When studying Donovan’s lyrics it is evident that the cultural circumstances of the time influenced his work. Alongside this is his own personal development from a child to an adult and the life experiences that helped to mould his character.
Born in Glasgow, his songs are often of Celtic tradition and although he moved to England as a teenager he always felt a strong connection with his roots. He was opposed to a consumerist society and in his autobiography The Hurdy Gurdy Man writes that “in a phoney world folk songs were real and helped assuage my feelings of alienation”.
Loves and Losses
As a child he was sensitive and felt like an outsider due to his limp which was a result of contracting polio. On his childhood outlook Donovan writes that he cared about “art and pretty girls” and this is reflected throughout the lyrics he wrote later in his life, as most of them reflect upon his loves and losses. He was also influenced by his father reading him poetry, mainly by the Romantics and the Visionaries, and of him he writes that “he opened a mysterious door to the other world of vision”.
Donovan was individual and inspiring and in his autobiography is keen to point out that he was at the forefront of many new ideas. Whereas Bob Dylan is widely known for being the first to play electric guitar, Donovan claims that he did so at the New Musical Express Poll Winners concert, months before Dylan attempted it. “I played electric guitar on this show, five months before Dylan would at Newport Festival”.
Dylan and Donovan
In Bob Dylan’s documentary Don’t Look Back, he and his friends often make references to Donovan. Most of the time they are light-heartedly mocking him, but at one point Alan Price of the Animals describes him to Dylan saying “he’s a very good guitar player. Better than you!” He also states “He’s not a fake”.
Donovan also lays claim to being ahead of his time in the psychedelic scene; “I would soon be dubbed the first British 'psychedelic singer'’’.This was in part due to the song Sunshine Superman at a time when Sunshine was slang for LSD. Whereas an LSD trip would take the user on a mental trip, Donovan then decided that he should “create musical journeys into the hinterland of the soul”.
Donovan also writes in his autobiography that after a concert of his, the “next day a reporter from Time Magazine coined the phrase “Flower Power” in his review of my concert”.He was also influential on other talents in the music industry, and the name of Joe Boyd’s Witchseason production company was taken from Donovan’s Season of the Witch.
