Part I of 2
Don’t Drop Acid: Just Listen to These Songs for a Trip to the 60s
Feed your head with rainbows and purple, magical mushrooms
A few years ago, the yearbook advisor at my school approached me. There was a section where students listed funny lines or memorable quotes from teachers. I’ve been in there a few times, but this quote was questionable. I once said, more often than once: “I never did drugs. I get high on poetry and music. I snort lines of Keats.”
We agreed not to include it in the Yearbook. But it was the impetus for this list. It’s true. I am drug-free — except for RX and the beer I brew from yeast, barley, and hops.
But that’s okay — these songs (and the next 10) will take you on a magic carpet ride.
1. “White Rabbit” — Jefferson Airplane (2:30)
102 years.
Not such a crazy leap from the Children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) in 1865 on the banks of the Thames at Christ Church, Oxford— for Alice Liddell — to Grace Slick in 1967.
After all, Carroll, all his life an unmarried bachelor who never became ordained, could be seen as that “hookah-smoking caterpillar” who is caught up in “logic and proportion.” He was a maths scholar.
My students are always shocked at this: the drug references. I’m not sure why. They take almost everything literally. “It’s not my cup of tea.” “You don’t like tea, Bowne?”
It’s just a caterpillar smoking a bong on a huge mushroom who doesn’t seem to make any sense. Something about the development of the brain and not understanding symbolism, satire, and irony.
Just read this from Chapter 5:
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”
“One side of what? The other side of what?” thought Alice to herself.
“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand” (link).
According to an article in The Smithsonian Magazine:
“Since the 1960s his work has been associated with the psychedelic wing of the countercultural movement.”
“Lewis Carroll is treated like a man you wouldn’t want your kids to meet,” says Will Brooker, author of Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture, “yet his stories are still presented as classics of pure, innocent literature.”
Tim Burton recently described Dodgson’s stories as “drugs for children” and Wonderland as a place where “everything is slightly off, even the good people” (Woolf).
The entire essay, by the way, makes one curious and curiouser. And guess what happens to the ugly, three-inch caterpillars consuming ‘shrooms? Colorful, psychedelic butterflies, soaring eight miles high, man!
The song came out in 1967 — just in the nick of time. Talk about the drums that are trance-like (Spencer Dryden) and that building crescendo and that bass line (Jack Casady) and sung seductively by someone who looks like “a good-looking schoolteacher” — at least that’s what Grace Slick said.
When the bassist Jack Cassady said that LSD got a little too weird for him — “my bass would turn into a tree log and grow vines, and said, “I gotta move on here” (Jesudason).
“Released originally by Jefferson Airplane in February 1967 on its “Surrealistic Pillow” album and then as a single that June, “White Rabbit” peaked at №8 on Billboard’s pop chart. The brooding bolero has been interpreted by dozens of rock and jazz artists and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998" (Myers)
In the interview, Slick said that the song was composed on a piano painted red and was based on a slow Spanish march or bolero that builds in intensity, such as Miles Davis’s “Sketches of Spain” and Ravel’s Bolero.
‘I wrote it on a $50 piano with eight or 10 keys missing, but I could hear in my head the notes that weren’t there’ (Jesudason).
Grace Slick said:
“I identified with Alice. I was a product of ’50s America in Palo Alto, Calif., where women were housewives with short hair and everything was highly regulated. I went from the planned, bland ’50s to the world of being in a rock band without looking back. It was my Alice moment, heading down the hole. “White Rabbit” seemed like an appropriate title” ((Myers).
For me, listening to this song numerous times now, and the recorded version from Woodstock, there is never any need for drugs. I once listened to this ten times straight, and it chilled me so out. The sound just took me away. It’s mesmerizing, and it’s so short.
The proportion of the song — its meaning, especially in the 60s with the men telling you what to do — moving around bodies of the Chessboard of War — seems longer than its length.
“One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don’t do anything at all Go ask Alice When she’s ten feet tall.”
“When the men on the chessboard Get up and tell you where to go And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom And your mind is moving low Go ask Alice I think she’ll know.
