Customer Reviews

Barabajagal

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've always liked Donovan's "Barabajagal," right down to the Victoriana of the album's artwork. This is not his most consistent album - I really don't need to hear "I Love My Shirt" or "Happiness Runs" very often, and they embody a certain precious quality that has not worn well (and didn't sound so great in 1969). There are, however, several gems on the original set, including the double-sided hit "To Susan On the West Coast Waiting", a still-fresh, deceptively low-key anti-Vietnam song, and the grand, five-minute "Atlantis," one of Donovan's biggest US hits, recorded in L.A. with the great Jim Gordon (Derek & the Dominos) providing superb drumming. Forget the "Hey Jude" comparison, this song has a power and personality all its own. The original album also included two collaborations with the Jeff Beck Group (classic line-up, with Beck, Ron Wood, Nicky Hopkins, Tony Newman, and Rod Stewart who stayed home), opening with the ferocious title track, an almost unbelievably intense excercise in controlled dynamics - a hard rock/funk classic, with Donovan at his 'hottest' and the Group truly 'molten'. The other D/JBG collaboration, "Trudi," rocks out, albeit in a less overpowering manner. I should note these tracks were from the last session by the Beck Group (May '69) who would break up by the end of July. EMI has turned this (and their other Donovan reissues) into "The story of the making of..." with outtakes, demos, copious notes, and period photos and memorabilia. A long rumored third track with the Beck Group ("Stromburg Twins") finally sees the light of day (a fourth, "Homesickness," appears in abruptly truncated form on the fine "HMS"), and the alternates, demos and sketches all provide great context and background on this still underrated artist's work habits, not to mention some highly listenable music, making this the edition of "Barabajagal" to own. Kudos to EMI!

Barabajagal is the last of the four remastered Donovan cds released by EMI in 2005. The original album was definitely a mixed bag. When it's good, it's excellent. Songs like Barabajagal, Superlungs and Atlantis rank among the best rock songs of 1969, and Happiness Runs is a charming children's song. Unfortunately, most of the other album tracks are just filler.

EMI seems to have solved the problem with this reissue. The addition of the bonus tracks, all previously unreleased, double the length of the album, and -- like Sanctuary's reissue of Kinda Kinks -- many of the best songs on the disk are bonus tracks. All the bonus tracks here are good, some are great, and Swan (Lord Of The Reedy River) is one of the most gorgeous songs Donovan ever recorded, which is quite saying something when you think about it.

Like the rest of the albums in this series of reissues, the sound quality is excellent and the liner notes are poor.

This is one of my favorite Donovan albums. The Jeff Beck Group accompanies him on some of the songs, giving a truly cool electric sound to those songs. It's got his war protest "To Susan on the West Coast Waiting", and also shows his fun/silly side with songs like "Happiness Runs" and "I Love My Shirt". "Atlantis" was one of his bigger hits. Worth checking out.

In the early years of his career, Donovan had to deal with being called the British Bob Dylan, even if his brand of songwriting was nowhere near the caliber of Bob's. Where Donovan was childlike & precious, Bob was hardened & wise. Where Donovan stuck to his flower-child posturings for most of his career (that has changed slightly in recent years), Bob switched writing styles frequently, from topical songwriting to poetic mindscapes & back again. Perhaps it is that everchanging style that has kept Bob in the forefront of today's music scene, and saddled Donovan with oldies status. In 1969, both Donovan & Bob released albums that confounded the masses, and met with vastly different responses to both their careers. Bob put out the country-based NASHVILLE SKYLINE that was more a sign of Bob's wish to conduct his career as he saw fit, and his fans were either along for the ride or not (clearly, enough of them were). Donovan released BARABAJAGAL, which was yet another example of his psychedelia-lite approach to music, and indicated his days as a serious hitmaker were coming to a close.

While lyrically, Donovan's music had refused to budge from its child's-eye view of the world, credit should be given later in the 1960s for musically shaking things up a bit. 1968's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" benefitted greatly from Jimmy Page's scorching electric guitar work, and had to have made Donovan, at least briefly, cool to fans of the harder, more serious psychedelic rock of the time. It would have been a direction Donovan had done well to continue in, but the accompanying album of the same name was mostly more of the same gentle folk-pop people had come to associate with him. BARABAJAGAL is another case of a few signs of rock life, but the rest sticking closely to the script.

