Embarassing lyrics of the psychedelic era

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I think maybe Love are the prime examples of this, unless someone can correct me. Much as I love Forever Changes, I've gotta say that the lyrics are so nonsensical I can't really take them seriously. What's with "I feel so funny when my name is.... Phil!", "If you see Andmoreagain then you could be Andmoreagain"; and my favourite "I believe in ma-agic/Why? Because it is so quick". Do these lyrics mean anything at all? Am I missing some big cultural hippie references here?

I've also been listening to Nick Garrie lately and again the music is lovely, the lyrics are really really stupid. Not stupid in an Oasis "day/say/play" kind of way but more that they are nonsense hiding behind hippie idealism. "I met a crab in my back yard/I tried to smile but it was hard". A crab? In his back yard? Where the fuck does he live?

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 10:42 (eighteen years ago)

The answer to all your questions is...

http://www.phytomedical.com/Plant/Images/LSD_02.jpg

― Masonic Boom, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 10:45 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, LSD, psychedelic whatevs. But the Beatles did LSD and even I Am The Walrus made more sense in its nonsense. The Love songs are totally unhinged. I like it and I hate it at the same time. That line about snot caking onto his pants... The song about an old man giving him an ivory ball... I don't know if these are visions or if they're just lazy rhyming dictionary constructions.

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 10:52 (eighteen years ago)

In the mist of sassafras
Many things will come to pass
And the smoke shall rise again
To the place above where it began

Time will bring the fire and flame
As surely as it brought the rain
But in the gardens of the moon
Time is held within the silver spoon

If you're happy where you are
Then you need not look too far
If you've found your place at last
Then you need not use the looking glass

― m coleman, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:02 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah yeah oh yeah
What condition my condition was in

I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag, but then
I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in
To see what condition my condition was in

Yeah yeah oh yeah
What condition my condition was in

I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole
And then I followed it in
I watched myself crawlin' out as I was crawlin' in
I got up so tight, I couldn't unwind
I saw so much, I broke my mind
I just dropped in
To see what condition my condition was in

Yeah yeah oh yeah
What condition my condition was in

Someone painted April Fool
In big black letters on a dead-end sign
I had my foot on the gas as I left the road
And blew out my mind
Eight miles out of Memphis and I got no spare
Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere
I just dropped in
To see what condition my condition was in
I said I just dropped in
To see what condition my condition was in

Yeah yeah oh yeah

― m coleman, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:04 (eighteen years ago)

Just for the sake of it, here are the lyrics of one of the songs I mentioned upthread:

Love - The Red Telephone

Verse 1:
Sitting on a hillside
Watching all the people die
Ill feel much better on the other side
Ill thumb a ride

Verse 2/3:
I believe in magic
Why, because it is so quick
I dont need power when Im hypnotized
Look in my eyes
What are you seeing (I see...)
How do you feel?
(...you)
I feel real phony when my name is phil
Or was that bill?

Bridge:
Life goes on here
Day after day
I dont know if I am living or if im
Supposed to be
Sometimes my life is so eerie
And if you think Im happy
Paint me (white)(yellow)

Ive been here once
Ive been here twice
I dont know if the thirds the fourth or if the -
The fifths to fix
Sometimes I deal with numbers
And if you wanna count me
Count me out

Verse 4:
I dont need the time of day
Anytime with mes ok
I just dont want you using up my time
cause thats not right

Coda:
[repeat 3x:]
Ahh....
[repeat 3x:]
Theyre locking them up today
Theyre throwing away the key
I wonder who itll be tomorrow, you or me?
Were all normal and we want our freedom
Freedom... freedom... freedom... freedom
Freedom... freedom... freedom... freedom
[continue with am - a progression as above, to fade]
(spoken:) alla gods chilluns gotta have dere freedom

I guess it doesn't come across so strangely on paper, but the pronunciation of the coda is just ridiculous. Can anyone find any Nick Garrie lyrics?

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 11:57 (eighteen years ago)

The spoken last line, just the live version wasn't it?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

I can definitely hear it on my studio copy.

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:02 (eighteen years ago)

those lyrics are great.

