Vegetables (song)

1967 song written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks

"Vegetables" (early versions spelled as "Vega Tables") is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1967 album Smiley Smile and their unfinished Smile project. Written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, the song was conceived by Wilson as a tongue in cheek promotion of organic food. Another reported inspiration for the song was a humorous comment Wilson heard about the effect of marijuana turning him and his friends into a "vegetative" state. "Vegetables" was one of the last songs recorded for Smile, with most of the original sessions held in April 1967. Paul McCartney of the Beatles is rumored to be on the recording, but while many witnesses support that he contributed chewed celery noises at one of these April sessions, researchers failed to uncover any audio evidence that would confirm his presence on any surviving recording of the song. In February 1967, Wilson had announced that he would issue "Vegetables" as the lead single from Smile, which exacerbated tensions with Parks, who had felt that the song was one of their weaker efforts. Parks soon withdrew from the project, and Smile was scrapped. "Vegetables" was then largely rerecorded in June with an arrangement consisting of the group's vocals, electric bass, organ, chomped vegetables, and air blown into water bottles. Months later, the band reworked one of its outtakes into a new a cappella song, "Mama Says", that was released as the closing track on their 1967 album Wild Honey. Wilson rerecorded "Vegetables" with an arrangement closer to what he had originally envisioned for the song on his 2004 album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. New edits of the song that approximate the original Smile version were also created for the compilations Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys (1993) and The Smile Sessions (2011).

"Vegetables" was composed by Brian Wilson in 1966 and first recorded during the aborted Smile sessions. The song was based on Wilson's reported health obsession at the time. The Saturday Evening Post writer Jules Siegel said that while using marijuana with Wilson and the "Beach Boys marijuana consumption squad" Michael Vosse mused at how violence in their "vegetative" state could not be achieved, provoking laughter and further discussion of being a vegetable. Siegel said that this encounter was what inspired Wilson to write the song. Although it is not definitely known to be true, "Vega Tables" is generally believed to fulfill the Earth part of "The Elements" suite that Brian envisioned for Smile. One of the illustrations created for the album included "Vega Tables" as part of "The Elements", however, a preliminary track list from December 1966 indicated "The Elements" and "Vega Tables" as separate tracks. The "Vega Tables" spelling may have been inspired by the Vejtables, a group who opened for the Beach Boys at a concert on January 1, 1966.

"Vegetables" is in the key of E major. The main chord progression of verses is I IV I. Musicologist Philip Lambert notes this progression as a recurring element throughout Smile, with other songs such as "Wind Chimes" and "The Elements: Fire" also utilizing it. While the subject matter was conceived by Wilson, the lyrics were written by his collaborator Van Dyke Parks, who incorporated wordplay and absurdist imagery into the song. An earlier recording. sometimes referred to as the "cornucopia" version, features an additional discarded verse: "Tripped on a cornucopia / Stripped the stalk green and I hope ya / Like me the most of all / My favorite vegetable". Some versions of "Vegetables" feature an additional interpolated section after the verses involving Barbershop style vocal harmonies sung by the Beach Boys. The lyrics are "Mom and Dad say/sleep a lot, eat a lot / brush 'em like crazy / run a lot, do a lot / never be lazy". This section was considered for inclusion on "Heroes and Villains" under the subheaders "Do a Lot" or "Sleep a Lot" in January 1967, prior to the recording of the rest of "Vegetables".

Artist Frank Holmes, who designed the Smile cover artwork, created an illustration that was inspired by the song's lyrics, "The Elements" / "My Vega Tables". Along with several other drawings, they were planned to be included within a booklet packaged with the Smile LP. In 2005, Holmes shared a background summary of his design choices:

The Beach Boys recorded the most rudimentary version of "Vegetables", a demo with different lyrics and a different vocal arrangement, on or around October 17, 1966. Band archivist Craig Slowinski suggests that the session may have taken place on this day, however the exact date is unknown.

