Donovan

Donovan Philips Leitch is a Scottish singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia and world music.

Sourced

• It seemed — in 1968 — the possibilities of peace and brotherhood could be realised that very year. We're still working on it.
  • During a performance for "Beatle Week" in Liverpool (27 August 2006), as prelude to singing "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (YouTube video)

Catch The Wind (1965)

• In the chilly hours and minutes
  Of uncertainty
  I want to be
  In the warm hold of your lovin' mind.

  To feel you all around me
  And to take your hand
  Along the sand,
  Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

• For me to love you now
  Would be the sweetest thing,
  'Twould make me sing,
  Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

• When rain has hung the leaves with tears
  I want you near to kill my fears,
  To help me to leave all my blues behind.

  For standin' in your heart
  Is where I want to be
  And long to be,
  Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Sunshine Superman (1966)

• 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.
  • "Sunshine Superman"

• I'll tell you right now
  Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find...
  • "Sunshine Superman"

• I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind
  'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine.
  • "Sunshine Superman"

Season Of The Witch

• When I look out my window,
  Many sights to see.
  And when I look in my window,
  So many different people to be...

• You've got to pick up every stitch.
  Mmm... must be the season of the witch,
  Must be the season of the witch.

Mellow Yellow (1966)

• I'm just mad about Saffron
  Saffron's mad about me
  I'm just mad about Saffron
  She's just mad about me.

• They call me mellow yellow
  (Quite rightly)
  They call me mellow yellow...

• I'm just mad about Fourteen
  Fourteen's mad about me

• Electrical banana
  Is gonna be a sudden craze
  Electrical banana
  Is bound to be the very next phase...

A Gift from a Flower to a Garden (1967)

• Wear your love like heaven.
  • "Wear Your Love Like Heaven"

• Lord, kiss me once more, fill me with song
  Allah, kiss me once more that
  I may, that I may
  Wear my love like heaven
  Wear my love like
  Wear my love like heaven.
  • "Wear Your Love Like Heaven"

Hurdy Gurdy Man (1967)

• 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...

• 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...
  • In a performance during "Beatle Week" in Liverpool (27 August 2006), Donovan sang lyrics he declared that George Harrison had improvised for "Hurdy Gurdy Man":

When the truth gets buried deep,
Beneath the thoughts of years of sleep,
Time demands a turnaround,
And once again the truth is found.

Atlantis (1968)

• The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
  The antediluvian kings colonised the world
  All the gods who play in the mythological dramas
  In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
  Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
  On board were the Twelve:
  The Poet, the Physician, the Farmer, the Scientist,
  The Magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
  Though gods they were —
  • Spoken prelude (varies slightly among versions)

• Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new: Hail Atlantis!
  • Spoken prelude

• Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.
  • Repeated chorus.

Grip interview (1997)

Donovan interview in Grip Monthly #5 (March 1997)

• The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, which was my obsession and my compulsion when I was 16 years old. So, behind all of this fame and fortune, there was a seeker, on a spiritual path — a young man who wanted to discover and share with others an alternative way of looking at the world. I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it. And there was the Buddhist way, and the Celtic way.

• I found myself at the top of the the ladder, with everything, but with one thing missing: that one thing was a companion. Because, it's cliché to say, but nothing really means anything in the end unless you're really doing what you want to do, and... I walked off a huge world tour, with a yacht and television specials, and record deals, and film deals. I walked away and my whole thing collapsed. I shocked my business world and walked back to my cottage, which I had been renting to two American girls. One of them was Cynthia, and I stayed with her for two days, then her friend Lori came back from Clapton's house, where there had been a party going on for almost a week. Lori came in with another friend, and it was Linda, my Sunshine Supergirl from 1965 whom I'd written all my songs for. We hadn't married then, because she had a child with Brian Jones and wasn't ready for another relationship. And it was good that we didn't marry back then, because my four years of '60's fame would have wrecked the marriage. But we met again, and I went away from fame and into the arms of my muse, my lover, and then my wife, and then the mother of my children.

• I still carry with me the same themes as always — I'm still compelled to present mystic ideas...

• Up to '67, the drugs were, uh, soft. Marijuana, and even LSD, I considered soft drugs then. But, then, after '67, needle drugs and the strong amphetamines came in, and that's when the Beatles and Donovan stood up and said, 'Try meditation instead.' And I still stick by that, of course. You've got to be very, very careful. I'm talking about naive days, before the drug barons and the dealers took over. It was once a small, bohemian event. But it was when millions started wanting to get high that it got bad. And when Haight-Asbury turned into Skid Row, the Beatles and me stood up and said, 'Give it a rest.' The answer is that each individual must face the problem by himself. And meditation is an alternative. Meditation is a lot better for you, and it's great to be straight.

Donovan: "We are all one shining Being" (1998)

"Donovan: We are all one shining Being" in New Renaissance, Vol. 7, No. 4, (1998)

• When I was 14 or 15 I wanted to be a protest singer like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. My father was a socialist and worked with the unions. I thought change was to change the government and to change from one system, capitalism, to socialism and to make the poor of the world happy. But when I opened the book The Way of Zen by Alan Watts and I opened up the Diamond Sutra, and Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching, I realized that the problem of suffering was much deeper than governments and social problems. The problems were very deep. They were nothing short of changing the way we look at reality. Therefore I became a teacher, or a reflection of the teachings. Phil Ochs, the great protest singer, said I had given up protest, and Joan Baez said to Bob Dylan, “He’s given up protest.” But what I had given up was looking for the answer in social change. The change was to be a spiritual change. The suffering was coming from an erroneous view of reality...

• We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this. So this was the teaching, but how do you teach it? As young people, John Lennon, George Harrison, myself, Carlos Santana and other spiritual seekers in pop music, we wanted to know the answer but we found a question: How do you convince the rest of the western world that they are ill, they are mentally ill, that they have a sickness and that they have lost the way? How do you teach that? You cannot teach that in the normal sense. You have to encourage a spiritual call, so we devoted ourselves to making songs which would have a spiritual call inside of them, hoping to awaken an awareness with this music. And other people in the arts felt the same...

• Today I can’t comment on what the problem is in China, Russia, or Africa without realizing again and again the Diamond Sutra, which says that we look at the world and see it as separate but in fact, this is an illusion, but the reality is that we are one shining being. Until this can be understood, I can’t see any change. But I see some change now. There is a world consciousness. In the "old" New Age, they talked about the Age of Aquarius being an age of enlightenment. And now when a man goes to the moon he sees the earth. Before when someone did meditation he or she could meditate on the earth and the moon but now a man and a woman can see that we are on one planet and that the water is polluted and that the air is dirty. So these are changes that are important. But when we spoke about these things in the 60s people said we were dreamers.