Vegetables (song)

"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.^[1]

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).