The title track featured help from the newly-formed Jeff Beck Group, and they do help elevate what could have been another routine folk number with a much-welcomed dose of electricity. Nobody could get away with lyrics like these in today's day & age, but for the era, their riff on ALICE IN WONDERLAND fit in well. Unfortunately, this is the only such rock-based song on BARABAJAGAL that works well. The other Jeff Beck-augmented one, "Trudi", is a throwaway at best, with lyrics that are a blatant rewrite of "Lay Of The Last Tinker" from A GIFT FROM A FLOWER TO A GARDEN (1967).

What songs remain on BARABAJAGAL that adhere to Donovan's tried formula are reasonably good, and are fine last gasps to the style that would become obsolete as the 1970s dawned. Looking back, releasing the 5-minute long "Atlantis" as a single had to have taken some guts. The song is mostly a spoken-word piece with the only sung lyrics repeated over & over into the fade. But it was an "anything goes" atmosphere in the music scene of the time, and as it is, it became Donovan's last trip to the American top 10. When Donovan guested on FUTURAMA singing this song as "Atlanta", it certainly showed he had a sense of humor not often made apparent in his music.

In his own gentle way, Donovan even protested the Vietnam war with "To Susan On The West Coast Waiting", a top 40 hit that intriguingly came from the point of view of a soldier in the war rather than someone at home protesting against it. OK, so it is not "Fortunate Son", but it does its intended job in its intended way very well. Only "Where Is She" manages to keep things on a mature enough level so that it does not sink into sub-children's song territory. It is in that area where BARABAJAGAL demonstrates the faults with Donovan's becoming a victim of his own formula.

"Superlungs My Supergirl" & "The Love Song" are more adolescence-oriented, even if the former is clearly about a teenage girl with a smoking habit ("how to draw" is obviously not about doodling). "Pamela Jo" is the same way, but it manages to be a catchy-enough number that it is one you actually want to listen to more than once, its English music-hall vibe being undoubtedly infectious. It was clear all involved were enjoying themselves while recording it.

"I Love My Shirt" & "Happiness Runs" (recently employed in a cereal commercial) are quite obviously songs that would likely appeal only to those under the age of 10. While there are many times that Donovan's youthful persona is quite engaging to the average adult listener, those two songs are not those times. When Donovan continued to turn out songs like this well into his 1970s work & even devote an entire album to them (H.M.S. DONOVAN), he must have known somehow this was not the way to continue to be taken seriously by the public. It is thus a shame that by the time of excellent adult-based albums like 1996's Rick Rubin-produced SUTRAS & 2004's BEAT CAFE, Donovan's credibility had all but eroded. Songs like the above two certainly did not help matters.

At its best, BARABAJAGAL showed Donovan's light psychedelia still working well within the context of the times. At its worst, it demonstrated that he would need to make some serious changes to his approach if he wanted to stay relevant. Clearly, he did not want to, for he stubbornly stuck to his old tricks for as long as possible, making the music he wanted to make, but at a sacrifice to his commercial respectability.

as whats previously been said, this album marks a decline in Donovan's consistency in terms of putting a whole flowing album together. Nevertheless this cd is well worth purchasing for the bonus tracks which makes one feel as if you have bought a full album's worth of unreleased material. Interestingly as well is the fact that the version of "superlungs, my supergirl" is NOT the same version that appeared on the original album. This version adds guitar parts and even ends differently with donovan chanting "hey". Its very similar however and may even be better upon comparison. The Swan (lord of the reedy river) is perhaps the most psychedelic or magical donovan song i've ever heard. This version even beating the brilliant simple version on the HMS Donovan album. If you are a hugh donovan fan already i think this should be the first remaster to start with considering there is so much unreleased material on this particular disc. The sound quality is also surprisingly great which is not always the case with remasters of 60s albums. "Where is she" sounds fantastic!

