"Vegetables" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Song by The Beach Boys | ||||
from the album Smiley Smile | ||||
Released | September 18, 1967 | |||
Recorded | October 1966 | –June 1967|||
Studio | Gold Star Studios, Sunset Sound Recorders, and CBS Columbia Square, Hollywood | |||
Length | 2:07 | |||
Label | Brother/Capitol | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | Brian Wilson | |||
Smiley Smile track listing | ||||
|
||||
Audio sample | ||||
|
"Vega-Tables" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
The cover for the bonus "Vega-Tables" 7" vinyl packaged with The Smile Sessions box set uses original 1966 artwork by Frank Holmes.
|
||||
Song by The Beach Boys | ||||
from the album The Smile Sessions | ||||
Released | October 31, 2011 | |||
Recorded | April 1967 | |||
Genre | Art pop, psychedelic pop | |||
Length | 3:49 | |||
Label | Capitol | |||
Songwriter(s) |
|
|||
Producer(s) | Brian Wilson | |||
The Smile Sessions track listing | ||||
|
"Mama Says" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Song by The Beach Boys | ||||
from the album Wild Honey | ||||
Released | December 18, 1967 | |||
Recorded | November 1967 | |||
Studio | Wally Heider Studios, Hollywood | |||
Genre | Barbershop | |||
Length | 1:05 | |||
Label | Capitol | |||
Songwriter(s) |
|
|||
Producer(s) | The Beach Boys | |||
Wild Honey track listing | ||||
|
"Vegetables" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks for American rock band the Beach Boys, released as the second track on their 1967 album Smiley Smile. The Beatles' Paul McCartney appears on an earlier version of the song, spelled "Vega-Tables", chewing celery as percussion.
The song, once projected as a potential lead single for the unfinished album Smile, was partly inspired by Wilson's obsession with physical fitness in the late 1960s, and he intended Smile to be a "health food album". In 1969, this culminated in him opening a short-lived health food store, the Radiant Radish located in West Hollywood, California.
A discarded bridge section from "Vega-Tables" was later recycled as the a cappella "Mama Says", released on their 1967 album Wild Honey, featuring heavily syncopated vocals by the group.
The song was composed in 1966 and first attempted during the aborted Smile sessions. Jules Siegel has 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. David Leaf has said the song was based on Wilson's reported health obsession at the time. Wilson later said, "I want to turn people on to vegetables, good natural food, organic food. Health is an important element in spiritual enlightenment. But I do not want to be pompous about it, so we will engage in a satirical approach." "Vega-Tables" was envisioned to fulfill the Earth part of "The Elements" suite devised for Smile.