Rolling Stone called the song “one of the most iconic buzzes in acid rock history, soundtracking the summer of love in 1967” (Heller).
Is this the “touchstone” of psychedelic rock? Well — perhaps. Pink Floyd and The Beatles were perhaps ahead by inches or a few months.
The song hit #8 on Billboard in the US. In Canada, it peaked at #1.
Feed your head, people. With music. Or literature.
Grace Slick said: “The line in the song “feed your head” is both about reading and psychedelics. I was talking about feeding your head by paying attention: read some books, pay attention” (Jesudason).
By the way, this is a great recording from a great actor from a great work:
2. “Magic Carpet Ride” — Steppenwolf
So we’re staying with literary themes here. Not that uncommon in rock and roll. Where do you think Uriah Heep got their name? Yes — Charles Dickens. A creepy law clerk in David Copperfield.
The Doors borrowed their name from Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, and Steppenwolf comes from a title by German writer Herman Hesse — Steppenwolf; a good novel, by the way.
Most students know only his short novel Siddhartha.
And don’t get me started on all the Tolkien allusions in Led Zeppelin. Bonzo Bonham on “Moby Dick”? Or how The Cure had to change the name of one of their early hits after reading Camus’ The Stranger. And “Tom Sawyer” from Rush.
Shall I continue on my literary allusion and rock and roll tirade? (Please stop).
This song annoyed a girl I liked in high school at my toga party. It was the cast party for the musical, and the tunes were not from the 1980s. What did she expect from Walter Bowne? Toni Basil? Banarama? Wham?
“You don’t do drugs,” she said, “but so much of this music is like you’re on a trip.”
“And what is wrong with that?” Then I sang and danced, doing what I called the Wally Wiggle:
“Close your eyes girl Look inside girl Let the sound take you away.
Why don’t you come with me little girl On a magic carpet ride.”
The only music she dug was musicals. And maybe Duran Duran. I should be curious, as my great friend Dan Norbury said recently, and not judgmental, quoting the great Ted Lasso, who was quoting the great Walt Whitman, but her taste in music did not match her taste in totally cool dudes.
Needless to say, she soon left the cast party, and I wanted one of my bouncers, a crew person, to escort her out for failing to show up in Roman attire. You dis my playlist, and you get short-listed. It ended up for the best. Things did not end well, let’s say.
So I was left to take my own carpet ride with Aladdin. I didn’t need a lamp or a candle to know the light of truth.
A square peg will never fit in a round circle. And you know how the 60s dudes feel about squares, man. You dig?
The last time I saw her, after twenty years, was in Target a few years ago. She had messaged me on Facebook that she doesn’t hold any resentment against me — but I still did: for hating on my tunes! I ran from that Target as if she carried Typhoid.
At that same party, or a party later that month, I miscommunicated with the chimney flue, and smoke enveloped the entire downstairs. We all stood outside in the cold, but at least the windows were open to air out the den and to hear the music. It’s all about the music, man.
3. “Lookin’ Out My Backdoor” — Creedence Clearwater Revival
John Fogerty — the only man I have seen who can wear plaid flannel shirts and tight leather pants — either black or neon purple — and still look amazing. And he still looks great. (I will not speak of my man-crush on John Fogerty).
Yes, Creedence was centered at the epicenter of the West Coast Psychedelic Capital of the World — San Francisco — but, thematically and lyrically, they telegraph or teleport themselves to the South — bayous and cotton fields and rivers green and river boats.
So is this song really trippy? Have you ever been in a poor mood? Well, this song is “mother’s little helper” with no RX needed. The video of Creedence playing makes you love life — without drugs, man. And have you ever really read the words. OMG.
Here are a few — and talk about tripping, man. We’re talking almost the level of “I am the Walrus” from the Beatles here.
“Tambourines and elephants are playin’ in the band Won’t you take a ride on the flyin’ spoon? Dood-n-doo-doo Wonderous apparition provided by magician Doo, doo, doo, lookin’ out my back door
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, what are you selling? Can I take a ride on that flyin’ spoon from that special cup, Dr. Robert? And how are these magicians creating wonderous apparitions? Well — it’s John Fogerty — with his wonderful imagery. It’s a Wonderland of Weird. And so much fun.
