Zappa is saying that Bobby Brown's hyper-aggressive masculinity ("I tell all the girls they can kiss my heinie") was just a cover for his submissive personality ("With a spindle up my butt till it makes me scream/An' I'll do anything to get ahead"). Suddenly, Bobby Brown's means to achieving success come from acts he finds degrading ("I can take about an hour on the tower of power/'Long as I get a little golden shower"). His first encounter with a lesbian leaves him desperately unsure of his masculinity. The road to wealth and power is no longer a sure thing, and Bobby Brown's dreams of getting ahead end up, instead, with him helplessly giving head.
The emergence of feminism and gay rights has overturned the dominant social order. But it's not the '50s anymore - it's the '70s. Bobby Brown has a simple outlook on his life that could have been shaped by the white-bread values of the '50s. He gets the attention of all the cheerleaders. Bobby Brown is a preppy, privileged guy who thinks he's "the cutest boy in town”.' He drives a fast car and dresses sharp and acts cool. While some have called this song anti-gay, it's not an indictment of homosexuality, but a blatant attack on careerism. "Bobby Brown Goes Down" is a disputable bit of social commentary about sexual confusion that would probably have fit perfectly on Lather. – “Frank Zappa: the Negative Dialectics of poodle Play” by Ben Watson, 1994 It does not matter what Zappa actually believes - in The Real Frank Zappa Book he talks some half-baked nonsense about the duty of American citizens to breed the next generation - because of his ability to foment all the taboo areas in a single song. However, all considerations of fairness are swept aside in an outpouring of scandalous couplets over a lush, vibrant melody. The historical actuality is that the rise of feminism has given the opportunity for all kinds of repressed sexual minorities to voice their identities. “Bobby Brown” is part of Zappa's politically dubious speculation that women's liberation has turned men gay as they find career women 'would be like fucking a slightly more voluptuous version of somebody's father', as Harry-as-a-Boy puts it in Thing-Fish. Zappa would probably argue that the whole point of the exercise is to exploit the tension between sentimental musical hypocrisy, which promotes one false set of societal stereotypes, and this gross social reportage.
Teens apparently remained ignorant of its crass sadomasochistic content as they danced and romanced at the disco. Because of its lush melody, this song went on to become a #1 hit in Scandinavia. This song has the dubious honour of being one of Zappa’s biggest hits. When you try to tie them all together they contradict each other though and it all becomes rather scurrilous nonsense instead. Again, here’s another instance of what tries to be a string of coarse gags.
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