Earlier entries of this series can be found here: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ive#p45337
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“Superman and Green Lantern ain’t got a-nothing on me”
92. Donovan – Sunshine Superman
The facts:
Year: 1966.
Genre: Psychedelic rock.
Country: United Kingdom.
Album: Sunshine Superman.
Acclaimed Music ranking: #1839.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 2nd.
Ranks higher than Young Blood by The Coasters, but lower than Got to Give It Up, Part 1 by Marvin Gaye.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: Unranked.
The people:
Written by Donovan.
Produced by Mickie Most.
Vocals by Donovan.
Acoustic guitar by Donovan.
Electric guitar by Jimmy Page & Eric Ford.
Drums by Bobby Orr.
Bass by John Paul Jones.
Double bass by Spike Heatley.
Harpsichord by John Cameron.
Percussion by Tony Carr.
The opinion:
Superhero movies are big box-office in these days, but a film in that genre about Donovan has yet to be made. After all, in Sunshine Superman he boasts that both Superman and the Green Lantern got nothing on him. It’s a bit unclear in what way. The lyrics are about the main character planning to seduce a girl. I’m not an expert on the love lives of Superman and the Green Lantern, but I know that we don’t first and foremost associate them with romance. Perhaps then, it’s not that impressive that Donovan’s seduction skills are better than those of these heroes. Nonetheless, it can’t be denied that “Superman and Green Lantern ain’t got nothing on me” sounds great in every context.
As a matter of fact, Grant Morrison of DC Comics was so impressed by this song he added a superhero character named Sunshine Superman to the supporting cast of the Animal Man series. I have to admit that I hadn’t heard of Animal Man before today, so I can’t give much more information, except that despite getting the inspiration through Donovan, the character looked nothing like the folk singer. Instead, it’s an African-American variation on the actual Superman (see picture above).
Having said all that, I have no clue what exactly a Sunshine Superman anno 1966 would be. The lyrics don’t make it clear, but it makes me think of Summer, brightness, happiness and incredible power. Power of seduction of course. Basically it captures the feel of this song very well. It sounds sunny, upbeat and like this guy is the Casanova of his time.
Sunshine Superman has had some more influence besides sort-of inspiring the creation of an obscure, supporting superhero. The song was one of the very first to truly capture the feel of psychedelic rock. Whether it is the first is up for debate. With its release in July 1966 it predates the Summer of Love of 1967 with a full year and that’s when this sound would be everywhere. Still, 1966 saw more and more of these songs appearing. But not many where already recorded in late 1965, which Sunshine Superman was. Due to some legal problems that arose when Donovan switched studio’s, this single’s release was delayed by quite some time.
If it was released around the beginning of 1966 it might have seemed truly revolutionary. Some critics even claim that Donovan would then be credited with inventing psychedelic rock. This is somewhat odd. A half year delay is not so long that a non-existent style or genre could come out of thin air and already get numerous copycats. Whatever the case, July 1966 was still early for a trippy song like this. Around the time this must have sounded like the cutting edge; the culmination of everything that was hip.
Indeed, for a short time Donovan was about as hip as about anyone in the late sixties. He had quite a few hits, but above all captured the idea and ethos of the hippie more than anyone except perhaps the members of Jefferson Airplane and John Lennon. This would eventually also be Donovan’s downfall somewhat. Because he was the uber-hippie, so to speak, he was also the first artist dropped by audiences and critics alike once the hype around flower power had turned sour in the early seventies. He was actually frequently targeted as a mocking point of everything hippie. Jefferson Airplane could still be accepted as their surrealism proved timeless and John Lennon’s work was more expansive. Donovan however never aimed for more: he really believed in the power of flower, if you like.
It’s an interesting twist if you recall that Donovan at the start of his career was mostly seen as a second Bob Dylan. The comparisons between the two went so far that the mostly British media painted Donovan as the disciple of Dylan the messiah. This lead to the infamous scene in the Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back in which an ill-tempered Dylan puts Donovan down in public and on camera. It makes you wonder if after that Donovan consciously knew that it was time to change his style.
