The Mothers of Invention - Call Any Vegetable

Frank Zappa (December 21, 1940 December 4, 1993) was an American composer, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

In his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship.
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Call any vegetable
Call it by name
You gotta call one today
When you get off the train
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
Yeah-eh-hey, the vegetable will respond to you
La-la-ah la-la, the vegetable will respond to you
La-la-ah la-la . . . oh

Call any vegetable
Pick up your phone
Think of a vegetable
Lonely at home
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
Yeah-eh-hey, the vegetable will respond to you
La-la-ah la-la, the vegetable will respond to you
La-la-ah la-la . . .

Ruta-bay-ay-ayga, Ruta-bay-ay-ayga,
Ruta-bay-ay-ayga, Ruta-bay-ay-ayga,
Ruta-bayyyyy . . .

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
Smiling and covered with dew
Vegetables dream,
Vegetables dream,
Vegetables dream,
Of responding to you

Standing there shiny and proud by your side
Holding your joint while the neighbors decide
Why is a vegetable something to hide?
To hide!
To hide!
To hide!

Shoo-shoo Shoo-shoo
Shoo-shoo Shoo-shoo . . .

FZ: You know, a lot of people don't bother about their friends in the vegetable kingdom. They, they think, "What can I say?" Some times they think, "Where can I go?"
Howard: Where can I go to get my poodle clipped in Burbank?
Mark: At Ralph's vegetarian poodle clippin', where you can come this . . .
Howard: Where can I go to get organic vaseline for my intercourse?
Mark: At Bob and Ray's Swahili restaurant, where you can come this close . . .
Howard: Where can I go to get my jeans embroidered in Fullerton?
Mark: At Jeans, at Jeans North where nothing fits
Howard: Where can I go to get my zipper repaired in Hollywood?
Mark: Who gives a fuck anyway!
Howard: Where can I go to get my speakers fixed?
Mark: Hey . . . at Jack La . . .
Howard: Where can I go to get my exit lights?
Mark: At Jack La Lanne Hamburgers on 312 Whittier Boulevard
Howard: Where can I go to get my stomach pumped? Where can I go to collapse?
Mark: Adee do
FZ: Questions, Questions, Questions, flooding into the mind of the concerned young person today. Ah, but it's a great time to be alive, ladies and gentlemen. And that's the theme of our program for tonight. It's so FUCKING GREAT to be alive! Is what the theme of our show is tonight, boys and girls. And I wanna tell ya, if there is anybody here who doesn't believe that it is FUCKING GREAT to be alive, I wish they would go now, because this show will bring them down so much . . .

God bless America
Land that I . . .

Call any vegetable
Call it by name
You gotta call one today
When you get off the train

Call any vegetable
And the chances are good
OH! That the vegetable will RESPOND to you

Mark: And if you're a consenting adult we want you to call today. In Los Angeles, the number is RIchmond 9-6135, in Downey, it's 347-8932.

Call it direct,
Call it collect,
But call it today!

Category:

Music

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• Vegetable
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[unknownkingdom]

I have had this album for two years, but I only noticed today that the car is on top of a hamburger.

[masteroffate2692]

i know this joke is soooo played out... but its pertains to this more than anything... WHY IS THERE A DISLIKE BUTTON ON A FRANK ZAPPA VID?!?

[quesondriac]

@unknownkingdom Wow. You are right!  Me too. Except I have had the album for more than two years.

[yunaguardian001]

Ahhhh, Frank Zappa. I even saw the Mothers of Invention in concert a long time ago. You can imagine what a bizarre experience that was!

[MrGuitarjones]

The burger is a Conceptual Continuity Clue I believe, in this case, when coupled with the car especially, is a visual reference to "Cruising for Burgers". The car itself looks to me like a '39 Chevy, as referenced in the last track on the album, Dog Breath - "...primer mi carucha, Chevy '39". Arf

[whitedwarf13]

@unknownkingdom Wierd... i've just noticed that too.

[peejay1954]

smoking your joint while your neighbors decide?

Why is a vegetable something to hide?

[tencooktcats]

not about vegetables-holding your joint? ...no one will know?...covered with dew?...consenting adult?...flo and eddie?

[blahblah2556]

Not too good then you mother fuckin genius .

[masteroffate2692]

@ManlyCrayon haha for sure man for sure. its really annoying. you cant enjoy an artist and people constructive comments without having to wade through a sea of stupidity lol

[ManlyCrayon]

@masteroffate2692 It's called trolling, and its all the rage right now XD

[masteroffate2692]

@ManlyCrayon yeah i dont understand why people go to vids just to make fun of it, i think thats just really stupid