The Time Frank Zappa Wrote an Album for Robin Written by Garry

Modern music history has offered up a litany of strange pairings. This country track by Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton comes to mind, as does this (admittedly excellent) cover of ‘Walk This Way’ by Aerosmith and Run DMC.

But while the 1980s may have been especially front-loaded with strange duets, these kinds of bizarre pairings weren’t limited to just that era. In fact, one of the most outlandish musical collaborations we’ve come across is the track ‘Boy Wonder I Love You’, featuring 1960s heartthrob Burt Ward (who played Robin in the 1960s TV series Batman) and Frank Zappa.

Zappa arranged and produced the track while his band Mothers of Invention provided the backing music. Unperturbed by the fact Ward couldn’t actually sing, MGM had him speak on the records instead (after failed attempts with a vocal coach), with the ‘lyrics’ for the track edited together by Zappa from Ward’s many fan letters.

Ward would later recall the experience in his autobiography with amusing fondness: Boy Wonder, he said, was “all American and apple pie, while the image of the Mothers of Invention was so revolutionary that they made the Hell’s Angels look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir”.

We only wish more superhero soundtracks were created with the same inventive spirit.

Via: Dangerous Minds