I’m not sure about gender stuff. I’m just an English instructor and a dude who loves music, but I may be fluid because if I couldn’t be Walter Bowne, I would be John Fogerty. Or Bruce. Or McCartney. All equally gorgeous, like me, but just more talented magicians.
4. “Eight Miles High” — The Birds
For 1966, Roger McGuinn was ahead of the curve. But not too far ahead. In 1966, Paul McCartney still wanted weed in “Got To Get You Into My Life” from Revolver, but that’s not as obvious, right? And the Rolling Stones were talking about “Mother’s Little Helper,” too.
What a drag it is getting old? Tell me about it, Keith Richards!
The Mamas and the Papas mention this song on “Creeque Alley”:
“McGuinn and McGuire just a gettin’ higher In L.A., you know where that’s at”
It’s actually one of my favorites from the M and the Ps. It’s a narrative song about the band and the time period — with Mama Cass still at Swarthmore and some nasty line about “getting fat.”
This is almost like Asking Alice what it’s like to be so Big and then So Little. And then with that Long Neck. Very strange. And everything is about comparison. And doesn’t Alice not know where she’s going? So why the need for street signs? And then the Cheshire Cat says it doesn’t matter where you go, then.
“Eight miles high and when you touch down You’ll find that it’s stranger than known Signs in the street that say where you’re going Are somewhere just being their own.”
And if you’re looking for “good vibrations” and “imaginations,” then “California” will offer all that “dreamin’” a “reality.”
You dig, man?
5. “Purple Haze” — Jimi Hendrix (1967)
Years ago, my daughters were rooting through my album collection. It’s large since so much of my money as a teen went to Sam Goody, Wall to Wall Sound, and Tower Records. Nancy wanted a turntable. Then I got a new one. Then Madeline got one, too.
Are You Experienced was the first “new” pressing I bought in the vinyl resurgence. Nancy and I often make the pilgrimage to one of the greatest record shops, The Record Exchange in Princeton — mostly for used albums and CDs.
I had so much fun turning this LP on my Audio Technica — the subwoofer shaking the hardwood floor — the Polk Speakers providing plenty of surround sound through the amplifier.
I just need to make sure the volume is down for when my wife goes to watch Netflix at night. “Have the speakers moved?”
“Well, the sound moved the speakers.”
She laughed. “You’re still 13, aren’t you?”
“Purple Haze” is one of many great songs on that LP. Also, a power trio — like Cream.
“Purple haze all in my brain Lately, things just don’t seem the same Acting funny, but I don’t know why Excuse me while I kiss the sky.
Purple haze all around Don’t know if I’m coming up or down Am I happy or in misery? Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.”
Again — just like Alice. What is up? What is down? Who put a spell on me? Why am I acting funny? Am I so tall I can kiss the sky? Or am I so high I can kiss the sky?
6. “I am the Walrus” — The Beatles
The obvious one from The Beatles, and there are many, like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Julian, his son, came home from school and showed his dad, John, a picture he drew. He called it “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” But that has meant LSD since the Dawn of Time — or 1967.
I think “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the last track on Revolver, really ushers in the Psychedelic Era in 1966. But I’ve already written about that song. But I’ve researched — and I can’t find another song earlier that is the canary in the proverbial coal mine.
For shits and giggles, I use “I Am the Walrus” in AP Lang and Comp when discussing the four types of discourse: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. This one, of course, is descriptive. Sensory overload.
Then I ask them to write a thesis based on authorial intention. That’s a hoot!
“Yellow matter custard Dripping from a dead dog’s eye Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down.”
“Semolina Pilchard Climbing up the Eiffel tower Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe.”
It’s so much fun reading the essays from students making logic of nonsense. And there’s Edgar Allan Poe — and King Lear spoken there at the end.
Music and literature, man. Love it.
7. “Momma Told Me Not to Come” — Three Dog Night
At dinner last night at the Murphy-Bowne Beer Garden, also known as our Backyard Bistro, during a chili and taco dinner, my daughter Nancy asked me about this band. My 1960s mix was playing through the Bose Bluetooth speakers. She’s 21 — and her college radio program director.
