery owns a red Volkswagen and works in the part of the town where the government buildings are kept at a corporation known as "Big Swifty and Associates, Trend-mongers". As the name suggests, their line of work involves conceiving and promoting the many trends and fads within the world using whatever means science has to offer. Greggery is popular among the air-headed lady stenographers at his company, who are impressed by Greggery and taken by his suave and particular cunning as an employer. Together they sing a song advertising the company's many time-wasting products, thus inspiring Greggery to return to his "ultra-avant, laminated, simulated, replica-mahogany desk" so that he may conceive a new trend, some "THING" to identify with. Guided by heavenly voices, he invents the calendar, a play on the Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII. The calendar, upon release, immediately causes chaos, as people suddenly can keep track of time and plan ahead, thus making life aggravatingly mechanical, and also allowing people to discover how old they were. A group of hunchmen, just a few of the "very hip young people" of the world, attack Greggery on the way home from his office one night, enraged at the prospect of birthdays and being aware of their own aging. Greggery is chased by them in his car, and narrowly escapes into a cave in a conveniently placed and nearby mountain. The hunchmen (and hunchwomen) decide to abandon the chase in favour of a "love-in" and a party ensues among them. Greggery is safe from them, but suddenly discovers that he has parked within no ordinary cave, but the mouth of Billy the Mountain. Billy hacks up boulders and creates new brown clouds as he laughs, suddenly procuring Greggery's interest. Greggery, unaware that he was parked within Billy the Mountain or that Billy had coughed up the clouds, ponders "who is making those new brown clouds", and makes a phone call to find a "philostopher" for an explanation of the presence of the brown clouds. He is sent to a man named Quentin Robert DeNameland, supposedly "the greatest living philostopher known to mankind", who hosts a group assembly. DeNameland's authenticity as a philostopher is questionable, as he merely proclaims that "time is an affliction" – more specifically, "the eons are closing" – before soliciting for payment for attendance to his assembly. The adventure closes with Greggery still pondering the presence of the brown clouds, given DeNameland's lack of answers. Cynically he concludes: "If you ask a "philostopher" he'll see that you pays!"
Variation Zappa played an unreleased early version of this piece from an acetate disc on 99.1 WPLR FM radio in Connecticut on April 23, 1975. In this version Zappa introduces Quentin Robert DeNameland as the greatest living "two-headed philostopher" known to mankind. DeNameLand's philosophical spiel (delivered in Zappa's voice manipulated by a variable speed oscillator, in the style of "Dumb All Over" on You Are What You Is) lasts longer than the Studio Tan or Läther versions. The spiel is accompanied (in a madrigal style) by the musical accompaniment. The following is the entire philosophical speech as noted in the Zappa book, Them or Us.
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