Only Solitaire Reviews: Donovan

	WHAT’S BIN DID AND WHAT’S BIN HID
	Album released: May 14, 1965	V	A	L	U	E	More info:
		3	2	3	2	3
Tracks: 1) Josie; 2) Catch The Wind; 3) The Alamo; 4) Cuttin’ Out; 5) Car Car; 6) Keep On Truckin’; 7) Goldwatch Blues; 8) To Sing For You; 9) You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond; 10) Tangerine Puppet; 11) Donna Donna; 12) Ramblin’ Boy.
REVIEW As we all know (or, at least, can guess), physiognomy is a dangerous business — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, depending on both luck and experience, and making behavioral decisions based on one’s initial assessment of a person’s looks can be harmful to both parties concerned. When the same technique is applied to art, it results in biases that may strongly impact one’s perception of every move the artists make right after their entry into public space. After all, most people shift, evolve, mature, and grow, and often do so in unpredictable ways. Who could guess Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones based on Closing Time? Who could calculate that ‘I Can’t Explain’ would lead to Quadrophenia, while ‘Any Way You Want Me’ would lead to nowhere? Who could deduce ‘Sussudio’ from the drumming of ‘Dancing With The Moonlit Knight’?..
On the other hand, there’s probably no harm done in occasionally looking back at the initial efforts of young, idealistic performers and making pseudo-prophetic judgements on them that would agree with what we already know about their general career arches. Call it a form of retrospective debutognomy, if you wish (I can’t remember anybody committing the aesthetic crime of joining a French and a Greek root within a single word as of yet, so sign me up for the firing squad). For instance: From Genesis To Revelation by Genesis is way too overtly ambitious for an album of fairly unsophisticated mellow orchestral pop ditties, but it still shows a lot of promise because it is not trying to openly emulate anybody else, but rather attempts — poorly, but charmingly — to push forward a young band’s original vision. Who knows, maybe some day these guys will finally succeed and match their craft and professionalism with their pessimistic view of the world? The reason I’m engaging in this lengthy preamble is that, every time I put on Donovan’s first album, I am smitten by one and the same thought: «This guy is good, but there is not a single chance in Heaven or Hell that he shall ever be great». And this is not because great artists are always supposed to be great right from the start — far from it. For instance, the Kinks’ self-titled debut, on a purely competitive level, is probably more of an embarrassment than Donovan’s debut. But even if that debut did not contain ‘You Really Got Me’, even if it were all filled with second-rate covers of American rhythm and blues, I would still refrain from making a strict statement about how these guys will never ever make it into the big leagues. Why? Simply because the Kinks do what they do in their own way. They don’t want to be Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, or, God forbid, Odetta; they want to take the melodies and styles of those guys and play them the way they want to play them, or, at the moment, the way they are capable of playing them. It might suck — for the moment — but it’s the only guarantee that they might eventually arrive at their own, and nobody else’s, thing. Problematically, when Donovan Phillips Leitch emerged on the music scene in late 1964, he did not really want to be «Donovan». Sharp-tongued critics complained that he wanted to be Bob Dylan. This was only a half-truth, because he did not merely want to be Bob Dylan. He also wanted to be Woody Guthrie. He wanted to be Joan Baez. He wanted to be Leadbelly, and he wanted to be Charley Patton. In short, he wanted to be the embodiment of Americana within the cozy confines of English folk clubs. He was young, fair-faced, ambitious, diligent, hard-working, and sincerely in love with both the old folk and blues traditions and their recent reinvention in the «green pastures» of Greenwich Village. The only person he was clearly not in love with was... Donovan Leitch. And I don’t mean that in a good way (lack of a narcissistic attitude); I mean it in the «I-have-no-idea-what-this-guy-is-actually-bringing-to-the-table» way. This