Camarillo Brillo

"Camarillo Brillo" is a song by Frank Zappa and The Mothers and was first included on his 1973 LP Over-Nite Sensation. The song's lyrics include many colloquialisms and made-up words. The title itself is a pun; Zappa incorrectly pronounces Camarillo, the name of a city in California, to rhyme with Brillo, a trade name associated with cleaning pads.

"Camarillo Brillo" is in the key of E major, though the key briefly changes to D major during the chorus. The song employs liberal use of brass instruments and a wide range of percussion techniques. It ends with a short coda played on piano. There are two versions of this song, the first being in a slower tempo and the second being a much shorter up tempo version played later in Frank Zappa's career. The shorter version can be heard on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6. The reason for changing the song's pace was discussed in an interview with Zappa in which he states that the song was "boring" so they sped it up in future performances.

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, record producer, actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock n' roll, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the more than sixty albums he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers.

Zappa was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, along with 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; later switching to electric guitar. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz or classical.

Camarillo, California

Camarillo (/ˌkæməˈriːoʊ/ KAM-ə-REE-oh) is a city in Ventura County in the U.S. state of California. The population was 65,201 at the 2010 census, up from 57,084 at the 2000 census. The Ventura Freeway (U.S. Route 101) is the city's primary thoroughfare. Camarillo is named for Adolfo and Juan Camarillo, two of the few Californios (pre-1848 California natives of Hispanic ancestry) to preserve the city's heritage after the arrival of Anglo settlers. The railroad coast route came through in 1898 and built a station here. Adolfo Camarillo eventually employed 700 workers growing mainly lima beans. Walnuts and citrus were also grown on the ranch. Adolfo bred Camarillo White Horses in the 1920s through the 1960s and was well known for riding them, dressed in colorful Spanish attire, in parades such as the Fiesta of Santa Barbara.

The city grew slowly prior to World War II but the war effort saw the construction of the Oxnard Army Air Field (later Oxnard Air Force Base in 1951, now Camarillo Airport) to the west of town. The community also grew as the new base along with nearby Naval Air Station Point Mugu and a Seabee base at Port Hueneme brought many workers and their families to the area. The grounds of Camarillo State Hospital, which opened in 1936 south of town, are now the campus of California State University, Channel Islands.

Brillo Pad

Brillo Pad is a trade name for a scouring pad, used for cleaning dishes, and made from steel wool impregnated with soap. The concept was patented in 1913. The company's website states the name Brillo is from the Latin word for 'bright', though no such word exists in Latin; In Spanish the word "brillo" means the noun "shine", however, German, Italian, French, English do have words for 'shine' or 'bright' beginning with brill- deriving from Latin words for beryl.

It came at a time when aluminium pots and pans were replacing cast iron in the kitchen. Easily blackened by coal fires, the shine of the cookware didn't last long.

History

In the early 1900s, in New York, a cookware peddler and a jeweller (his brother-in-law), were working on a solution to the blackened cookware. Using jewellers' rouge, with soap and fine steel wool from Germany, they developed a method to scour the backsides of cooking utensils when they began to blacken. The method worked, and the peddler added this new product, soap with steel wool, into his line of goods for sale.

The Muffin Man

"The Muffin Man" is a traditional nursery rhyme or children's song of English origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7922.

Lyrics

The most widely known lyrics are as follows:

Do [or "Oh, do"] you know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Do you know the muffin man,
Who lives in Drury Lane?

Yes [or "Oh, yes"], I know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man,
Yes, I know the muffin man,
Who lives in Drury Lane.

Origins and meaning

The rhyme was first recorded in a British manuscript circa 1820, that is preserved in the Bodleian Library with lyrics very similar to those used today:

Do you know the muffin man?
The muffin man, the muffin man.
Do you know the muffin man
Who lives in Drury Lane?

Victorian households had many of their fresh foods delivered, such as muffins, which were delivered door-to-door by a muffin man. The "muffin" in question was the bread product known in the United States as English muffins, not the much sweeter cupcake-shaped American variety.Drury Lane is a thoroughfare bordering Covent Garden in London.