Song #13 Banana Skins and Incense

 

At about the age of 14 I was sitting at the back of the bus on the way home from school talking with friends about what ‘mellow yellow’ meant. I was told it meant the high you got from smoking banana skins! Ten years later Donovan, writer of the hit song, Mellow Yellow, performed at Adelaide’s Apollo Stadium. Around the same time Grateful Dead performed a concert alongside the pyramids at Giza.

This song compares aspects of the two concerts.  I’m not sure I believe this now that I come to write it, but I have always said this was the only song I had ever written that took as long to write as it takes to play it. That is, it just popped out organically as a finished product. It couldn’t have been that quick but I do remember it happened very quickly and with little effort. And I still consider it a fine song. Rare for songs to just come put like that.

And 24 year old Michael thought he was getting old … ha!

 

BANANA SKINS AND INCENSE

(Listen HERE)

Mellowing in my old age

Donovan sure had it won

Sitting up there on a bed of flowers

Apollo Stadium looks and cowers at his beauty

The critics they canned him while others they loved him

I just sat on the fence

Remembering dreams and talk about burning

Banana skins and incense

Banana skins and incense

Had a hit and got high

Got as high as a kite

I’m going to Itchycoo Park tonight

Where the Small Faces are knocking out ballads

Little tin soldiers and all

 

But life in the classroom ain’t bad

I’m viewing the wonders of Giza

Grateful Dead under a full bright moon

Jerry Garcia saying, “I’ll tell you soon what happened there”

When he knows!

The critics they weren’t there while others they loved it

I read it in Rolling Stone

And I had a dream and did some burning of

Banana skins and incense

Banana skins and incense

Had a hit and got high

Got as high as a kite

I’m putting away my strings for the night

‘Cos Itchycoo Park would be far too cold

And after all we’re getting old.

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1978)

Song #12 A Pebble in the Ocean

 

I did sing this as a song for a short time but whatever tune belonged to it has long gone. Reads more like a poem now and I was obviously trying to say something meaningful using a sustained sea metaphor. I suspect I was also being deliberately oblique trying to disguise something that I didn’t want to be too obvious but I don’t remember what it may have been 😊

 

A PEBBLE IN THE OCEAN

 

I’ll drop a pebble in the ocean

And if you’re near please just wave

Smile and be buffeted

And I’ll ride your sweet return

 

If you’d rather make a storm

Just send a warning sign

And I’ll float on over to mine

It may be choppy but it’s warm

 

Stars are like people

Both shine and lead us astray

Provide light and comfort

Through both the night and day

 

But it’s night time that storms

The peace and the calm away

When disparate lovers play

While others can only dream

 

The dark of night gives rest and solace

The dark of night disturbs the ripples

Of honest understanding

And lost misunderstanding

 

Join waves; make slaves

Remember the knave of bondage

You’re an island, part of the sea

Please just let us all be.

1978