is by no means equivalent to saying «Donovan’s early records suck»; on the contrary, they are fairly enjoyable and certainly hold up better than, say, Chad & Jeremy, or Peter & Gordon, or any of those other nice, melancholic British boys whose moodiness ends up being the only thing you remember about their songs. Let us start with the very first single that Pye Records released on February 28, 1965: the shorter, «orchestrated» version of ‘Catch The Wind’ (as opposed to the slightly extended and less pompous version on the LP). The first thing everybody must have noticed about it (even Brian Jones, Donovan’s official «pal», publicly complained about this detail) is that it opens as a straightforward tribute to Dylan’s ‘Chimes Of Freedom’ — there is too much in common between the guitar patterns and the openings ("in the chilly hours and minutes..." = "far between sundown’s finish...") to believe that this was not an intentional borrowing. Likewise, the use of the word "wind" to finish off each verse is, of course, reminiscent of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ — also quite intentionally. What does separate Donovan from Dylan, however, is that, from the outset, Donovan is a starry-eyed romantic, without an ounce of Dylan’s cynicism or irony: "I want to be in the warm hold of your loving mind / To feel you all around me / And to take your hand, along the sand" are lines that would probably make old Zimmerman puke into Bobby Neuwirth’s jacket pockets. This sentimentality is more, I dunno, Judy Collins than Bob Dylan, and this crossing of the formal aspects of Dylan’s songwriting with a decidedly non-Dylanesque spirit is the only thing that could be called «original» for this song. Unfortunately, it’s still... not «Donovan-original». There is exactly one area in which ‘Catch The Wind’ is more sophisticated than ‘Chimes Of Freedom’, and that is in its guitar pattern — introducing Donovan’s crosspicking techniques that he originally picked up from more seasoned British folk guitar players (Keith MacLeod and Mick Softley, in particular, but there is probably some influence from big names like Davey Graham and Bert Jansch as well). ‘Catch The Wind’ already sounds as if there are two guitars playing at once, giving the song a fuller, more lilting and impressive sonic pattern; where Dylan usually had an instinct for finding a strong musical hook and pummeling it with all his might, Donovan prefers to evenly stretch his meticulousness and precision across the entire song, so much so that when he himself states that his chief influence were his guitar teachers rather than Dylan, there is certainly much truth to it, even if it’s probably never the first thing to come to your attention. But even if he did learn to play his guitar from British folksters rather than Dave Van Ronk or Odetta, the songwriting still kept using Dylan as a reference point, over and over. The B-side to ‘Catch The Wind’ was ‘Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do’, a song melodically and atmospherically reminiscent of ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ — and once again, Donovan crawls under Dylan’s throne because, unlike his idol, he simply cannot allow himself to be anywhere near as nasty. The protagonist of ‘Don’t Think Twice’ needs no fickle excuse to dump the girl and move on — she just kinda wasted his precious time, you know. The hero of ‘Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do’, on the other hand, refers to the time-honored leitmotif of his girl cheating on him ("you say you’re so young, gal, I guess that’s your big excuse"), and — horrors! — even permits the thought that maybe he might have been responsible for some of that attitude ("now, maybe I been thinkin’ wrong about you, gal / And you ain’t really the one to blame"). Three guesses as to whether it is Dylan’s or Donovan’s attitude that would be more applauded in the 21st century; and yet, in the context of 1963–65, it was Dylan who looked like the great modernizer here, whilst Donovan’s gallantry comes across as a tad old-fashioned. Well, what can I say? I still remain more partial towards a sharp-mouthed cynic with an acoustic guitar than a sweet-tongued romantic with the same. There can hardly be any doubt that the big success of ‘Catch The Wind’ both in the UK and in the