― QuantumNoise, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:09 (eighteen years ago)

I don't see those lyrics as at all embarrassing. They're weird and funny and creepy and a hell of a lot better than most of their contemporaries.

― clotpoll, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:43 (eighteen years ago)

even some of the bad psych lyrics i like. i mean, it beats hearing song #100000000000000000000000 about boy and girls and love and women and how i don't get em.

― QuantumNoise, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

this thread sucks. i mean, the original question. because psychedelic lyrics rule always.

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

Oh I agree entirely. I love these lyrics as much as I find them silly. But sometimes they do leave you thinking "WTF, are they even listening to what they're singing?"

― the next grozart, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:23 (eighteen years ago)

the best/most embarrassing sike lyrics are by the Amboy Dukes, Ted Nugent's band in the 60s. So silly and wierd that the titles are enough "Why Is A Carrott More Orange Than An Orange?" etc etc

― m coleman, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:25 (eighteen years ago)

White Bird
In a golden cage
On a winter's day
In the rain
White bird
In a golden cage
Alone

The leaves blow
Cross the long black road
To the darkened skies
In its rage
But the white bird
Just sits in her cage
Unknown.

White bird must fly
Or she will die

White bird
Dreams of the aspen tree
With their dying leaves
Turning gold
But the white bird
Just sits in her cage
Growing old.

White bird must fly
Or she will die
White bird must fly
Or she will die

The sunsets come
The sunsets go
The clouds Float by
And The Earth Turns slow
And the Young Birds Eyes
Do always Glow
And She must fly
She must fly
She must fly

― bendy, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

amboy dukes... pretty much OTM.

"never never never never
will you find a finer fellow
that brings the sunshine
like my happy friend yellow..."

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

but OMG the guitar riff on that ^^ song just MURDERS

― m coleman, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

My favorite:

Thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I open my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea
Gazing with tranquillity.
'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Came singing songs of love,
Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Came singing songs of love.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity.
'Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Comes singing songs of love,
Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Comes singing songs of love.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Here comes the roly poly man and he's singing songs of love,
Roly poly, roly poly, roly poly, poly he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang,
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang

I was always convinced they were tongue-in-cheek lyrics, but after hearing Donovan in interview I'm not so sure.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:48 (eighteen years ago)

Once upon a time, this Scottish bartender was standing in front of me going on and on about something he'd read about Atlantis, and I said "you sound like Donovan," and he gave me a really dirty look.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

That's not a lyric, just a suggestion that Donovan has a lot of dippy lyrics. Lovely shirt, dippy lyrics. But just as often good dippy, like in the way that "Jenny Artichoke" is good dippy.

Other Kaleidoscope lyrics lean really hard on the "list of 'exotic' items" school of psych songwriting:

The Tangerine Wizard turns purple for Julie
Mexican clowns are all dancing for Julie
Green bells on their ankles that peal out aloud
Strawberry monkeys are smiling for Julie
With pearl button eyes that reflect velvet clouds
Can you hear them smiling?

Strawberry monkeys! Or hey how about MAGICAL MYSTERY ASIANS:

Almond eyes and the chopsticks ticking like grasshoppers
Jasmine child, in your paper house I am trembling
Strange disguise, your white face is shining like an eastern moon
Geisha smile, in lemon trees the wind is whistling

― nabisco, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

I know a mouse and he doesnt have a house... I dont know why I call him Gerald.

print the lyrics to Donovan's "A gift from a flower to the garden" then tack them up on all of your walls in your bedroom. Then blindfold yourself, spin around three times and throw a dart.
Read the lyrics that the dart lands on and then post it on this thread and you will have the most brilliant lyrics to grace this board...

― yoko0no, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

Sitting on a hillside
Watching all the people die

this is such a fucking awesome lyric. totally not embarrassing.

― s1ocki, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

Magic IS so quick, ya dimwit.

