Donovan
Mellow Yellow

THE REVIEW

Summary of previous episodes: Donovan moves from the still raw acoustic folk of "What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid" to the more mature and personal "Fairytale", then the decisive leap: "Sunshine Superman", an album steeped in an almost mystical and ancient aura, as demonstrated by tracks like "Ferris Wheel", "Three King Fishers", "Guinevre" and above all the regal "Legend Of A Girl Child Linda", without neglecting a bit of vaguely Kinks-like pop rock with the title track, more straightforward and fun psychedelia with "The Trip", reaching hard rock shores with "Season Of The Witch". In short, a great explosion of creativity just waiting to be channeled onto a precise track to be reused in an even more efficient and unified manner: this is what happens with the next album: "Mellow Yellow" from 1967, another great masterpiece for Donovan, another masterful demonstration of style, perhaps the definitive consecration for this versatile artist, chameleon-like; a brilliant anti-diva of music, a great lyricist and great shaper of melodies in equal measure.

"Mellow Yellow" is an enticing cocktail of pop, folk, and psychedelia in equal parts, with a touch of jazz, sumptuous and refined arrangements, surreal, almost Dadaist lyrics; it is an even more surprising and original album than its predecessor, with a more pronounced and, so to speak, more eccentric personality; as demonstrated by its famous title track, which is the clearest example of the innovations introduced with this album in Donovan's stylistic range: a trippy melody tinged with jazzy atmospheres and accompanied by a lopsided rhythm, with ambiguous lyrics that marry well with a subtle and insinuating singing style, elements that are also picked up in the sardonic "The Observation", punctuated by a limping bass line and surrounded by brass and pianos, and in softer form in "Bleak City Woman", in which a delightful loungy romanticism emerges, like a crooner on acid, always with that formidable thin and lascivious voice, and finally in the psychedelic pop of "Museum", visionary and suggestive.

In "Mellow Yellow" there are no shortage of episodes that hark back to more folk sounds, such as the acoustic "House Of Jansch", aligning with the subtle irony that characterizes the album, or "Writer In The Sun" which stands apart, evoking with its delicacy and soft, dreamy flute interludes more relaxed and dream-like atmospheres, paving the way for the style of the next album, "A Gift From A Flower To A Garden". The majestic "Hampstead Incident", accompanied by nocturnal orchestrations and a mournful music box, is the dark side of "Legend Of A Girl Child Linda", echoing its vestiges but evoking less fairy-tale-like, more tormented and crepuscular, almost gothic landscapes and forms a masterful and unrepeatable trio of "haunting ballads" along with "Sand And Foam" which by contrast appears irradiated by an overly intense and distorting sunlight, transforming the Mexican landscape into a parallel and unknown world, full of lysergic suggestions and the cathartic "Young Girl Blues", a surprisingly sparse song, accompanied only by the arpeggios of acoustic guitar; the singing resonates from afar, echoing, disorienting, yet somehow participatory, suffering, not cold, and paints a decadent and alienating female portrait trapped in a cage of loneliness, depression, unfulfilled sexual desires; a style that seems to almost anticipate that of artists like the early David Bowie or Lou Reed.

"Mellow Yellow" is an album that, despite being steeped in psychedelia, has little to do with the colors and optimism of flower power that will characterize the subsequent albums, particularly "A Gift From A Flower To A Garden" and "Barabajagal", beneath its apparent glimmer of colored harmonies hides a soul at times almost sarcastic and at times tormented and introspective, if we dare to make a comparison with the "rival" Bob Dylan "Mellow Yellow" can be likened to "Blonde On Blonde" for the role that both play in their respective discographies; they are visionary albums and expressions of full maturity and maximum inspiration for the respective artists, but returning to Donovan it is impossible not to notice how "Mellow Yellow", with its infinite stream of images, allusions, metaphors, more or less unreal landscapes and its perfectly studied sounds and harmonically arranged is an extraordinarily intense and fascinating album, an exotic and mesmerizing charm, arising from perfect alchemy, such as to make this album the Philosopher's Stone of Philip Donovan Leitch, who will continue to produce great albums but never as close in atmosphere and suggestion to this and always at a certain, more or less great but nevertheless insurmountable qualitative distance.