US was due to the song’s Dylanism, but this may have actually annoyed Donovan a little, so that he made the follow-up, ‘Colours’, even more in the style of a traditional mellow folk ballad, something that Dylan had gotten over with already by 1962 and now lay more in the domain of beautiful ladies like Joan or Judy. It’s... kinda okay; something to divert yourself, with, perhaps, on a nice warm afternoon for a nice little picnic with your girlfriend. "Green’s the color of the sparklin’ corn in the mornin’ when we rise", that sort of thing. The B-side was ‘To Sing For You’, slowed down to, this time, match almost perfectly the typical Dylan strumming pattern, as Donovan lays out his big innovative strategy to settle all of his girlfriend’s troubles and worries: "I’ll sing a song for you / That’s what I’m here to do". At least he’s goddamn honest about it — though it does remind me, for some strange reason, of how the Bard usually remains the most despised of all possible D&D classes. In a rather cruel turn of events, it is precisely this «niceness» of attitude (some might even say «submissiveness») that probably earned Donovan the image of «Dylan’s little British lapdog» on Bob’s 1965 tour of the UK, with the master-and-servant pairing of the two later described in various memoirs and even partially documented by Pennebaker in the Don’t Look Back film. This was, after all, the peak of Dylan’s «mean asshole» period, and woe to anybody he could regard as even very minor competition in 1965; nevertheless, Donovan survived, and it is possible that the metaphorical beatings and humiliations he took from Bob and his clique taught him a serious life lesson. In any case, his first full-blown album which he had completed a couple months before the meeting did its best to show that his influences were far wider than just Dylan, though most of them still roamed somewhere in the vicinity of Greenwich Village, one way or another. The actual covers are mostly pointless, though — typical filler, whose only purpose is to pay homage to Donovan’s heroes without any new ideas thrown into the mix. Namely, he tips his hat to The Kingston Trio with ‘Remember The Alamo’ (one might wonder just how much the message of the song could mean to UK audiences); to Woody Guthrie with ‘Car Car’ ("this is for Woody", he hastily admits in the song’s opening, as if Woody could really care at this point); and to Joan Baez with his faithful interpretation of her faithful interpretation of ‘Donna Donna’. Unless you’re an admirer of the fair-haired boy’s charisma in general, there is hardly any need to bother with them. He then tries to dig a little deeper into the American heritage, covering the old rag melody of ‘Keep On Truckin’ and the equally rusty old blues ‘You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond’ (which he probably learned from Buffy Sainte-Marie rather than Blind Willie Johnson) — the latter is a bit of a stand out in that it is the only song on the album with a proper rhythm section and even an electric guitar lead melody, although at this point this was as far as he was willing to concede to the «going electric» trend (Dylan had not even released Bringing It All Back Home at the time Donovan was holding his own sessions). Strangely, the electric arrangement helps: the slightly mysterious, foreboding «hum» of the guitar tone, coupled with Donovan’s own «nasty» nasal delivery of the vocals, gives it a very mildly proto-psychedelic sheen that would later characterize many of his best songs. At the very least, of all the «extra-territorial» material he records for this album, this song is the most unique-sounding. The same cannot be said, alas, about quite a few other songs credited to Donovan himself. ‘Cuttin’ Out’ is a rather blatant rip-off of ‘St. James Infirmary’ (it even dares to begin with the same "I went down to...") with lyrics that seem to have been written in about two minutes’ time (perhaps Donovan originally just thought of covering ‘St. James Infirmary’ but changed his mind at the last moment, for some reason). ‘Ramblin’ Boy’ again rips off something by Dylan (the closest melody I can think of right now is ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’, but I’m sure there must be something else as well). ‘Josie’ is basically a sequel to ‘Colours’ (again with the frickin’ corn references!), melodically different but with the exact same lazy, nonchalant, static vibe. And ‘Goldwatch Blues’, credited to Donovan’s friend and mentor Mick Softley (who would himself only record the song as late as 1971 for his Street Singer album), introduces a little bit of social consciousness but sounds no different from gazillions of contemporary protest songs built on the musical foundations of traditional folk. Finally, Donovan’s acoustic-playing skills are best assessed on the short instrumental ‘Tangerine Puppet’, which is indeed quite pretty and shows the kind of technique that Dylan never even began to strive for; however, it still fails to distinguish Donovan from all those expert British guitar players that came before him, and there is a good reason why people still come back to Bert Jansch’s ‘Angie’ instead — that tune tells you a dynamic story, whereas ‘Tangerine Puppet’ is more like a "hey, there’s this cool picking pattern I just learned and I wanna show it to you" kind of thing. Returning to the debutognomy exercise mentioned earlier, what we can see is that Donovan sincerely loves different types of music, but has few ideas of how to enhance their potential or even bend them to his own purposes, because, essentially, he does not have any purposes other than to show how sincerely he loves different types of music. We can see that he is a nice, charming, romantic, idealistic type of person, but — as is, indeed, quite often (though not always) the case with nice, charming, romantic, idealistic types of people — that he also does not have a whole lot of depth of artistic character. We can see that his typical vibe is that of the, let’s say, young country swineherd, whose chief passion in life is weaving dandelion wreaths for his sweetheart (and corn, corn, lots of corn, green corn, yellow corn, you name it). We can see that he is a good learner, but is more interested in mastering the craft that already exists than even slightly pushing its borders in some unpredictable direction. We can consequently predict, with a certain degree of certainty, that even if he goes electric, psychedelic, progressive, or acid house (I think he would try all of these except for the latter), all of those developments will be in accordance with the current times rather than bringing on the future. And yet, there is also no denying that if you and your sweetheart are enjoying a nice, warm, sunny day in the countryside, with plenty of dandelions for wreaths in the surrounding meadows (and a little green corn to nibble on), the ghosts of ‘Catch The Wind’ and ‘Colours’ and ‘Josie’ will all be hovering somewhere nearby. Even if all of those put together are hardly worth one single ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ (in which McCartney captured the same vibe better than Donovan ever did with anything), you might, after all, need a slightly longer soundtrack than 2:48 for such a particular vibe. This is where Mr. Leitch comes to the rescue, and where even his first, formative album might still be of some use.

	FAIRYTALE
	Album released: October 22, 1965	V	A	L	U	E	More info:
		3	3	3	2	4
Tracks: 1) Colours; 2) To Try For The Sun; 3) Sunny Goodge Street; 4) Oh Deed I Do; 5) Circus Of Sour; 6) Summer Day Reflection Song; 7) Candy Man; 8) Jersey Thursday; 9) Belated Forgiveness Plea; 10) Ballad Of A Crystal Man; 11) The Little Tin Soldier; 12) Ballad Of Geraldine; 13) Universal Soldier; 14) Ballad Of A Crystal Man; 15) The War Drags On; 16) Do You Hear Me Now; 17) Turquoise; 18) Hey Gyp.
REVIEW In between May and October 1965, when Donovan’s first two albums were correspondingly released, the world has gone on to become an entirely different entity — at least, as long as popular music trends were concerned — and there are hints on Fairytale, the proverbial sophomore effort, that Donovan was ready to move on along with the world, too. But only hints, because the artist’s major debt to Dylan and to his Greenwich Village idols has not been properly paid off yet. I am not sure of exactly how many of these songs come from Donovan’s backlog and how many were actually written in the summer of ’65, but sometimes the record does give the kind of impression that he was just trying to fully offload his acoustic folk cart and close up that account before moving on to the next stage.
