Mellow Yellow
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| “Mellow Yellow” | |||||
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| Single by Donovan from the album Mellow Yellow |
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| B-side | "Sunny South Kensington" (USA) "Preachin' Love" (UK) |
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| Released | 24 October 1966 (USA) February 1967 (UK) |
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| Format | 7" single | ||||
| Recorded | September 1966 | ||||
| Genre | Pop music | ||||
| Label | Epic 5-10098 Pye 7N 17267 |
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| Writer(s) | Donovan | ||||
| Producer | Mickie Most | ||||
| Donovan UK chronology | |||||
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| Donovan USA chronology | |||||
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"Mellow Yellow" is a song and single release by Donovan. It reached #2 on the Billboard charts in the US in 1966.
The song was rumored to be about smoking dried banana skins, which was believed to be a hallucinogenic drug in the 1960s, but this rumor has since been debunked. According to Donovan's notes accompanying the album "Donovan's Greatest Hits," the rumor that one could get high from smoking dried banana skins was started by Country Joe McDonald in 1966, and Donovan heard the rumor three weeks before "Mellow Yellow" was released as a single. The admitted meaning of the song is a reference to liver failure, as per the yellowing of the skin as a body fails to remove toxins.(According 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 record had a "Beatlesque" feel to it, and was sometimes mistaken for a Beatles song. Donovan in fact was friends with the Beatles, performing on their song "Yellow Submarine" earlier in 1966, while Paul McCartney played bass guitar (uncredited) on portions of Donovan's Mellow Yellow album.[1]
Cadbury used a modified version of the song to promote their Caramello Koala chocolates. (They call me Caramello... Koala)
In 1999, "Mellow Yellow" was sung by a group of young adults—among which were then-unknowns Alex Greenwald and Jason Thompson—in Gap's "Everybody in Cords" commercial directed by Pedro Romhanyi. The music mix was done by the Dust Brothers.[2]
Chart positions were #2 (USA) and #8 (UK).
[edit] Personnel
- Donovan: vocals and acoustic guitar
- John Paul Jones: bass and arrangement
- Bobby Orr: drums
- Danny Moss and Ronnie Ross: horns
[edit] References
- ^ The Paul McCartney World Tour, 1989 tour book
- ^ Mind the Gap in: Entertainment Weekly #502 (Sep 10, 1999)
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