October 15, 2008
Dinosaur Blues
While searching on YouTube for Smithsonian-related clips, I found this video of the Captain Beefheart Song “Smithsonian Institute Blues” set to swaying computer-animated dinosaurs and velociraptors smoking cigarettes. It’s a little bizarre, and the music is an acquired taste, but I like it.
Sure, Beefheart might not have been a stickler for accuracy (it’s the “Smithsonian Institution,” and the La Brea Tar Pits he keeps mentioning contain plenty of mammoth bones but no dinosaurs), but I’ve got to give props to the Captain for his love of paleontology and the Smithsonian.
In another YouTube clip Beefheart says he was inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California (which actually aren’t part of the Smithsonian). When the Captain visited there, he says he ran out of the car and tried to dive into the sticky tar, excited to “see an actual dinosaur, or maybe a dire wolf or a saber tooth tiger if I could get it on the way down.”
Captain Beefheart was known in the 1960s and 70s for his outrageous, avant-garde rock music (and that’s saying a lot for music from that era). He released this song on the 1970 album “Lick My Decals Off, Baby,” along with other gems like “Japan in a Dishpan” and “I Wanna Find a Woman That’ll Hold My Big Toe Until I Have to Go.”
It all seems a little kooky, but I think there might be a message among the xylophone and ear-splitting guitar of “Smithsonian Institute Blues.” When Beefheart sings “the new dinosaur is walking in the old one’s shoes” toward being mired in death trap tar pits, he’s warning that humans could face extinction unless they change their ways. Or on second thought, maybe I’ve just been listening to too much Captain Beefheart.
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You can *never* listen to too much of the captain.
In 1971 Rolling Stone magazine published an article, ‘In Search of America: Captain Beefheart and The Smithsonian Institute Blues’ by Langdon Winner.
The last nine paragraphs deal with Captain Beefheart’s visit to The Smithsonian. They very much confirm your idea about the message of the song.
The whole article is reproduced here: http://www.freewebs.com/teejo/argue/search.html
And speaking of tar pits…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znHA1rYxmN4
and the song Petrified Forest from the same album:
Human Bark
Beautyless hide from beauty
Bow your eyes ‘n heads to the duty of the dead’s
Suck the ground
Breathe life into the dead dinosaurs
Let the past demons rear up ‘n belch fire in the air of now
The rug’s wearing out that we walk on
Sonn it will fray ‘n we’ll drop
Dead into yesterday
Must the breathing pay for those who breathe in ‘n don’t
Breathe out
There’d be no gain, brothers, if no one would play
‘n for your games count me n’ all that can see,
Breathe in ‘n out hungry today ‘n eat hearty tomorrow
Or eat away ‘n be eaten some day
No seed shall sow in salt water
If the dinosaur cries with blood in his eyes
In the dinosaur cries with blood in his eyes
‘n eats our babies for our lies
Belches fire in our skies
Maybe I’ll die but he’ll be rumbling through
Your petrified forest
I’ve been listening to Beefheart for…well, the important parts of my life anyway, long time
I think you’ve got it about what Beefheart meant with the song, and I also like that you may not be as sympathetic to those who don’t ‘get it’ as most are, so remember: you can NEVER listen to too much Beefheart! And if you do just turn it off 
Enjoyed the article, my last time at the Smithsonian was 2 years ago before I got to Alaska, next time I’m in DC I look forward to seeing the shuttlecock and trout mask replica from–of course–Trout Mask Replica, maybe sitting in Archie Bunker’s chair? 
Japan in a Dishpan is fantastic. I don’t know if you have the album or youtube or whatever, but make sure to listen to Bellerin’ Plain from the same album…it won’t take long listening before you’re hopping trains with the Magic Band, or at least your neighbors think you are
- Jay Straw