January 22, 2011

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Donovan - occasionally blasted as pretentious - occasionally praised as visionary - always part of the record collection.


Familiar territory tonight - anyone who was around during the heyday of flower-power/psychedelia will cite at least one Donovan track as background for some chemical exploring. Anyone who wasn't around and who has gotten any one of the hundreds of sixties reissue packages will find at least one Donovan track as essential required listening. Usually it's Mellow Yellow or Sunshine Superman or Hurdy Gurdy Man or Wear Your Love Like Heaven - all songs closely associated with a specific place and time, usually with heavy doses of herbs, pharmaceuticals and liquids.

Tonight it's one of the lesser contributions, The Trip - a song that was actually released as a single but was just as quickly banned from radio airplay because of certain drug references (Methadrine or "Meth-o-dren" as Donovan put it) and a sure-fire bad influence on impressionable youth learning the finer points of roach holding.

Today it seems tame and a little too "on-the-money", but at the time it was risque and oh-so-groovy. And of course, because it was banned, everybody knew about it and made it all that much more popular.

Maybe it just goes with Friday night, no matter when.

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