"Barabajagal" was Donovan's last album to be released in the 1960's and his fifth produced by Mickie Most.

Compared to his previous albums this is probably the most versatile, partly due to the fact that it was recorded during several sessions, featuring different musicians.

The three hit singles "Atlantis"; "To Susan on the West Coast" and "Barabajagal" are good examples of the album's great variety. "Atlantis" is a fine folky tune with an ecstatic ending ending much like the Beatles' "Hey Jude". "To Susan on the West Coast" is an acoustic anti-war song and "Barabajagal" is an almost riff-based rocker with solid backing by Jeff Beck Group.

Among the tracks I like "Happines Runs" and "Superlungs My Supergirl", but the rest are mostly sub-par tracks. The original album had a very short playing time, a little more than thirty minutes. Fortunately a lot of relevant bonus-tracks have been added to the album.

Interesting to hear "Stromberg Twins", another track with backing from Jeff Beck and his band; and song that ought have been included originally. But the strongest material are found among the last seven tracks, which are just demos; but all sounding great.

"Marjorie" and "Palais Girl" are really great songs that finally get a deserved release.

The booklet contains the final chapter of the Mickie Most Years ( part 4, Nov. 68 to Dec. 1969 ), which is great read; and although the album is not quite up to the standards of its predecessors, it's still a quite fine album.

Not having heard any material from this album for many years (other than "Atlantis"), I was surprised at how Donovan could get down when he wanted to. The title track has a vicious rhythm, and most of the other songs also are very solid. Yet, there are still some ballads in the Donovan tradition, such as "Happiness Runs". There is more variety here than many of his other albums, with comic songs such as "I Love my Shirt" and "Pamela Jo", and of course "Atlantis". A real departure for Donovan, not so psychedelic, and not Dylan-influenced.

Barabajagal was Donovan's sixth studio album of original material in three years, and unfortunately it shows. In circumstances reminiscent of the Sunshine Superman album, much of it was in the can for well over a year before being released in America, and Pye in the UK chose not to release it at all.

It features the hit single Goo Goo Barajagal (Love Is Hot)/Trudi (Bed With Me), both of which feature the Jeff Beck Group, and are about as sexualized and as heavy as Donovan ever gets. Trudi was actually a reworked and partially reworded version of The Lay Of The Last Tinker from A Gift from a Flower to a Garden: The Little Ones album. Atlantis, a previous single, which was coupled in America with the disarmingly childlike, if less successful anti-Viet Nam War song To Susan In The West Coast Waiting, is also a highly striking and atmospheric piece of work. What was used to fill up the rest of the album was distinctly below par, however, with the worst examples actually predisposing one by context against the rest.

Superlungs My Supergirl, a song he had attempted and discarded twice in 1966, is somewhat Jeff Beck-lite and is perfectly fine, with some nice guitar work from Big Jim Sullivan, though Donovan's boast at the age of 22 that the girl he loves is "only fourteen but she knows how to draw" might raise more eyebrows now than then. This, Happiness Runs and the lovely Where Is She, featuring Harold McNair's delicate flute work, were recorded during the sessions for The Hurdy Gurdy Man album in May 1968, but following a falling out with producer Mickie Most the remaining tracks, along with To Susan... were recorded later in the year in Los Angeles with Gabriel Mekler producing and Richie Podolor at the desk, and sadly miss his production skills and John Cameron's skilled arrangements, and make the album a somewhat mixed rag-bag.

There was a hippie tendency at the time for musical teenage couples to regress occasionally into faux-childhood (step forward Principal Edward's Magic Theatre and the Incredible String Band, to cite but two), and the charmless I Love My Shirt (which had already been inexplicably favoured with release as a B-side in the UK) and embarrassingly forced sing-along Pamela Jo illustrate why this trend, of which Donovan could be particularly prone, should be stamped out.

For me, Happiness Runs (aka The Pebble And The Man) falls into the same category, though as the song was taken up over the years by Mary Hopkin, Bridget St John and the estimable Kate Bush, though with rather more success, perhaps I'll let it pass.