Possibly the biggest thing that happened to him at the time was meeting and befriending Shawn Phillips, a Texas-born guitar player who got somehow hung up in London on his way to India, soaking in the influences of the contemporary folk, jazz, and R&B scenes over in the UK. The 22-year old Phillips was already quite an accomplished player, singer, and composer of his own material — impressive enough to be signed to his own contract in London, though his records never really took off commercially — and for a while, he would complement Donovan’s little backing band with his own 12-string guitar playing, as well as occasionally providing him with a song or two of his own making (such as ‘The Little Tin Soldier’ on this album). This means a slightly fuller sound than before, at least on some of the tracks, and more openness to musical ideas beyond pure folk, although that kind of influence would arguably be seen much better once 1965 gave way to 1966, when ‘Sunshine Superman’ would replace ‘Catch The Wind’ as Donovan’s greeting card. Before the album, though, there was The Universal Soldier EP, which currently lives on as a set of bonus tracks usually appended to Fairytale: released on August 15, three months after the first US combat unit’s arrival in Vietnam and two days before the start of Operation Starlite, it was (possibly) the first ever commercially released mini-album by any UK artist explicitly and completely devoted to anti-war matters. Donovan himself only wrote one song on it (‘The Ballad Of A Crystal Man’), as the title track was a faithful cover of the Buffy Ste. Marie original and the other two were equally faithful covers of two of Donovan’s biggest UK influences, Bert Jansch and Mick Softly. It’s not a particularly great collection, but it probably mattered a lot to Mr. Leitch, whose debut album might already have wobbled under the weight of accusations of «fruitiness» — making it necessary to outbalance the naturalistic sentimentality with a bit of a tougher stance on the truly relevant issues of today. And it certainly could have been worse. ‘The Universal Soldier’, while perhaps a bit naïve like most anthems are by definition, was still a major lyrical triumph for Buffy back in 1964, though I can see why her version never became a hit, unlike Donovan’s — well, partially, of course, because Buffy was a non-trendy Native American lady where Donovan was a trendy Scottish gentleman, but also because, one must admit, Donovan played a better guitar and because his pretty vocal tone was generally less irritating on the ears than Buffy’s high-pitched crackling vibrato. In all fairness, the song does work better when the message is delivered calmly than hysterically — one of Donovan’s big virtues: regardless of whether he is trying to seduce you with a kiddie fantasy or guilt-trip you with a grand social statement, there is always a cool and humble vibe to it. At worst, it’ll send you off to dreamland, but it will never annoy you. Whatever be the real reasons here, I’m pretty sure it was Donovan’s delivery of the line "this is not the way we put an end to war" that made more people sit up and take note than Buffy’s. (Fun fact: Jan Berry of Jan & Dean’s fame was so irritated by the success of the song that he wrote ‘The Universal Coward’ in response, which, despite having exactly the opposite political message of The Beach Boys’ ‘Student Demonstration Time’ half a decade later, proves exactly the same thing — namely, that golden-haired Californian boys fare much better with girls, cars, surfboards and even transcendental meditation than they do with political ideology.) The other two covers do not improve in any way on the originals, which weren’t all that great in the first place: Softley’s ‘The War Drags On’ is way too Dylanesque, actually borrowing the chords from Bob’s ‘Masters Of War’ to truly drive its point home, and Bert Jansch’s ‘Do You Hear Me Now?’ should clearly be heard in Bert’s own version — Bert is a better guitar player and a fairly similar singer to Donovan anyway. This leaves us with the sole original, ‘Ballad Of A Crystal Man’, which would later be re-recorded for Fairytale in a slightly longer variant and with extra cello embellishments; a damn good song, that one, completely free of Dylanisms (the vocal melody is more Celtic in provenance than Appalachian, I think) and somehow managing to deliver the message of the aforementioned ‘Masters Of War’ in an entirely different poetic language. There is, in fact, a funny lyrical connection here to the Beatles’ ‘Blackbird’ (incidentally, a song written precisely when both John and Paul were in their «Donovan phase» in India) — "seagull, I don’t want your wings, I don’t want your freedom in a lie" almost feels like an anticipated retort to "blackbird... take these broken wings and learn to fly... you were only waiting for this moment to be free". In this lyrical pseudo-contest