She can usually “name that tune” in one second — and a song could be Bach to the Beatles to Belle and Sebastian. I told her — and then mentioned this list.
She knew the stories about the LSD parties on the West Coast with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters while I was reading Thomas Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Whatever we’re reading in the Bowne family makes it to family discussions around the table.
LSD was not illegal then. And Ken Kesey volunteered as a test subject for the military on a new drug (that perhaps would make the soldiers better in battle). Can one make this stuff up? Kesey was already famous for his bestseller, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, but the LSD made him rather cuckoo. (The film is great, but the novel is really great — especially on Audible with John C. Riley).
Like The Who and their Magic Bus, the Merry Pranksters with their bus called Furthur, cruised around America, causing mischief and mayhem. Back in California, they would throw parties with seemingly harmless refreshments that were also laced heavily with LSD.
Everyone’s “trip” was different. Can you imagine showing up at a block party with The Grateful Dead as the House Band, and you drink some Kool-Aid, and then you fall into the Upside Down.
Imagine not cutting your whiskey with water but with LSD? Crazy party, right? You’ll see things you never thought you’d see. And Wolfe’s book documents many unsolicited “trips” from unsuspecting participants. Truly scary, man.
“Want some whiskey in your water? Sugar in your tea? What’s all these crazy questions they’re askin’ me? This is the craziest party that could ever be Don’t turn on the lights ’cause I don’t wanna see.”
The radio is blastin’, someone’s knockin’ at the door I’m lookin’ at my girlfriend, she’s passed out on the floor I seen so many things I ain’t never seen before Don’t know what it is, I don’t wanna see no more.”
8. “Dear Mr. Fantasy” — Traffic
The song is similar to “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan — and made psychedelic in the famous cover by The Byrds. Both are amazing.
“Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune Something to make us all happy Do anything take us out of this gloom Sing a song, play guitar Make it snappy
Compare to Dylan:
“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.”
Are both types of Merry “Ken Kesey-like” Pranksters? Drug Dealers? Simple musicians? A type of Pied Piper?
Both songs take the listener on a trip on “ a magic swirling ship” where all the senses seemed to have been “stripped.” And Mr. Fantasy and Mr. Tambourine Man can “cast” “dancing spells.”
Of course, Mr. Nobel Prize for Literature, Bobby Dylan, is lyrically better, but both songs capture the Spirit of the Times, or as the Germans call it, the Zeitgeist. And Dylan is the prototype.
And Bob Dylan is the one who introduced the Beatles to that mystical herb — tea. “Make Tea, Not War.”
Just make sure it’s a roiling boil, man.
9. “Sunshine Superman” — Donovan
When I was young and stupid, I would smoke candy cigarettes with my cousin (a candy that actually emitted some sort of flour when puffed, like smoke, if you can imagine such a horrible thing), but we pretended it was reefer. We would pretend we were stoned and smoke like Cheech and Chong.
We would sing “Mellow Yellow” (1967) from Donovan and then take a long hit — inhaling like super stud Donovan. By the way, I have to give mad props for Donovan teaching John Lennon some chords on the guitar that Lennon used on such classics as “Dear Prudence.”
This song is so much better, however. Why? Jimmy Page (of the future Led Zep) was the session guitarist (Goodman).
Donovan was part of the Beatle entourage to India for Transcendental Meditation with “Sexy Sadie “— AKA, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Mia Farrow was also there. Who wasn’t, right?
Who was Sunshine?
Linda Lawrence: his valentine in 1965.