Listening to the bonus tracks one finds an attempt at a single that was rightly rejected, despite quite a decent B-side featuring acoustic guitar picking, but also an indisputable Donovan classic in The Swan (Lord Of The Reedy River). How this could have passed up in favour of fare such as The Love Song is inexplicable to me. Perhaps it was being held over as the song turned up in the film If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium in 1969, and was re-recorded for the 1971 album HMS Donovan.

This expanded issue ends on a more optimistic note with seven more successful (apart from the dreadful cod-reggae Palais Girl) raw demos recorded in February 1969 of songs that were mostly to turn up on future Donovan albums.

First, before you decide to send a few guys in dark shades to break my arms, let me say that I am a huge fan of Donovan, and my other reviews of his work will attest to that. But I do consider Barabajagal to be his absolute worst album. The few flashes of quality cannot obscure an overall patina of mediocrity. Supposedly, this was Donovan's attempt at a heavier rock sound, but for the most part it is really simplistic and often cloying pop of the worst kind. Basic structures imitate country or ragtime, the lyrics seldom take poetic flight or deliver the kind of imagery that is associated with Donovan, and several ideas are borrowed and rehashed from his already-existing catalogue. On too many songs (when including the bonus tracks) he seems to take a stance of an old and wise man, although at twenty-two he hardly qualified, and speaks of "chicks" in a language that would be considered incorrect today and was certainly demeaning even then (e.g., we are told very sarcastically that Pamela Jo's "very secret" job consists of filing papers all day).
Couched in its time, Barabajagal was an anachronism: masterpieces such as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, Pet Sounds, and Beggar's Banquet--to name just a few--had already been released, and Tommy and Crosby, Stills and Nash were just a few months away. The revolutionary ideas pursued in those albums make Barabajagal sound truly amateurish. Its massive success is attributed to the fact that, by then, a large section of Donovan's constituency had shifted from a mix of folkies, jazzers, and psychedelics to teenyboppers, which explains why this baby food was supposed to be a "rock" sound. Interestingly, for many people Donovan's best work ends here; personally, I loved much of his output that was yet to come, and Open Road was decidedly a much truer, and infinitely better, rocker.
Much has been made of Jeff Beck's presence on some of the numbers, but don't expect to hear anything outstanding by almighty Jeff, in fact, don't expect to hear anything--anyone with access to an amplifier could have played this, and except for a few pleasant licks on Trudi, there is not a hint that a major guitarist is in the studio.
On to specific tracks: I'd say that the bottom of the barrel is composed of I Love My Shirt, which is an embarrassment: so cutesy it'll make your teeth rot, it's a quaint idea if you were to sing it to your kid, but not for a major artist to put on an album, especially when he has already written songs supposedly for children that were some of the finest songs ever written for any age; follows the meaningless The Love Song, with lyrics that are one cliché after another, and the melody that sounds like a commercial for a toy; Trudi deserves an extra helping of rotten tomatoes for being not only a boring song but also a dreadful rewrite of the beautiful Lay of the Last Tinker from A Gift from a Flower to a Garden. The above-mentioned Pamela Jo joins this group of downright awfulness.
On the middle tier, where things aren't awful, just aren't very good, there is Where Is She. Like several other songs here, it follows a well-tried recipe from Donovan's cookbook, yet somehow it just doesn't make it. It should be gorgeous, in the cloud of ethereal harmonies that are Donovan's special talent, but instead comes off as a completely characterless ballad for lite radio. Then we have Superlungs My Supergirl: this is its third incarnation. It was always an interesting song, not for its supersimple two-chord structure but for its sound experimentation, and here, with that contrived push for heavy rockin', it becomes my least favorite version, and those continuous two chords are way too little. Don sounds like he wants to be T Rex.
To Susan on the West Coast Waiting has always been taken with gloves because of its "important" subject, namely Vietnam war protest. The supporters of the song have claimed that its subdued and gently lilting way of tackling such a serious matter was subtle, but I don't detect anything profoundly subtle here, just a mellow flower-power attempt of dealing with something pop stars (and most people, actually) hardly understood at the time. The phrase about Andy, who is in Vietnam "supposedly hating," avers that, according to Donovan, the young men who went to war didn't really want to go and didn't hate anyone. Obviously, this is always true for many, but not for everyone involved, and it doesn't speak to the psychological shape in which those young men returned home. The song reduces the most conflicting and complex event of our history to very little.
That leaves us with Barabajagal, Happiness Runs, and Atlantis. I wish I could say that in this top tier everything is fabulous, but really, while the songs are good, only Atlantis has the potential to send chills up my spine. Happiness Runs was for years a terrific stage shtick for Donovan, who'd get people to sing the chorus in three parts (heard on Donovan in Concert), but here it doesn't have quite the same sense of fun to it. Still, it's a lovely song.
The bonus tracks are a mirror image of the original album songs in that there is a lot of meandering and a few excellent numbers. The bonuses are plentiful, and without them, as the title of my review says, the album would have gotten only one star. The Swan is that gorgeous, ethereal song that Where Is She aspired to be; it is one of my all-time Donovan favorites, and if it weren't available on other compilations, it alone would make the purchase of this album worth the money. Little White Flower stands out as well; it would have fit perfectly on Flower to a Garden or HMS Donovan, and speaking of the latter, the demo of Good Morning Mr Wind appears there in its final, polished version. It is unabashedly a nursery rhyme, and as such, excellent. Two songs are very interesting for those who have continued to follow Donovan's career: A Poor Man's Sunshine and Lord of the Universe appear on his latest official release, Beat Café, and are astonishingly unchanged. I like both a lot. You get all this in stereo, so, if you can find it at a discount, enjoy. If not, for unconditional fans and archivists only.