that never took place but might as well have, Donovan emerges as a clear winner — able to peer beneath the abstract concept of «freedom», abused to death by those who avoid the practice of strict definitions for vague ideas. Even so, the EP as such still feels like Donovan paying off his dues to the protest movement: had he wanted to, he could have easily spread all of these songs across his second LP, yet — with the exception of the re-recorded ‘Ballad’, probably because he had all the royalties to that one for himself — he still preferred to segregate them. After all, the LP is called Fairytale, not Mushroom Cloud or anything like that, and the opening song on it is ‘Colours’ — yes, that same old "yellow is the colour of my true love’s hair" that had already been released as a single. (Note that the American release did open with ‘Universal Soldier’ instead, which gave the entire album a totally different flavor — not because Hickory Records cared so much about social issues, but simply because the song was riding up the charts at the moment. If you can make money on anti-war protest, who’s to stop you from making money on anti-war protest?). But lightweight or not, I think there’s quite a bit of songwriting growth on Fairytale. This time, only 4 out of 12 songs are straightforward covers or arrangements of traditional numbers; and of the originals, many have gone on to become solid Donovan classics — well, as solid as a Donovan song can get, anyway. ‘To Try For The Sun’, for instance, pursues the same anthemic-inspirational goals as ‘Catch The Wind’, but with a little less pathos and a little more originality; at the very least, you cannot straightforwardly brush it off as a Dylan rip-off. It’s got a fairly standard Donovan picking pattern, and its lyrical message may be straight up naïve hippie glorification (some people want to interpret the song in terms of a homosexual relationship, which is perfectly allowable by the lyrics — "and who’s going to be the one to say it was no good what we done?" — but since Donovan himself is not gay, I don’t think it was written with that kind of theme in mind), yet I like how he’s managed to find a way to deliver the starry-eyed idealism humbly and quietly. A refrain like "I dare a man to say I’m too young / For I’m going to try for the sun" could very easily turn to cringe, but Donovan sings it just the right way — not ironically, by no means no, but... inobtrusively, shall we say. Also, ‘To Try For The Sun’ is pretty much the only potential «anthem» on the album (well, that and the fuller re-recording of ‘Ballad Of A Crystal Man’, mayhaps); the rest of the songs are even more reclusive and introspective, swinging between old-timey medieval folk imitations and modern existentialist broodings. Two typical examples of the former are ‘Belated Forgiveness Plea’ — featuring Donovan as a pilgrim returning to the ruins of his ideal paradise ("the seagulls they have gone") to the waltzy strumming of a rather uninspiring tune; and ‘Ballad Of Geraldine’ — featuring a tragic tale of unwanted pregnancy and the usual male betrayal that is, for some reason, set to the melody of Dylan’s ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’ (which is in itself, admittedly, set to the melody of ‘Blackjack Davy’). These are just two passable genre exercises that can be scrapped without much remorse. More interesting is the more modernistic stuff: ‘Jersey Thursday’, for instance, a succinct two-minute musical portrait of the beaches of Jersey Island (not even sure if Donovan himself ever went there — a pretty long way from Glasgow) whose "gulls whool wheeling spinning" directly link it to ‘Belated Forgiveness Plea’; apparently, as long as the «seagulls ’round the seashore» checkbox is checked, life still has something worth living for, even if in this rather cold and morose setting, Donovan’s "on Jersey Thursday..." refrain almost takes on the vibe of "gloomy Sunday", if you know what I mean. Even better is ‘The Summer Day Reflection Song’, two more short minutes of a somewhat hypnotic tune — it’s got a pretty fast tempo but it still feels frozen in the moment, what with Donovan’s intentionally «emotionless» delivery. It is never clear what the song is truly about, but I like to imagine that it is about the final conscious moments of a heat stroke victim, and that the true intended full title was ‘The Summer Day Reflection Song (Remember To Stay Hydrated)’. Shawn Phillips is integral to the tune’s atmosphere, contributing a mix of jazzy and raga chords to match the free-flow psychedelic feel of Donovan’s "cat’s a-smilin’ in the sun" lyrical stream. It all leads toward the most critically celebrated number on the record: ‘Sunny Goodge Street’, a song that begins as a rambling ode to yet another location — a quaint old subway station in the very heart of London — and then begins to meander all around the place, taking its lyrical