McCartney’s special appearance on Beach Boys-song

Paul McCartney has used an almost uncountable amount of different things as a kind of instrument through the years. His contribution to a Beach Boy song might be the strangest one. 

Vegetables is the second track on the Beach Boys’ 1967 album Smiley Smile, and written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. It was originally intended for the unfinished album Smile and partly inspired by Wilson's obsession in the late 1960’s with physical fitness. He intended Smile to be a 'health food album'. Wilson said about the song: 

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.

From this point of view, McCartney’s contribution might even sound logical. Because on the song he is ‘playing’ a stick of celery, as percussion. On his website Paul explains how it came to it:

Yeah, that is true, yeah! I mean it was wild and wacky days, you know, and I just went round to the studio because they invited me. I just thought it would be fun to sit there and watch them record, ‘cause I’m a big fan. And so I was there, and then it was, I think, Brian who came over and said, ‘Oh Paul, got a favour to ask: would you mind recording something?’ I thought, ‘Oh, no! But great, I could do that!' Oh God, I’m gonna be singing on a Beach Boys record or something, you know! I got a bit kind of intimidated and thought, ‘Okay, here goes nothing’. And they said, ‘Well, what we want you to do is go in there and just munch!’ …Well, I can do that! So, if you hear somebody munching celery, that’s me!

Paul McCartney

Video: The Beach Boys - Vegetables

Recording for Vegetables, or Vega-Tables,  spanned from October 17, 1966 through June 15, 1967. Multiple versions were made and all versions of the song feature the novel use of raw vegetable chewing as percussion. Paul McCartney joined the Beach Boys in the studio during an April session for "Vegetables.

The night before a big tour, I was out in the studio recording the vocal when, to my surprise, Paul McCartney walked in and joined Brian at the console. And, briefly, the two most influential musical Geminis in the world had a chance to work together. 

Al Jardine

In 1993, the initial version recorded as "Vega-Tables" for the Smile sessions was finally given an official release, along with a slew of other Smile material, on the Good Vibrations boxset. In 2011, many composite versions were made available on The Smile Sessions. 

André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

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