Marc Myers in The Wall Street Journal writes:
“In 1965, a growing number of U.S. and U.K. musicians were beginning to experiment with LSD” (not tea). “Many of these artists believed that the psychotropic drug freed them from inhibitions and allowed them to take greater creative risks. Songs that reflected the hallucinogenic feel of an acid trip soon followed” (link)
But Linda didn’t last long. According to YouTube Channeler, Jude McAllister:
Sue Lyon came into Donovan’s life at the end of 1965. This was two or three years before he met his “Jennifer Juniper” (Jenny Boyd). Lyon had starred in “Lolita” and “Night of the Iguana” before meeting Donovan. The couple dated until 1967 when Sue ended the relationship abruptly. Donovan had evidently slipped LSD in Sue’s and her friend’s drinking cup at a party. Sue described her trip as “frightening and disturbing” and she “felt her self-control disintegrating”. After this incident Lyon never spoke to Donovan again until 1975. (link)
I add the name of my wife, Mary Jane, instead of Sunshine here. I have joked that I’ve tried rolling her up and smoking her — but that’s only funny once or twice — and never funny to my red-headed Irish wife.
You can include whatever or whomever you want, man. You dig?
Sunshine came softly through my a-window today Could’ve tripped out easy a-but I’ve a-changed my ways It’ll take time, I know it but in a while You’re gonna be mine, I know it, we’ll do it in style ’Cause I made my mind up you’re going to be mine.
‘Bout all the rainbows a-you can a-have for your own When you’ve made your mind up forever to be mine I’ll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind When you’ve made your mind up forever to be mine”
10. “See Emily Play” — Pink Floyd
This early Floyd song is from 1967. It’s from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I used to call my daughter’s friend that — her name was Piper. Were her parents Stairway to Heaven fans or Floyd fans?
I came to early Floyd late — purchasing Relics (1971) in the mid-80s on LP at Sam Goody. I was stunned. “Bike” sounded so much like Monty Python!
In fact, Pink Floyd, like The Beatles, were huge backers of the British comedy troupe. Makes sense!
I had consumed, by then, so many hours and hours and hours with Dark Side of the Moon (my first CD), Welcome to the Machine, Animals, and The Wall (the LP a gift from a kid in 5th named Brian Kennedy who gave it to me after show and tell for giving him my homework).
This was 1979. Brian wanted to get in trouble for playing the song “Mother” to the class for the line, “Mother, do you think they’ll try to break my balls.”
The class laughed. The teacher stopped the album, and I walked home the happiest 5th grade ever. It was my gateway rock, and love at first listen.
God bless you, Brian, for being a ballbuster and troublemaker. Plus, I had a HUGE crush on his sister.
Syd Barret was the leader in those early days, but mental health and too much LSD had him leave the group. His song about a cross-dressing “Arnold Layne” is so worth it and many others. “Interstellar Overdrive” is one long trip, man, and so is “A Saucerful of Secrets.”
Back in the day, a catchphrase of mine was “Careful with that Axe, Eugene.” Not as catchy as ‘Old Sport,” I admit.
I’ve read that they started in 1965 in London, and we’re really the first British art-rock/psychedelic group. I usually credit “Tomorrow Never Knows” from John Lennon and The Beatles on Revolver as ushering in the Psychedelic Era, but was it really Syd Barret?
“Emily tries but misunderstands, ah ooh She’s often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams till tomorrow There is no other day Let’s try it another way
You’ll lose your mind and play Free games for May See Emily play.”
Is there any band from this era that continued with a distinctive sound — and made the group a huge commercial success? (link). And Eric Olsen claimed they were the 8th most influential band in rock and roll history (link).
The Rolling Stones and The Who and Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan — yeah — but they were not psychedelic, with the exception of that one Stones album. Floyd was able to commercialize the sound while staying true to art's original roots and weird, dark, and mesmerizing.
Counting the solo concerts of Roger Waters, I have seen Floyd live more than any other band, even getting urinated on at JKF in Philly from a stoned dude behind me. Yeah, don’t do drugs, man.
Syd Barrett died on July 7, 2006. The original name of the band is The Pink Floyd Sound. Barrett named the band on the spur of the moment.
“The name is derived from the given names of two blues musicians whose Piedmont blues records Barrett had in his collection, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council” (Povey).
My family watched over the holidays last year the refurbished film, The Wall — yeah — a family that rocks together, stays together, no matter how disturbing. Is Pink at the end really just a Trump or a Putin, I wonder? (Not to get political).
Do music and literature and art and love, man. That will help you get through the night, as Lennon says.
Here is PART II:
Peace and Love, man! Music kills fascists!