inspiration from the beatniks and its musical core from contemporary jazz (hence the "listenin’ to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic" reference). It’s still Donovan, so there’s a lot of sentimentality and tenderness and idealism here, but you might argue that the corny goody-two-shoes vibes are pretty well cauterized with the post-bop tempos and the cello-meets-flute baroque-pop touches. The instrumental section, when Skip Alan subtly winds up the tempo and the flute crosses paths with Phillips’ Django Reinhardt-influenced electric guitar soloing, may not be grandly original in the overall sense, but it is still a major achievement for Donovan, who does here something very different from Dylan — you could say that ‘Sunny Goodge Street’ is the true start of the man carving his own path, since this kind of lightly jazzified folk-pop would pretty much become his staple food over the second half of the 1960s. It is also quite telling that I mainly remember the Donovan originals from Fairytale rather than the covers. Bert Jansch’s ‘Oh Deed I Do’ and Paul Bernath’s ‘Circus Of Sour’ are fairly run-of-the-mill folk ballads; ‘Candy Man’ follows in the steps of ‘You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond’ (= Donovan paying tribute to Americana without having been requested by Americana to do anything of the sort); and Shawn Phillips’ own ‘Little Tin Soldier’, well... let’s just say that, for all of the praise heaped on Shawn by the-ones-who-know, this is hardly ever going to be a true cornerstone of his legacy. This rather monotonous ballad is really only craving attention due to its intriguing lyrical tale of a silent romance between a one-legged tin soldier and a glass case ballerina... not nearly as intriguing, though, when you realize it is merely a (slightly altered) retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier tale. Unfortunately, poor old Hans never got any credits, so a lot of people must have ended up thinking that Shawn Phillips (or Donovan himself, for that matter) had a really weird imagination — instead of placing themselves in the cultural context of a 19th century Danish writer. (Not that Andersen didn’t have a pretty weird imagination himself, but at least he probably actually played with real tin soldiers in his early childhood, while Phillips and Donovan most probably did not). Anyway, screw the covers but do not disregard the originals — Fairytale is an important album not just for Donovan’s own evolution, but for the progress of the UK folk-pop scene in general. For instance, you can easily see the influence stuff like this must have had on the young Nick Drake (who, incidentally, was just buying his first acoustic guitar back in 1965), not to mention lots and lots of more minor figures on the same scene. And at the same time, you can easily see why Donovan managed to become so much more popular with this style than Nick ever could — not just because of the occasional rousing pseudo-extrovert anthem like ‘Catch The Wind’, but simply because along with the shyness and reclusiveness there comes a certain warmth and friendliness in everything he does. Unlike any given Nick Drake album, Fairytale is an LP that is not afraid of people — Donovan likes to be near people, at the very least, if not necessarily in close contact with them, and his reclusiveness never takes on a misanthropic nature. In this, he is somewhat close to Dylan, except that for Dylan, people are usually his test subjects — weird little four-limbed butterflies that he likes to pin down and study for his own amusement — while for Donovan, people are these amazing creatures who come in colours of reds and golds and yellows and make the world a better place. Unless they turn into universal soldiers and start shooting everybody, but that’s nothing that cannot really be cured with a few concerts like The Big TNT Show. Oh, and seagulls. Lots of seagulls everywhere. So let’s just wind this up with a few lines from ‘Turquoise’, Donovan’s last single from 1965 and one of the prettiest songs he wrote that year: "Your smile beams like sunlight on a gull’s wing" — oh Jesus H. Christ, not again! "Take my hand and hold it as you would a flower" — precisely, as long as people take the same care of Donovan as they would of a flower he’s going to be all right with them. "Ride easy your fairy stallion you have mounted" — not sure if he’s giving jockey advice to Perseus or hinting to his lover that he typically prefers the missionary position. "Take care who you love, my precious, he might not know" — I think he’s projecting his own insecurity here on his imaginary ideal partner. Like any good romantic Chinese, French, or German poet, Donovan sure likes his idealistic constructs — and I must say he got pretty decent with making them believable by the end of 1965.

Recording years	Main genre	Music sample
1965–2021	Folk Pop	Mellow Yellow (1966)