LAST LISTENED TO over a year ago
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT tiny
RATING
This is a rather fun piece of nonsensical psychedelic-pop from '67 that happily contains several levels of amusement. Firstly, there are the lyrics. For example:
Someone painted April Fool in big black letters on a Dead End sign
I had my foot on the gas as I left the road and blew out my mind
Eight miles outta Memphis and I got no spare
Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
What? That doesn't make any kind of sense.
Now consider the second point, which goes some way to explaining the lunacy of the lyrics: the song was written by a bunch of guys who never had and never would have any psychedelic experience. They were a bunch of straight-laced white guys with a record contract who jumped on the psychedelic wagon, sorry, bus to make this pop hit.
Thirdly, and most amusingly, First Edition were one of the early points on country white-beard Kenny Rogers long walk to fame.
All in all, Just Walked In… is clearly bogus psychedelia. It is psych for people who either don't like it or don't understand it, in much the same was that Play That Funky Music White Boy is for funk. However for completely inexplicable reasons i quite like it (unlike Play That… which makes me incredibly cross). Maybe i should check my condition. Hmm…
2 comments:
The song was written by Mickey Newbury, who likely did have experience.
First, the song was NOT written by a bunch of white guys. It was written by legendary songwriter Mickey Newbury. There is a story behind that song that I heard Mickey Newbury tell once in a concert.
"I Just Dropped in" is probably the only psychedelic country song ever written and it isn't any surprise that Mickey Newbury would be the guy to write it. He always defied expectations from the record companies. He said that when he first played the song for one of the execs at his label, the guy just stared at him as if he were from Mars.
Newbury said, "I wrote this song one night after waking up in hell." In the 60s, when he was still a struggling songwriter and performer, he frequently didn't have enough gas money to make a gig in another town. When that happened, he would jump a freight train car and ride for free. One day in Houston, while jumping into a freight car, he slipped, fell on the tracks and broke his back. When he came to in the hospital, it was the middle of the night and he was in excruciating pain even though they had given him large doses of pain killers. They didn't stop the pain, they just induced horrible dreams and hallucinations on top of everything else. "Just Dropped In" was the result of that terrible night.
Puts a whole new "spin" on that record, doesn't it?
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