Epistle to Donovan

Donovan Leitch (b.1946) pretty much represents the summit of what I’m looking for in a pop music experience.  (What’s another way to say that? Oh, yeah: “First, there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is”). Sorry, though! It’s not Al Jolson, not Eddie Cantor, not Frank Sinatra. It’s not showtunes. People are always sending shit like that my way, and it’s a natural assumption to make, but contrary to appearances I’m not actually 140 years old. I like older stuff very well in its place, roughly in the same way I’m willing to listen to ANYTHING. I play music from the early twentieth century as homework. But most of the music I listen to for pleasure comes from the psychedelic pop era.

So of course, when I say “Donovan”, I’m really talking about his collaboration with producer Mickey Most between 1965 and 1969 that resulted in a mother lode of folk-psychedelic-pop hits. Once Donovan broke with Most and went back to his folkie roots, the results were less compelling to me. But Donovan has such a way with a pop hook, often so simple, but so catchy (catchy like, I don’t know, “the wind”?) And he occupies this amazing niche, where he embodies aspects of both Bob Dylan and The Beatles, interacted with them, lives in the space midway between them. In the beginning, he sounded too much like Dylan (on songs like “Catch the Wind”, “Colors”, “Universal Soldier”) and he even appeared in the Dylan movie Don’t Look Back, coming off more as a disciple than a rival.

But then he plugged into what was happening in Swinging London and America’s west coast and moved to the front of the pack as a trend setter. I love the sound of that foggy, druggy Scottish burr spouting sophomore mythic poetry backed by the most esoteric sounds and instruments you could summon into a studio, drawn from the four corners of the globe, then wrangled into groovy three minute pop singles. I had the single of “Sunshine Superman” (1966) when I was kid. I once heard my mother refer to it as “our song” when she was speaking to my father, a fact that has always confused me. They were the most unpsychedelic people in the world, and by my calculation I was conceived over a year before its release. When the song came out, they were saddled with a nine month old baby (me) — I can’t conceive what romantic moments they could possible have had at such a time. Clearly it was playing on the radio at some significant juncture. I first heard “Season of the Witch” (1966) in the movie More American Graffiti(1979), and played the soundtrack incessantly. That hypnotic two chord thing could go on forever and I wouldn’t care (the Stones have talked about using it as a warm-up jam). “Mellow Yellow” (1966) didn’t chart as high as “Sunshine Superman” in the States, but I think it remains Donovan’s best known, most lingering song. We used to sing it as kids. Its fun energy (the horns and party sounds) remind a lot of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35”.

I love the song “Atlantis” (1968) so much I used it as the climax of one of my one-act plays (produced at the Ohio Theatre in 2002). I associated “Jennifer Juniper” with a girl I was seeing back in in the ’90s and basically pinched the song’s lyrical and musical idea for a number in my 2009 show Willy Nilly. My Donovan tune of the moment is “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” (1967) with all those reverberating vibraphones and mirambas or whatever and the repetitive organ pattern lifting you up over the clouds. You probably know the tune “Epistle to Dippy” without knowing you know it, as the title’s not mentioned in the lyrics. It’s a very Mod sounding tune. (1967). Then there’s the cosmic and wise “There Is a Mountain” (1967), and the (ironically) hard-rocking, reverb heavy “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (whose chords I’ve also pinched). “Lalena” (1968) is his saddest sounding song; “I Love My Shirt” (1969) is his goofiest. The latter was from his Barajagal album, the funky title track of which was introduced to me by my friend Robert, whom I sometimes still call by that name (not Robert–Barajagal). The Jeff Beck Group was Donovan’s backing group on that one.

In 1968 Donovan spent time at the Maharishi’s Indian compound with The Beatles, as well as the Beach Boys’ Mike Love, and various Hollywood people. It was Donovan who taught John Lennon that distinctive fingerpicking pattern he begins to use on The White Album on songs like “Dear Prudence” (and would continue to use for years thereafter). Donovan’s 1970 tune “Riki Tiki Tavi” reflects his time spent on the subcontinent. It’s obviously based on Kipling. I heard it in a movie recently and now I can’t remember which one.

In 1972 Donovan played the title character in Jacques Demy’s movie The Pied Piper, with Jack Wild from H.R. Pufnstuf,Donald Pleasance, John Hurt, Richard Lester regular Roy Kinnear, and Diana Dors (I’m channeling that one at present too for an upcoming project!). But Donovan’s star had begun to sink in the pop star firmament by this time. After India, he stopped using psychedelics and turned to a form he called “Celtic Rock”. He’s been back to his roots for decades and has never stopped making music, he just does it for the subculture he started out playing for — folkies. Since 2008 he has lived in Ireland (both of his grandmothers were Irish).

If Donovan sometimes seem laughable, in his favor, I can say more often than not the effect is intentional. It’s the Laughing Buddha thing. He likes to be silly. People who use him as an excuse to make fun of “the sixties” really ought to choose a better target. I can’t think of one, though. You’re really talking to the wrong person. Cuz to me, a tune like this is really the acme of sound-generated pleasure inducement. I could listen to it on a loop 30 times in a row.