Brit Wits: A History of British Rock Humor. A further move into psychedelic pop spawned another million-seller in 'Mellow Yellow' - best-known song Donovan wrote medieval fantasies and pop collages like 'Sunshine Superman' and 'Mellow Yellow.' Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music. Donovan (.) did change styles to make a couple of enormously successful pop singles, 'Mellow Yellow' and 'Sunshine Superman', before disappearing from the front ranks. The Electric Muse: the story of Folk into Rock. In Brazil Michel Teló covered the song, adapted to Portuguese, also for the movie. The original by Donovan was used in the film's ending titles. In 2015 the song was covered by Spanish singer Abraham Mateo for promotion of the film Minions. The music mix was done by the Dust Brothers. In 1999, 'Mellow Yellow' was sung by a group of young adults, among whom were then-unknowns Alex Greenwald, Rashida Jones and Jason Thompson, in Gap's 'Everybody in Cords' commercial directed by Pedro Romhanyi. It was also covered in 1968 by British R&B singer/keyboardist Georgie Fame on his album The Third Face of Fame. 'Mellow Yellow' was covered in 1967 by soul singer Big Maybelle on her album Got a Brand New Bag. Reception Ĭash Box called 'Mellow Yellow' an 'easy-going, sophisticated blues number which should be a giant.' Covers and adaptations In 2005, the track was remastered by EMI Records for the Mellow Yellow album re-issue. Donovan had a small part in coming up with the lyrics for ' Yellow Submarine', and McCartney played bass guitar (uncredited) on portions of Donovan's Mellow Yellow album. Paul McCartney can be heard as one of the background revellers on this track, but the 'quite rightly' whispering lines in the chorus is not McCartney, but rather Donovan himself. And that's what the song's about.' This definition was re-affirmed in an interview with NME magazine: 'it's about being cool, laid-back, and also the electrical bananas that were appearing on the scene – which were ladies' vibrators.' 'Really, you know the 'electric banana' was right in there and gave it away. Donovan stated, 'I was reading a newspaper and on the back there was an ad for a yellow dildo called the mellow yellow,' he said. According to Donovan's notes, accompanying the album Donovan's Greatest Hits, the rumour that one could get high from smoking dried banana skins was started by Country Joe McDonald in 1966, and Donovan heard the rumour three weeks before 'Mellow Yellow' was released as a single.Īccording to The Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, he admitted later the song made reference to a vibrator an 'electrical banana' as mentioned in the lyrics. The song was rumoured to be about smoking dried banana skins, which was believed to be a hallucinogenic drug in the 1960s, though this aspect of bananas has since been debunked. Outside the US, 'Mellow Yellow' peaked at No. ' Mellow Yellow' is a song written and recorded by Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan.

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