In the three months since Donovan last appeared on these pages, Mellow Yellow has been, by some distance, the most frequently played song in the house. Many a toddler tantrum has been quelled or averted by whipping out the iPhone and dialling up the song on YouTube. While we sometimes go for Billy Jenkins' prankster version, the most frequently played is probably this one:
The boy also sits open mouthed in front of this one, transfixed as much by the intro (is that really Bill Graham?) and the audience shots as the performance:
So I was surprised when I played him the back end of Side 2 of In Concert and, as Mellow Yellow began, his jaw dropped as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing… "Mellow Yellow?!". This version clears up a longstanding debate between Lucy and me about what the second verse is. I maintain that D sings "I'm just mad about Fourteen", and the animator of the first clip above seems to agree with me. But Lucy was adamant it was Fontaine, not Fourteen — and I admit I've also heard it that way in the past. In this 1967 recording, Donovan removes any shadow of a doubt with the full Good Morning Little Schoolgirl treatment: "I'm just mad about Fourteen…year-old girls". Damn the subtlety, damn the metre, you tell 'em, Don!…ovan.
I bought this for £8 during my brief vinyl flirtation in 2002 (see also 1, 2, 3), again from Forever Changes on Ecclesall Road, Sheffield. It's the original 1968 pressing on Pye, so I wondered if, just for once, I might have accidentally picked up something valuable. Ninety seconds on Discogs.com disabused me of that hope. No wonder those record shops don't exist any more.
Still, quite a pleasant little time capsule. And the Boy should be able to master most of Donovan's guitar technique before he's out of the proverbial short trousers. I think it's OK to be mad about fourteen-year-old girls when you're eleven.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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