Freak Out! cover art

Freak Out!

My Life with Frank Zappa

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Freak Out!

By: Pauline Butcher
Narrated by: Emma Gregory
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

In 1967, 21-year-old Pauline Butcher was working for a London secretarial agency when a call came through from a Mr Frank Zappa asking for a typist. The assignment would change her life forever. For three years, Pauline served as Zappa's PA, moving with him, his family and the Mothers of Invention to a log cabin in the Hollywood Hills, where the straight young English girl mixed with Oscar winners and rock royalty.

Freak Out! is the captivating story of a naive young English girl thrust into the mad world of a musical legend as well as the most intimate portrait of Frank Zappa ever written.

©2011 Pauline Butcher (P)2020 W F Howes Entertainment & Celebrities Celebrity

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Real Frank Zappa Book cover art
Outside the Gates of Eden cover art
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon cover art
England's Dreaming cover art
1966 cover art
Geronimo cover art
Buddy Babylon cover art
C. S. Lewis - A Life cover art
Far and Wide cover art
Demian cover art
The Birth of Loud cover art
Laurel Canyon cover art
Fast Forward cover art
About That Night cover art
Roadshow cover art
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here cover art

Critic reviews

"The book describes a formative time in the life of an innovative musical artist, which Zappa most certainly was. But it also captures a particularly intense experience of a very brief, yet enormously influential, period in the evolution of western womanhood." (The Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant  
I don’t get other reviews slagging this book off. I really enjoyed it. She loved him that’s for sure

Zappa

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Pauline meeting Frank, working for him and being inspired to get educated and do her own thing is a beautiful tale. Lots here for Zappa fans, showing Frank in a much more intimate light than anything else I've ever read about him. Written by someone who was right inside the Zappa family bubble, I find it fascinating, the way in which pure chance (in this case getting to the phone first), can change a life so completely. Thanks for that Pauline, I really enjoyed it.

What a great listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very interesting read.. I used to listen to Zappa in the 70's and always thought he was a typical Rock'n Roller - how wrong I was !

A Great Insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A wonderful and detailed look into the life of a rock star. One I knew nothing about but that didn’t matter. Just a great listen from start to finish.

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I feel a bit lost after finishing this book. The names and events woven into it take me back to my hippy-style youth and have made me melancholy for that time of my life. The idea of living in LA and having every big name from Hendrix to Clapton drop by is almost unbelievable. The main thread is Frank Zappa and, although I'd only ever listened to Joe's Garage, I knew he was lauded in the 60s and 70s and I wanted to know more. He is a complex character and this book doesn't pull any punches in exposing his genius and his flaws. The only negative is the narrator who regularly emphasised the wrong words.

A great trip back to the crazy 60's and 70's

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I couldn’t stop listening once I’d started.
Really interesting and great descriptions of life in Laurel Canyon and everyone in her life.

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really loved this book- I’m not even a Frank Zappa fan or familiar with his music but I adored this story of Pauline and wished I could hear more after she stayed in london. Very touching and charming anecdotes and insights in to the Californian 60s.
Fantastic narrator as well
Wonderful

Wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a great memoir of a unique time, relationship and man, told with vigour and forthright honestly, a really entertaining read.

fantastic insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A pile of unrelated g
irls gossip from someone who barely knew Zappa for 3 or 4 years and a dozen encounters.

Clickbait

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.