The Radiant Radish and Other Flotsam

OK, let it be known: I am trying to write an article and as a result I am probably going to be filling this blog with the random flotsam that pollutes my brain, suddenly clamouring for my attention when I try to fix it on one important task.

But really... could there be anything as joyously weird in the world as the Beach Boys' song "She's Goin' Bald"? It's like some fragment of a dream: you have the perfect Beach Boys harmonies, combined with lyrics that could have been written by Frank Zappa. "Silken hair, more silken hair /Fell on her face and no wind was blowin' (She's goin' bald)/ Silken hair, more silken hair/ Lay near her pillbox down at her feet (She'd been on a trip)"

And then this, a spoken-word break:
"She drew her comb across her scalp
And brushed what she had left
I tried to salvage what I could
And threw it in a sack
She made a bee-line to her room
And grabbed all kinds o' juice
She started pourin' it on her head
And thought it'd grow it back

Ah ha haaaaaa

You're too late mama
Ain't nothin' upside your head
No more no more no more no more"

Deliciously wrong.

Another song on the album, "Vegetables," a paean to, uh, vegetables, features Paul McCartney. McCartney's contribution is to keep time by chewing rythmically on a carrot. Around this time (1967) Brian Wilson was running a health food store in Hollywood called "The Radiant Radish."