891 Donovan “Mellow Yellow” 1966

“Leonard Cohen said that a poet finds his theme when he’s a teenager and then never
leaves it. Has that been true for you?
Donovan: Absolutely. The theme is set and all other songs are variations of the theme. From a very early age, my theme was how to rediscover the Celtic magic of the troubadour sound that leads people into the inner world where all creativity comes from.
What techniques did you use to find that inner world as a songwriter?
Donovan: Reading Jack Kerouac and hearing the word ‘Zen’ and going on to Buddhism, then rediscovering the Eastern philosophies and the word ‘meditation,’ I realized that there was an actual technique for finding the inner world that we’d lost in the West” (Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, May 2007).

Donovan “Mellow Yellow”