1969, BARABAJAGAL was the last collaboration of the Donovan Leitch and Mickie Most years, encompassing SUNSHINE SUPERMAN, MELLOW YELLOW, A GIFT FROM A FLOWER TO A GARDEN, HURDY GURDY MAN, and this one. In a sense, this was the last "classic" Donovan album for many fans. All of the aforementioned albums had a sense of cohesiveness to them even though every one of them was diverse musically, and as with all of them BARABAJAGAL is "diverse", yet it seemingly suffers from being too diverse, as if most of the songs came from extreme different sessions. This has left most reviewers and critics with a sense of calling the album jumbled or disconnected. I for one, have always been very fond of BARABAJAGAL and considered it a direct outgrowth of HURDY GURDY with more electrical rock songs and some jazzy, even a "lounge" number, items that would have fit nicely on the HURDY GURDY album. Granted there is a wide range of material present here, but on closer inspection, how can that be considered unusual with any Donovan album? Perhaps it was just the overall feel, or maybe it was due to the straining relationship between Donovan and Most. In any event, this album has its own uniqueness that can be appreciated as one of Donovan's best efforts, if not one of his best "collection" of songs. This album was being recorded about the same time as Donovan was assembling singles for a Greatest Hits album and that could have contributed to the "collection" sense of material. Donovan and engineers "re-channeled for stereo" Season Of The Witch and Sunshine Superman, the latter being extended in length as well. He also re-recorded Colours and Catch The Wind (much better in my opinion) which were inaccessible to Epic Records because of Pye Records legal holdings of those. Singles not appearing on albums (ie. Laleña, Epistle To Dippy, There Is A Mountain, etc) were assembled along with these remasters (a shame they did not re-channel Mellow Yellow for stereo at the time as it would have no doubt appeared on these EMI reissues of 2005, but all of the albums are completely remastered in stereo for the EMI 2011 reissues) for DONOVAN'S GREATEST HITS released in April 1969.

Diversity on BARABAJAGAL more clearly is a result of various series of recording efforts that took place in several locations, studios, and with various personnel. The easiest way to "review" this album is to separate these efforts into groups.