In February 1967, Wilson announced that "Vega Tables" would be the lead single from Smile. At this time, the Beach Boys had engaged themselves in litigation against Capitol, and to taunt the record company, Wilson staged a mock promotion of the "Vega Tables" by holding a photoshoot at the Los Angeles Farmers Market, where he posed in front of a fruit and vegetable stand. The location was at Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street, only feet away from where Wilson opened a health food store, the Radiant Radish, two years later. According to David Anderle, formerly the head of Brother Records, creative differences between Parks and Wilson had escalated since February. Parks was against having the song as the album's lead single, commenting, "[I didn't want] 'Vega Tables' to be given too much emphasis. For Smile, that celebrated collaboration, to be dependent on a commercial release of 'Vega Tables' as a single, was to me tremendously ill advised, wherever it came from." On March 2, after a session for "Heroes and Villains", their partnership was temporarily dissolved. A recording session for "Vega Tables" vocals was held the next day, but further session dates, scheduled on March 28 and 30, were cancelled. Parks' last recorded appearance on the album's sessions was for a "Vega Tables" date on April 14, after which he withdrew from the project. Wilson then took a four week break from the studio. On April 29, band publicist Derek Taylor reported that the single, backed with "Wonderful", would soon be released. He described it as "a light and lyrical, day to day, green grocery song on which Al Jardine sings a most vigorous lead."

During the April 10 vocal session at Sound Recorders, which also saw work on "Wonderful" and "Child Is Father of the Man", Paul McCartney of the Beatles joined the Beach Boys in the studio for several hours. He returned to the United States in early April 1967 to reunite with his actress girlfriend Jane Asher and to learn of developments in the San Francisco music scene. Asked about his involvement in a 2001 interview, McCartney said he had no memory of the session, where he was said to have chomped vegetables. In a 2016 Q&A given for his website, he offered a specific recollection:

Jardine said, "I remember waiting for long periods of time between takes to get to the next section or verse. Brian [seemed to have] lost track of the session. Paul would come on the talkback and say something like "'Good take, Al.'" KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer was also present, as he remembered, "We were in a booth, and we were supposed to shout out the names of vegetables. I was a young, punk kid at the time, and I shouted out 'TV dinners!' I didn't know " Wilson's then wife Marilyn recalled, "Brian had some fresh vegetables out, for the mood. He sprinkled salt all over the console table near the mixing board and started dipping celery into the salt and chomping on it. Paul followed his lead and picked up the celery and did the same thing. It was priceless to see this." Sessions co producer Mark Linett said, "Unless Paul is being very quiet, there’s no evidence that he’s a part of the chomping. And there’s quite a lot of discussion going on while that particular track is being recorded." Wilson said: "We both just cried. It was beautiful." In turn, he performed "Wonderful" on piano for McCartney. Beatles roadie Mal Evans wrote about singing the traditional "On Top of Old Smokey" with McCartney and Wilson, but was not impressed by Wilson's avant garde attitude to music: "Brian then put a damper on the spontaneity of the whole affair by walking in with a tray of water filled glasses, trying to arrange it into some sort of session." In a January 1968 interview, Wilson stated of the McCartney episode, "It was a little uptight and we really didn't seem to hit it off. It didn't really flow. [ ] It didn't really go too good."

The Smile album was reported scrapped on May 5, 1967. Starting on June 3, "Vega Tables" was rerecorded for the new album Smiley Smile, where it was respelled "Vegetables" and reworked as a kind of campfire song. Apart from its coda (recorded in April 1967), the track was remade entirely from scratch. Wilson played the electric bass on this version and added organ overdubs to the final section of the song. "Vegetables" was mixed to mono on June 3, 1967. A recording for "You're with Me Tonight", held on June 6, was logged as a "Vega Tables" session. Reviewing the song in AllMusic, Matthew Greenwald called it a "great example of the collaboration of Brian Wilson's and Van Dyke Parks' sense of comedy and psychedelic whimsy. ", also noting it as among the strangest songs of the group's career. Music critic Ritchie Unterberger described it as an example of the "low key psychedelic weirdness" present throughout Smiley Smile. Lambert wrote that the song heralded a "radically new artistic sensibility" for the group relative to Pet Sounds and Smile. David Leaf, writing in 1990, described the song as marking a new phase in Wilson's development as a musician. The Smiley Smile rendition of the song was listed by Mojo as the Beach Boys' 47th greatest song, with the Mojo staff describing it as "endearingly daft", and praising the group's vocal harmonies and the "stripped back" arrangement. In 2015, the French edition of Rolling Stone named "Vegetables" the Beach Boys' 38th greatest song.

In 1967, the song was revisited for the last time as the closing track "Mama Says" on Wild Honey (1967). This version consisted of an extended re recording of the unused "Do or Lot" or "Sleep a Lot" module. It was the first time a track with thematic links to Smile was used to close a later Beach Boys album, a practice that the band repeated with "Cabinessence" on 20/20 (1969), "Cool, Cool Water" on Sunflower (1970), and "Surf's Up" on Surf's Up (1971).

The details in this section are adapted from The Smile Sessions liner notes, which includes a sessionography compiled by band archivist Craig Slowinski. and from Keith Badman