Aü

‘Aü’ was the final song recorded with Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention in 1971, during the encore of their show at the Fillmore East in New York.

The band’s concert on 6 June 1971 was recorded for their Live At The Fillmore album. John Lennon and Yoko Ono joined the band for a four-song encore which also included ‘Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)’, ‘Jamrag’, and ‘Scumbag’.

I thought he [Lennon] had a pretty good sense of humour, so I invited him to come down and jam with us at the Fillmore East. We had already book in a recording truck because we were making the Live At The Fillmore album at the time. After they had sat in with us, an arrangement was made that we would both have access to the tapes. He wanted to release it with his mix and I had the right to release it with my mix – so that’s how that one section came out.

The collaboration was included on the ‘Live Jam’ disc of the Some Time In New York City album. Zappa remixed the songs for his 1992 compilation Playground Psychotics, on which ‘Aü’ was renamed ‘A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono’.

Whatever its true title, ‘Aü’ was little more than a freeform improvisation featuring Ono on wailing vocals and Lennon and Zappa providing guitar feedback. It was an anticlimactic end to a mixed bag of recordings.