It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan

September 6, 1966
“Sunshine Superman” by Donovan
#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, September 3-9, 1966

When Donovan and producer Mickie Most cut “Sunshine Superman” in December 1965, psychedelic rock wasn’t yet a genre. At the time, Donovan was famous for being an acoustic guitar-strumming folkie, accused of being a featherweight Dylan copycat. With “Sunshine Superman,” Donovan had a record that wouldn’t just transform his image, but which sounded like nothing else on the radio, packed with Eastern percussion, searing guitar riffs, and a spirit of cheery experimentation, both musical and medicinal.

Unfortunately, the recording of “Sunshine Superman” coincided with Donovan entering a new production deal with Most and Allen Klein, spurring legal issues between Donovan’s UK and US record labels. Half a year passed between the recording of “Sunshine Superman” and its American release. Another half a year passed before the single came out in Donovan’s native Britain. Within those 12 months, the concept of mainstream pop that reflected the psychedelic experience had transformed from obscurity to full-blown trend. The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” though recorded after “Sunshine Superman,” beat Donovan’s single to the charts and earned the title of first psych-rock hit.

But even if legal hassles kept “Sunshine Superman” from being the bolt out the blue that Donovan had anticipated, nevertheless it has a freshness that keeps it from sounding like rote psychedelia. The collage of classical Indian instrumentation, Baroque-era harpsichord and electric guitars isn’t merely the product of checking boxes on a psych-rock template.

Instead, this impossible soundscape untethers the song from any definable time or place, situating the song somewhere found only in the imagination. This detachment from reality is aided by the shifting bass, continually knocking the record off balance, and by the disguised instrumentation: the conga subbing for a tabla, or, in the song’s greatest hook, the swerving electric guitar sting masquerading as sitar or even siren.

The delayed release of “Sunshine Superman” might have even served to its benefit. Its title made the song as fitting a warm weather #1 hit as “Summer in the City,” albeit one that presents an idealized acid dream of beaches and sunsets rather than the Lovin’ Spoonful’s noisy, grimy realism. In addition, its mid-1966 release placed it in context with psych-leaning records by bigger, more musically progressive acts like the Beatles and the Byrds.

In the US, Donovan had previously only notched a few minor hits with the earnest folk of “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier.” “Sunshine Superman” singlehandedly raised his American profile and transformed his persona from denim-capped balladeer to fey, benevolent mystic.

On top of the eclectic production and rainbow-and-velvet-strewn imagery, Donovan’s jazzy phrasing adds a newfound bit of swagger to his delicate tenor, as befitting the refrain “’cause I made my mind up/ you’re going to be mine” – though Donovan’s inherent gentleness makes it more of a mischievous tease than a Jaggeresque leer.

Most’s production is brisk and breezy in keeping with the song’s carefree spirit but grounded enough to avoid either the ponderousness or overt whimsy that would often come to mark psychedelia, particularly as the decade progressed.

As significant as “Sunshine Superman” was to Donovan’s career, however, it ended up being even more of a turning point for two of the musicians who played on the record: bassist John Paul Jones and guitarist Jimmy Page. Both were prolific session musicians on the London scene, but the recording of “Sunshine Superman” is generally acknowledged as when the pair met.

Page and Jones soon teamed up for “Beck’s Bolero” in May 1966, backing Jeff Beck, Page’s bandmate in the Yardbirds. Jones contributed to other Yardbirds recordings, including the hit “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,” before the band dissolved in 1968. During the sessions for Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man album, Jones asked Page if he needed a bassist for his next project; he did. Joined by singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham, the quartet set out on tour as the New Yardbirds. By the end of the year, the band had rechristened itself Led Zeppelin. 

While “Sunshine Superman” represented a fresh start for its singer and an inspired example of its burgeoning genre, it also contained the seeds of the future sound that would render both obsolete.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.

Sally O'Rourke

Sally O’Rourke works in an office and sometimes writes about music. She blogs about every song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 (in order) at No Hard Chords. She has also contributed to The Singles Jukebox, One Week // One Band, and PopMatters. Special interests include girl groups, soul pop, and over-analyzing chord changes and lyrics as if deciphering a secret code. She was born in Baton Rouge and lives in Manhattan. Her favorite Nugget is “Liar, Liar” by The Castaways.