Call Any Vegetable (1966 - Los Angeles)

For other versions of this song, see: Call Any Vegetable.

Lyrics

FZ: This is a song about vegetables ... they keep you regular; they're real good for ya.

Call any vegetable (Call any vegetable)
Call it by name (Call any vegetable)
Call one today (Call any vegetable)
When you get off the train (Call any vegetable)

Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
O-oh, the vegetable will respond to you

FZ: Some people don't go for prunes ... I dunno ... I've always found that if they ...

Call any vegetable (Call any vegetable)
Pick up your phone (Call any vegetable)
Think of a vegetable (Call any vegetable)
Lonely at home (Call any vegetable)

Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
That a vegetable will respond to you-hoooo

Ruta-bay-ay-ayga
Ruta-bay-ay-ayga
Ruta-bay-ay-ayga
Ruta-bay-ay-ayga
Ruta-bay-y-y ...

FZ: A prune isn't really a vegetable. Cabbage is a vegetable.

No one will know if you don't want to let 'em know
No one will know 'less it's you that might tell 'em so
Call and they'll come to you covered with dew
Vegetables dream of responding to you
Standing there shiny & proud by your side
Holding your hand while the neighbors decide
Why is a vegetable something to hide?

Yar-r-r-r-r-r-gh!

Players On This Song

• Frank Zappa - guitar, vocals
• Ray Collins - vocals, tambourine
• Jim Fielder - guitar, piano
• Don Preston - keyboards
• Bunk Gardner - woodwinds
• Roy Estrada - bass, vocals
• Jimmy Carl Black - drums, vocals
• Billy Mundi - drums, percussion

Records On Which This Song Has Appeared

Singles

-

Zappa Albums & Side Projects

• Absolutely Free
• Mothermania, including Soft-Sell Conclusion

Tribute & Cover Albums

• Nasal Retentive Orchestra: Have A Bun

Notes About This Song

• Recorded at TTG, Los Angeles in November 1966.

• This version of the song is a suite with three parts: "Call Any Vegetable", "Invocation & Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin" and "Soft-Sell Conclusion". On Mothermania, the whole suite is combined to one single track under the title "Call Any Vegetable".

• From FZ's song-by-song comments to the album:

"The best clue to this song might lie in the fact that people who are inactive in a society... people who do not live up to their responsibilities... are vegetables.
I feel that these people... even if they are inactive, apathetic or unconcerned at this point... can be motivated toward a more useful sort of existence. I believe that if you call any vegatable it will respond to you."

• From The Real Frank Zappa Book:

"There's a twisted reference to Charles Ives at the end of Call Any Vegetable. One of the things that Ives is noted for is his use of multiple colliding themes- the musical illusion of having several marching bands marching through each other. In our low-rent version, the band splits into three parts, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," "God Bless America" and "America The Beautiful" all at the same time, yielding an amateur version of an Ives collision. Unless listeners pay attention in that one spot- there are only a few bars of it, they might think it was a 'mistake.'"

CC Clues In This Song

• Vegetables