Paul McCartney can be heard as one of the background revellers on this track, but the 'quite rightly' whispering lines in the chorus is not McCartney, but rather Donovan himself. And that's what the song's about.' This definition was re-affirmed in an interview with NME magazine: 'it's about being cool, laid-back, and also the electrical bananas that were appearing on the scene – which were ladies' vibrators.' 'Really, you know the 'electric banana' was right in there and gave it away. Donovan stated, 'I was reading a newspaper and on the back there was an ad for a yellow dildo called the mellow yellow,' he said. According to Donovan's notes, accompanying the album Donovan's Greatest Hits, the rumour that one could get high from smoking dried banana skins was started by Country Joe McDonald in 1966, and Donovan heard the rumour three weeks before 'Mellow Yellow' was released as a single.Īccording 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.

However, this peace and love vibe would later go on to have a rather more capitalistic second life in Australia where the Coca-Cola Company launched the “highly caffeinated” citrus drink Mello Yello, a now-defunct beverage that many remember as being so refreshing it was physically excruciating.The song was rumoured to be about smoking dried banana skins, which was believed to be a hallucinogenic drug in the 1960s, though this aspect of bananas has since been debunked. It forecasted the Summer of Love as though Donovan was in cahoots with a tie-dye oracle. Now, thanks to all of the era’s idiosyncrasies that it managed to cram into its grooving melody, it is as emblematic of the mid-sixties as any other track you could think of. What’s more, the meditative angle also handily presents Donovan with another chance to shoehorn another big name drop into the mix, a favourite pastime of the stars. And it was meditation that became more serious for The Beatles and me and presenting that in our music.” Meditation was a touchstone of the era as the Maharishi began to rise, particularly, in the West Coast of America where oddly state LSD experiments were equally rampant. The Scottish folk star told Songfacts: “To be ‘mellow’ is to be cool, to be laid back, but it doesn’t have to be with a smoke. It was a laidback vibe, however, that Donovan has been quick to assert wasn’t exclusively to do with drugs. This in of itself is also weirdly indicative of the laidback bohemian scene of the time. He was present in the studio during the sessions and both Donovan and ‘Macca’ himself are certain that he contributed something, but it is hard to decipher what that was exactly. His presence, however, is almost like some mystical lingering ghost of the 1960s as it is not immediately apparent how exactly he features.

Part of that iconography involved none other than Paul McCartney himself. So, it’s about being cool, laid-back, and also the electrical bananas that were appearing on the scene – which were ladies vibrators.” As he adds: “They call me Mellow Yellow, I’m the guy who can calm you down.’ Lennon and I used to look in the back of newspapers and pull out funny things and they’d end up in songs. Being mellow, laid-back, chilled out.” So far so obvious, but there is a lot more frivolity in the welter of the track. When Donovan was asked what the song was about by NME back in 2011, the folk star reflected and mused: “Quite a few things. No song depicts the changing swinging style in the realm of dogeared acoustics and gingham quite like Donovan’s ‘Mellow Yellow’. There was a three-year period after that where the drug was legal and, although it seems very un-sixties-like to mention admin, it was this logistical oversight that defined an era as the kaleidoscopic headwind of acid blurred the zeitgeist in a tie-die hue of peace, love and utter psychedelic mayhem. By 1966, even the ancient genre of folk was beginning to feel the heady effects.

They call me mellow yellow meaning