Mellow Yellow? First came two Tangerines, a mystery and a strange encounter
July 10, 2024
Bill Taylor writes: As a marketing ploy it never really got off the ground – Donovan as Britain’s (more specifically, Scotland’s) answer to Bob Dylan. But before he immersed himself in Flower Power and New Age whimsy (“Hail, Atlantis…”), there were undoubted parallels.
Certainly, he’s endured as long as Dylan, if rather less illustriously. No Nobel Prize for Donovan Phillips Leitch (knowing his full name would make a good pub-quiz question), nor yet a seemingly unending world tour.
But he weathered rather better than Dylan, who is five years his senior and for some time has been a dead ringer for a senescent Vincent Price. Almost six decades after his first albums (it’s a mark of how highly he was regarded in 1965 that he released two within six months), Donovan is finally showing his age – 78. Though if he trimmed his flowing silver locks, he could probably shear off a few years.
He looked younger than 18 or 19 in the pictures taken when he burst upon the scene.
He wore a cap similar to the one that Dylan sometimes sported. And his harmonica playing was reminiscent of Dylan’s.
He was certainly soaking up influences. His guitar had a sticker: “This machine kills.” Woody Guthrie’s famously had a “this machine kills fascists” sticker. Guthrie had also been a huge influence on Dylan.
Donovan’s first album, What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Hid (released in the U.S. as Catch the Wind) featured Car Car, a cover of Guthrie’s Riding in My Car.
To return to Dylan, there’s the enigma of Tangerine Eyes, which never made it to vinyl. But Donovan sang it live on Britain’s premier rock-music TV show, Ready, Steady, Go, in February, 1965.
When Dylan’s fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, came out the following month it became clear to anyone who even remembered Donovan’s song from the show that it was a rip-off of Mr. Tambourine Man, the opening track on side 2.
Even the first line: “Please, darling Tangerine Eyes, sing a song for me…”
It was all downhill from there. Tangerine Eyes, at two-and-a-half-minutes, was half the length of Mr. Tambourine Man and the love lyric wasn’t in the same league as Dylan’s transcendent surrealism, now widely regarded as one of the greatest songs ever written.
But where had it come from?
Donovan was unlikely to have heard an advance copy of Bringing It All Back Home. One theory is that he’d seen Dylan play in London in 1964 (which is when Mr. Tambourine Man was written) and, in the mistaken belief that Dylan had used a traditional tune, made it his own.
What is certain is that Tangerine Eyes vanished abruptly. Another theory is that he played it for Dylan when they met in 1965, and Dylan quickly set him straight.
Meanwhile, there was another “tangerine” in the offing, which Donovan introduces on What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Hid as “the story of the Tangerine Puppet.”
What follows is actually a two-minute instrumental. It served as notice that Donovan was no mean guitarist. (In a 1968 radio interview, Paul McCartney credited Donovan with teaching him and John Lennon some finger-picking styles.)
Which brings us to Donovan’s meeting with Dylan at the Savoy Hotel in London. It was documented by D.A. Pennebaker in Don’t Look Back, his seminal fly-on-the-wall documentary about Dylan.
We see Dylan with Alan Price and Joan Baez. He’s reading a newspaper story headlined “Is Donovan deserting his fans?” and asks, “Donovan! Who is this Donovan?”
Price tells him, “He’s a young Scottish bloke… he plays very good guitar,” adding mischievously, “He’s better than you.” Dylan responds, “Right away I hate him!”
It’s all quite jokey. Until it isn’t. Cut to Dylan in a crowded, smoky room, again looking at Donovan in a newspaper and saying to someone, “He’s our target for tomorrow.”
Cue their meeting at the Savoy in Dylan’s room, which is full of his entourage/hangers-on. Donovan is sitting against a wall, holding his guitar and smoking. With an almost bashful smile, he plays To Sing For You, a decent if inconsequential song, fairly typical of the soft-edged things he was writing.
Dylan grins and says halfway through, “That’s a good song, man.” Then he listens to the rest without expression, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.
When Donovan is done, Dylan takes the guitar. Donovan asks him to play It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.
Sure enough, his guitar work isn’t as good as Donovan’s but he doesn’t so much sing the song as mount an attack with it. His shades are off and he keeps smirking at his friends. Donovan looks ill at ease, nervously puffing on his cigarette and wrapping his arms around himself. Dylan looks directly at him as he delivers the final line. As if to say, “It really is all over, Baby Blue.”
I’ve seen this characterised as a friendly, mutually respectful and admiring encounter. I’ve also read of it as a “bearpit atmosphere” with Donovan as “an unsuspecting human sacrifice” to the cocky, sneering Dylan.
That’s how it appears to me. At one point, Donovan looks almost close to tears and wishing he was somewhere – anywhere – else. Or had asked for any other song but that one.
Am I misinterpreting the whole thing? Watch the clip and judge for yourself:
But if the story is true that Donovan had already sung Tangerine Eyes for Dylan, then I’d say Dylan had firmly, even cruelly, put him in his place once and for all.
The Beatles versus the Rolling Stones? Ha. Those boys were amateurs.
Brilliant, Bill. I am among many who were for a long time condescending towards Donovan. But the man unmistakably had talent.
Posted by: Colin Randall | July 10, 2024 at 09:02 PM
Thank you! I saw him (and reviewed) in Toronto at a small (and free) open-air venue back in 1986 (he was 40 but still looked barely out of his teens. He put on a lovely show and his musicianship was impeccable. He did "Atlantis" as an encore and somehow managed to make the talking bit a good deal less excruciating that I'd expected.
I always thought it was a shame that a lot of his songs weren't edgier. But he do it when he wanted. It's ironic that he's remembered for his version of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier." I think his "Ballad of a Crystal Man" is a much better protest/anti-war song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mRqMmt1ZSw
Posted by: Bill Taylor | July 10, 2024 at 09:18 PM