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

this is a good one:

"If you`re looking for a sunshine boy
Come with me I can give you some
We`ll climb a rainbow ladder to the sky
Just you and I, we will fly
To the yellow ball of butter
Where the clouds are as fluffy as a parachute sail
In the Jelly Jungle
of Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade
There are tangerine dreams waiting for you
in Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade

Take a trip on my pogo stick
Bounce up and down, do a trick
I`ll play a beat on your pumpkin drum
And we`ll have fun in the sun
We will always be together
Lick my hand forever and come out of the shade
To the Jelly Jungle
of Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade
There are tangerine dreams waiting for you
in Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade

Carrot trumpets play
Violins grow like peaches in the sun all day
In the Jelly Jungle
of Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade
There are tangerine dreams waiting for you
Thank you for using Top40db.com.
in Orange Marmalade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade-lade

― everything, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

Yes I'm thi-i-*i*-i-i-i-i-inking of this, yes I am
Puddle town, Tom was the underground
Hold you ti-*i*-i-i-i-i-i-ghter so close, yes you are
Please hold on to the steel rail

Colonel with gloves strauss leeches
He isn't loved on "Sunday's Mail"
All the fives crock Henrietta
She's a mean go-getter
Got to write her a letter

Did I wink
Did I wi-i-i-i-*i*-inking of this
I am, yum, yummy, yando, yummy, yam, yum, yum
Yes, I'm thi-i-*i*-i-i-i-inking of this, in steam
Skeleton kiss to the steel rail

Fleas in Pamela gloves strauss leeches
Chugging along with a funnel of steam
All the fives crock Henrietta
She's a mean go-getter
Got to write her a letter

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 20:57 (eighteen years ago)

"White Bird" OTM. Good song though.

― fife, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 22:02 (eighteen years ago)

Needless to say, I love the lyrics to "If It's in You."

Also, some of those Jelly Jungle lyrics are incorrect, yo. They're "if you're looking for sunshine fun" and "yellow ball of fire," I think.

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 23:42 (eighteen years ago)

Haha I love how people are calling "I feel so funny when my name is...Phil" good. I agree with the original poster.

― Reatards Unite, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)

Well, it's "I feel real phony." People can have trouble with being comfortable with their names and if that's what the line is about, I think it's rad that Arthur was talking about that subject.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 29 March 2007 00:10 (eighteen years ago)

The greater is the beauty
The profounder is the stain
Humanity
Significant of the forbidden is transgressed in eroticism.

-"pack yr romantic mind," stereolab

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 29 March 2007 00:20 (eighteen years ago)

what does stereolab have to do with this thread? or anything good?

nitsuh OTM with kaleidoscope, especially "a dream for julie." i'm surprised i don't have nightmares about red monkeys with creepy, soulless pearl button eyes.

― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Thursday, 29 March 2007 06:55 (eighteen years ago)

I'm now singing that stereolab lyrrric!
Why? Because it is so quick.

― Mark G, Thursday, 29 March 2007 08:31 (eighteen years ago)

Much as I love Forever Changes, I've gotta say that the lyrics are so nonsensical I can't really take them seriously. What's with "I feel so funny when my name is.... Phil!", "If you see Andmoreagain then you could be Andmoreagain"; and my favourite "I believe in ma-agic/Why? Because it is so quick".

You're nuts, Arthur Lee is one of the greatest rock lyricists of all time!! And all of the lyrics quoted above are brilliant. "The Red Telephone" - drugs, paranoia, murder, LA - it's Manson, two years before it happened. As for the line:

"I feel real phoney when my name is Phil... or was that Bill?"

... well, it's partly a play on "phone bill", but I always read as Arthur's discomfort about being a (light-skinned) black man in a predominantly white world, see also:

"And if you think I'm happy
Paint me (white) (yellow)"

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 09:17 (eighteen years ago)

And, of course, there's such a thing as inspired nonsense anyway!

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 09:19 (eighteen years ago)

The lyrics to "Red Telephone" are simply incredible.
I don't find them silly, just terribly scary in a quiet and childish way.

― Marco Damiani, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:21 (eighteen years ago)

That's shed a bit more light on it. I understnad "Sitting on a hillside/Watching all the people die" because Lee was a bit of a recluse who actually lived on a peak in LA. I still think "I feel real phony when my name is Phil" is silly though because his name isn't Phil at all, it's Arthur Lee - so why would anyone call him Phil?

― the next grozart, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:24 (eighteen years ago)

Can anyone explain Andmoreagain?

― the next grozart, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:24 (eighteen years ago)

If you can more inside things than most people do, or more than is immediately apparent, then you can be more than is immedately apparent.

― Mark G, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:27 (eighteen years ago)

is silly though because his name isn't Phil at all, it's Arthur Lee - so why would anyone call him Phil?

Alienation/ Disconnection. Could be drugs. Could be racial (see above). Could be both.

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:28 (eighteen years ago)

He doesn't say anyone is calling him Phil, maybe he just feels like he's called Phil

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:29 (eighteen years ago)

If you can more inside things than most people do, or more than is immediately apparent, then you can be more than is immedately apparent.

Sorry Grout, that sounds like another one of his lyrics.

Tom. D, you may be onto something I suppose.

What about the one about tunring on your tub and filling it with mud and having the water turn to grey?

― the next grozart, Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:42 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, that's another classic of paranoia! Actually the water has turned to blood and only when it's mixed with mud does it turn to grey - it's another quite scary lyric. After all, this is after the Watts Riots, I think a lot of Arthur's songs from then are about being black, but in a very coded way, also there's a lot of wordplay and, yes, some (inspired) nonsense

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:52 (eighteen years ago)

There's that other song when he talks about his people who are "painted brown" being painted grey

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 10:54 (eighteen years ago)

If you guys are interested, I wrote a little on some of Arthur's lyrics up through Forever Changes on pp. 77-78 of a Master's thesis I did, which you can see here.

― Tim Ellison, Thursday, 29 March 2007 15:47 (eighteen years ago)

Hmmm, yeah, interesting, I always think of Arthur as being rather a hip and cynical dude rather than a kind of Syd Barrett character, detached and a bit mocking

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

... as well as undeniably frazzled!

― Tom D., Thursday, 29 March 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

johnny echols says here that when love played in san francisco in 1966 arthur overheard a frazzled vietnam vet describing the conditions he had faced: how after a massacre, when mud and blood mix, the resulting colour is grey. this later went into the lines discussed above.

"sitting on a hillside / watching all the people die" - i remember reading that they lived up in the hollywood hills, and just watched ambulances come and go down below.

anyway i think arthur's lyrics were magnificent during this period.

― j smithson, Thursday, 29 March 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)

And the price is right
The cost of one admission is your mind

― fife, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

Paul Kantner to thread.

― fife, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

Was surprised to open this thread and find Arthur Lee being named as the culprit for embarrassing psychedelic lyrics--he's easily one of the best lyricists of the era--and really, "Forever Changes" isn't super-psychedelic lyrically, at least not in the way I think of it. "Served my time, served it well/Made my soul a cell"? There's plenty of lame psych lyrics, but Arthur is responsible for very few of them. "Orange Skies" maybe, but I always thought that was kind of his satirical take on soft-rock psych.

― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:24 (eighteen years ago)

and I always thought of "Andmoreagain" being a perceptive portrait of addiction--just the title itself sums up a junkie/addict's insatiability beautifully. i think it's Arthur observing people he knows in the throes of addiction and seeing himself going down that same road. "If you see Andmoreagain then you might be Andmoreagain." It takes one to know one?

― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:29 (eighteen years ago)

Bryan Maclean wrote "Orange Skies", i always thought his sappiness was a good foil to Arthur's paranoid intensity.

― j smithson, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:22 (eighteen years ago)

Another go at this one:

If you can see beneath the surface of things, then you can add more depth to yourself.

There.

― Mark G, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:25 (eighteen years ago)

Bryan Maclean wrote "Orange Skies", i always thought his sappiness was a good foil to Arthur's paranoid intensity.

OTM, but even Bryan's sappiness has a slightly deranged edge to it, I mean, "Old Man", what's that all about then? Supposedly it's about Arthur Lee, but I can't see it myself!

― Tom D., Friday, 30 March 2007 12:28 (eighteen years ago)

he said it was about jesus later in life.. but yeah it's unhinged too "i think that people are the greatest fun!" hahaha

― j smithson, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:42 (eighteen years ago)

We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are we are
And we are very proud of ourselves
Up against the wall motherfucker
Tear down the wall

― fife, Friday, 30 March 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

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