The Smithsonian Institute Blues (Or The Big Dig)

Typical generation gap song, complete with dinosaur references to add to the outright humor of the piece.

The whole gist of the song is how the old dinosaurs are dying off - and how the new dinosaurs are coming in. It symbolizes the transition from a predominant and then-trite genre of music to something noticeably more edgier (like how pop gave way to rock and roll in the '50s - and how rock and roll gave way to the British Invasion - and how the British invasion gave way to psychedelia - and so on), but at the same time, it's a sarcastic ode to musicians who attempt to keep the '50s style of rock rebellion alive (i.e. Sha Na Na; MC5; Chuck Berry) in an era of radically changing music. Then again, Beefheart shows sympathy for these back-to-roots performers - he knows their hearts are in the right place. He's afraid that they'll be ostracized for "wearing an old dinosaur's shoes."

tl;dr - it's about music fads and how people get ostracized for looking back at the past. Typical Beefheart affair.

Re: Malkmusian sorry song is nothing to do with fashion or music trends in 70's Beefheart sings about "La Brea Tar Pits" a place he visited as a child, it is an actual place and museum in Los Angeles A place with fossil remains and animal bones so its another theme of man's extinction, the new dinosaurs in the old ones shoes in the Smithsonian museum.