Happiness Runs and Where Is She were both recorded during the sessions that produced HURDY GURDY MAN and both songs would have fit perfectly onto that album. They are the two ethereal songs of this album and distinctly different from the rest of BARABAJAGAL. Where Is She is a soft-jazz melody reminiscent of the alternative jazz-rock music of the period. Harry Nilsson's "Without Her" which was recorded by Blood Sweat & Tears is cut from the same cloth. Happiness Runs is a row-row-row-your-boat song cycle round which beautifully incorporates his Pebble & Man (DONOVAN IN CONCERT) into a round sung by Donovan, Leslie Duncan (Elton John TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION, Pink Floyd DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, Alan Parson's Project EVE, and just about every 60's period Dusty Springfield song), Graham Nash, and Paul McCartney's younger brother Michael McCartney.

Atlantis, I Love My Shirt, To Susan On The West Coast Waiting were recorded in November '68 after release of HURDY GURDY MAN. Immediately in the UK Atlantis was released backed with I Love My Shirt, a mundane and childish throw-away and the only really dispensable song on this album. Atlantis did not fare well as a single and when released in the states, it was the B-side of To Susan... however, radio play and fan requests soon elevated the release to becoming a doube A-side and Atlantis broke the top 10 in the USA despite the producers predictions (too long and not "radio-friendly"). There are rumors that Paul McCartney sung in the closing Hey Jude style coda of the song and played tambourine but Donovan has cleared that up as a myth. Donovan did not clearly keep track of session players on albums and so conflict even exists where Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and even Bonham played on his albums. Page insists he was there for Hurdy Gurdy Man and Jones says he was not. There is no doubt he was contracted for the album recordings but on which songs remains in dispute. Atlantis, with the fanciful counterculture anthem, has remained popular to this day, whereas To Susan On The West Coast Waiting (From Andy In Vietnam Fighting) has become predictably dated.

The "rock songs" recorded in November '68 and May '69 are the real meat of BARABAJAGAL, a more contemporary rock album than any previous effort and featuring predominantly the backing of The Jeff Beck Group (also under Mickie Most's production and guidance at the time). The Jeff Beck Group included "vocals extraordinaire by Rod Stewart" in those days however I myself, and many reviewers/critics are hard pressed to find his voice on this record. Barabajagal, backed with Trudi, was released as the next single. In the UK it made it to #12, but only to #36 on the USA Billboard. Both songs are overtly sexual in nature, in fact Trudi was released as "Bed With Me" in the UK, and both are solid rockers featuring the main talents of Jeff Beck and his keyboardist Nicky Hopkins who has lent his sound to anyone and everyone in rock from The Stones, to The Beatles, to Led Zeppelin! Superlungs My Supergirl, finally released on this album after two previous attempts with tempo, instrumentation, and less refined lyrics and vocals, is a dead on straight rock number with cute innuendo lyrics and delivered with electric guitar lead in spades. You can find the early versions on the EMI reissues of SUNSHINE SUPERMAN and MELLOW YELLOW, the latter being the better of the two. The Love Song is a typical Donovan rocker fused with some carnival inspired barking and Pamela Jo is a burlesque/vaudeville piano rocker which descends into tavern song with a huge chorus of repeated lines ad infinitum. Many critics pan these songs, yet more reviewers, like myself, and fans, like myself, enjoy these treasures from the last set of Donovan and Most recordings.

The whole album suffers only from the inclusion of I Love My Shirt which belongs on (and ends up on) one of his children's albums (Pied Piper). It would definitely not have fit on For Little Ones, as it is a slightly rock and roll jazz delivery. The lyrics are just so inane.

Bonus material, including more songs with The Jeff Beck Group are heavily included in this last of the EMI reissues. Half of them are demos which would fill out early 70's albums, and the first half are all recordings that "should have been." The highlights of these are Lauretta's Cousin Laurinda which would have been a perfect song to replace I Love My Shirt with and might have elevated the album in sales. Swan The Lord Of Reedy River in its original form is also included. Donovan and Paul McCartney would provide this song, as well as guitars and voices, to Mary Hopkins first release on Apple Records. The best of the demo songs is the punishing Lord Of The Universe which would sit in a closet until 2004 when it was filled out and included on Donovan's BEAT CAFÉ album.

Even with I Love My Shirt, this one still garners five full stars, it is the ending of an era of dominance in music and is as entertaining as rock and roll could get at the end of the 1960's. As a last word, the best word to describe BARABAJAGAL is "cool".