DONOVAN - MELLOW YELLOW @ 55

 

Marking 55 years on the racks this month is the fourth studio album from iconic UK psychedelic singer/songwriter, Donovan, with Mellow Yellow being released in February of 1967. The album came about during a period when Donovan was trapped in a legal limbo where he was unable to release albums in his native UK. The result of this is that his usually optimistic mid-sixties utopian sound is tempered by a world weary sense of frustration as he pondered the prospect of being driven into retirement in his early 20s as lawyers destroyed his career prospects. So, on the one hand, you have upbeat songs like Sunny South Kensington playing against more pessimistic numbers like Writer in the Sun where he muses about being put out to pasture by his legal woes.

Of course the centerpiece of the album is the title track, which was a massive hit single and an idyllic representation of the times. It’s also a song that continues to drive a lot of misconceptions as far as its subject matter. The primary assumption about it was that it referred to a belief that smoking dried banana peels could cause mild hallucinogenic effects, a presumption that persisted for years before being debunked. Yet the simple answer lay in plain view all along as the lyric “electrical banana” hinted at the sunshine yellow ladies vibrator which Donovan had spied advertised in a magazine and which was the actual inspiration for the song.

Among the more notable guest musicians who appear on the album, you can find future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page on guitar and John Paul Jones on bass for the title track and Paul McCartney chipping in a few bass parts as well.