And so he did, he became a very different folk artist. He did meditation before it became hip and was said to have introduced the Beatles to Buddhism. He spoke to the hippie crowd like few others. Dylan, meanwhile had already turned his back on protest and clearly wasn’t too keen on the hippies. The final result was that after the hippie era ended Dylan stood as the timeless visionary and Donovan as a quant relic who refused to go with the times. That’s a downside of capturing the zeitgeist a little too directly.
Donovan’s career never really recovered. I wouldn’t call him forgotten as such. His songs still appear on lists with at least some regularity and they are even used in films every once in a while. He made it to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Singer/Songwriter Hall of Fame two years later. Despite these honours, he’s far from one of the first names to appear when someone mentions the sixties. He’s more one of these guys you can also listen to when you’ve gone through all the era’s giants and still want more. It probably doesn’t help that he never made that one great album. Sunshine Superman (the album) ranks at a respectable #1462 in the Acclaimed Music list. Still, it’s hardly a mainstay and, if you ask me, very uneven, with a weird mismatch between psychedelic rock and medieval-like chamber pop.
What does stand though, is the title track. Indeed, I’ve become very fond of it during this week. In short, I think it is one of the best psychedelic tracks of the era. It has an amazing, jittery rhythm (especially Jimmy Page’s guitar is amazing) both in the playing and in Donovan’s vocal delivery. It somewhat stutters along, while still retaining a perfect sense of swing, like a drunk finding grace in his hazy state of mind. The final sound is somewhat psyched-out, but in an oddly sunny way. Say of it what you like, but I have to give Donovan some big credits for anticipating psychedelic rock so early on in such a complete way.
There is something more to it. Despite the feel-good tone working overtime, the song is also somewhat sinister lyrically. The guy is maybe a little too convinced that he will conquer the girl. It might be just me, but when Donovan sings he’s going to blow the girl’s mind and that she will be his, he does so in a voice that is perhaps a little too possessive; menacing even. “Every trick in the book, that I can find” doesn’t sound like he wants to persuade her with his natural appeal. In a way this reminds me of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s cover of I Put a Spell on You, a song that is more open about the singer’s dark intentions to basically enslave his lover.
But yeah, it might just be me. I don’t mind it actually, a little dark edge can always help a feel good song from becoming a little too light. Above all Sunshine Superman oozes a kind of cool that I think is harder to achieve than the bright surface suggests. Even Donovan himself couldn’t match it, when he re-recorded the song in the early eighties in a more dad-rock style that isn’t bad, but misses the point of what makes the original so special.
I’m not sure I would call this song really timeless as this is about as sixties as it gets, but here I don’t give a damn as this is an awesome song. Whereas DC Comic’s Superman is appearing in increasingly gloomy and dull movies, Donovan’s Sunshine Superman keeps shining brightly and happily until eternity.
9/10
Other versions:
Oh yeah, this is my kind of playlist! Like a lot of sixties classics Sunshine Superman has been covered tons of times, in every almost style imaginable. Despite the hippie stigma Donovan carries around this songs seems to have found appeal everywhere. There are few covers in this long list that feel like completely faithful copies. For better or worse, it inspires approaches in every direction.
Of course not everything is completely captivating. The lounge jazz approach Emilie-Claire Barlow is nice enough, but hardly revelatory. On the other side of the spectrum we find no less than frenetic punk masters Hüsker Dü, delivering one of the best versions. I also really liked the interpretation by Ricky Lee Jones. I can’t quite say if her off-kilter singing is dreadful or inspired, but it gets to me. Mike Vicker’s cover is the weirdest of the bunch and it switches between annoying and brilliant every few seconds. It does contain a chant that goes “Donovan, Donovan, Donovan”, so that is something that counts in its favour.
What else is there? A 10 minute free jazz interpretation by Dr. Lonnie Smith. It doesn’t take long before the sound of Donovan vanishes completely there, but it’s still a solid jazz workout. It should be said that there are a lot of instrumental-only versions here, on piano, guitar, sitar, you name it. The nice thing about these is that they highlight what a wonderful, musical composition Sunshine Superman is.
As usual with these lists there is no sense in going through every cover one by one. Let me just say that if you don’t like Donovan’s original for some mysterious reason, there might still be a perfect Sunshine Superman for you somewhere around here. If not, there is the Happy Monday's song named Donovan in which Sunshine Superman gets quoted and the hippie singer gets mocked.
The playlist: