Psychedelic Laundromat II – Part 2

Raised on science fiction, horror, and fantasy literature, comic books, and movies, ‘60s psychedelic artists brought unbridled imagination into popular music and influenced lots of young people- including the Jean. By the late ‘60s and early ‘70s the sounds, colors, and themes of psychedelic music had gone mainstream and as a kid in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s many of my favorite TV shows (mostly ‘60s and ‘70s reruns) were pretty psychedelic (especially H.R. Pufnstuf which featured the terrifying Witchiepoo) and these psychedelic sounds and images make up a good part of my earliest childhood memories.

While I usually find British psychedelic music much stranger than American, both reflect the effects of taking LSD- a powerful hallucinogenic drug which remained legal in both countries for years. LSD trips (also known as “acid trips”) can be positive, negative or both and may include insight, pleasure, and hallucinations as well as intense anxiety, feelings of depersonalization, and distortions of time and space perception. While people use words like weird and trippy to describe psychedelic music to me the best of it is just plain groovy and brings back pleasant childhood memories of sunny days.

Roky Erickson

Those looking for any meaning in psychedelic music may find more questions than answers but if you’re just looking for fun, imaginative music then you could do much worse than psychedelic which to me still sounds great some 50 years later- and I’m not even on LSD. I just dig music and those artists who are willing to explore new sounds, seek truth, and observe our shared reality and human experience from new perspectives. Here are some (more) of my favorite psychedelic songs. Enjoy!

Spirit

01. The Association – “Along Comes Mary” (1966)
02. Tomorrow – “My White Bicycle” (1967)
03. The Association – “Everything That Touches You” (1968)
04. Donovan – “The Trip” (1966)
05. The Rolling Stones – “2000 Man” (1967)
06. Pink Floyd – “See Emily Play” (1967)
07. The Turtles – “She Always Leaves Me Laughing” (1969)
08. Status Quo – “Pictures of Matchstick Men” (1968)
09. Count Five – “Psychotic Reaction” (1966)
10. Spirit – “Nature’s Way” (1970)
11. The Byrds – “I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider)” (1966)
12. Roky Erickson – “I Walked with a Zombie (Live)” (1979)
13. The Byrds – “5D (Fifth Dimension)” (1966)
14. The Rolling Stones – “Yesterday’s Papers” (1967)
15. The Turtles – “You Don’t Have to Walk in the Rain” (1969)
16. The Byrds – “Eight Miles High” (1966)
17. The Byrds – “What’s Happening?” (1966)
18. The Turtles – “Hot Little Hands” (1969)
19. The Byrds – “Captain Soul” (1969)
20. Spirit – “I Got a Line on You” (1968)
21. The Rolling Stones – “Connection” (1967)
22. The Turtles – “Too Young to Be One” (1967)
23. Neon Philharmonic – “Morning Girl” (1969)
24. The Turtles – “Like the Seasons” (1967)
25. The Turtles – “There You Sit Lonely” (1969)
26. The Turtles – “You Know What I Mean” (1967)

Witchiepoo

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Rock Goes Psychedelic