Donovan//Museum

I love Donovan. He's so Scottish. He's so mod. Love him, love him. Picking just one Donovan song to put on OSS is a challenge that has come up for me a few times already in the last year, and so, instead I just tend to defer and write about some other artist.

As Pat reminded me last week, every single song on that Greatest Hits collection actually IS a greatest hit, rare for this type of collection. "Season of the Witch" was a teenage favorite, but oh my god, "Wear Your Love Like Heaven," "Hurdy Gurdy Man," "Epistle to Dippy," "Sunshine Superman," the list goes on...
I will always remember the period of time when some of my friends and I got fixated on the line, "Elevator to the brain hotel/Broken down but just as well" and the hallucinogen-fueled episode from which this line must have originated. Donovan, you crazy.

Luckily, today my Donovan quandary was solved for me (and you) by circumstance. A. and I had this longstanding plan to play hooky from life and have a picnic on Governor's Island, since she's about to be out of town for a while. Also, I really want to see the Creative Time installation. Well, turns out that not only is Gov's Island not open to the public during the week, but it was also pouring (AGAIN!). Backup plan: Natural History Museum! Queue this song being stuck in my head, literally, all day.

Here's what we really liked: The Carbon Cycle, The Dinosaur Room (a childhood favorite) and The Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, where A. got lots of information about her favorite ancient Homo Sapian relative, the Neanderthal. We didn't actually get to The Whale this time around, but I have fond memories from previous NHM jaunts.

In this song, Donovan is asked by some girl to meet her under The Whale. I hope he did that, because that girl had to be awesome with a request like that. Donovan also ties into the previous post, as he was totally ridiculed by Dylan in D.A. Pennebaker's infamous '67 handheld tour documentary, Don't Look Back. You feel so bad for poor little Donovan as Dylan weirdly challenges him to a song-off, and he definitely loses.



Museum.mp3

I drank sweet wine for breakfast, I slept about an hour or so,
Smiled a little in the silence deciding on where to go.
"Meet me under the whale in the Natural History Museum,"
I think that's what she said, a little bit sad about having to leave them.