"Green Tambourine" is a song written and composed by

Paul Leka Paul Leka (February 20, 1943 – October 12, 2011) was an American songwriter, record producer, pianist, arranger, and orchestrator, most notable for co-writing the 1960s hits " Green Tambourine" and "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", the latter of ...

(who also produced it) and Shelley Pinz. It was the biggest hit by the 1960s

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

-based rock group

the Lemon Pipers The Lemon Pipers were a 1960s American psychedelic rock band from Oxford, Ohio, United States, known chiefly for their song " Green Tambourine", which reached No. 1 in the United States in 1968. The song has been credited as being the first bub ...

, as well as the title track of their debut album, '' Green Tambourine.'' The song was one of the first

psychedelic pop Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included "trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...

chart-toppers and became a gold record. Released toward the end of 1967, it spent 13 weeks on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100, peaking at No. 1 on February 3, 1968,Hot 100 - The Lemon Pipers Green Tambourine Chart History
''Billboard.com''. Retrieved March 28, 2018. and sold over a million copies. The record remained on the chart for three months.Nite, Norm N. and Newman, Ralph M.: ''ROCK ON: The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Rock N' Roll: Thomas Y. Crowell: 1978. p 276. It was also the first U.S. No. 1 hit for the Buddah label. The Lemon Pipers never repeated this success, though their "Rice Is Nice" and "Jelly Jungle", both also written by Leka and Pinz, made the charts in 1968.

Song and recording

The song's lyricist, Rochelle "Shelley" Pinz (1943–2004) was a writer at the

Brill Building The Brill Building is an office building at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood. It was built in 1931 as t ...

, working with Leka. She said:

In early Spring, 1966, while standing in front of the Brill Building I watched a man holding a tambourine begging for money. I wrote a poem about him and called the poem 'Green Tambourine.' I added it to my lyric collection ... Sometimes I wonder what happened to the man in front of the Brill Building, holding a tambourine begging for money. I remember writing the lyric, 'watch the jingle jangle start to shine, reflections of the music that is mine. When you toss a coin you'll hear it sing. Now listen while I play my Green Tambourine' as if it were yesterday..; in the 60s, on the streets between Seventh Avenue and Broadway there was a magic one could only imagine.

The song tells the story of a

street musician Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is pra ...

pleading for someone to give him money. In exchange he offers to play his green

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

. The song's instrumentation contains the titular tambourine as well as an

electric sitar An electric sitar is a type of electric guitar designed to mimic the sound of the sitar, a traditional musical instrument of India. Depending on the manufacturer and model, these instruments bear varying degrees of resemblance to the traditiona ...

, a frequent signature of the so-called " psychedelic sound". Another

hook A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. In a number of uses, one e ...

is the heavy, psychedelic tape echo applied to the word "play" in each chorus and at the end, fading into a drumroll ("Listen while I play ''play play play play play play'' my green tambourine"). The echo is noticeably different in the mono and stereo mixes. The mono version also starts fading out slightly earlier than in the stereo version. The musical arrangement also features sweeping orchestrated strings and the distinctive

vibraslap The vibraslap is a percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire (bent into a U-shape) connecting a wooden ball to a hollow box of wood with metal “teeth” inside. The percussionist holds the metal wire in one hand and strikes th ...

percussion instrument. While the Lemon Pipers played on the record, producer and joint author-composer Leka hired a string section to accompany the band, to add extra depth to the already psychedelic arrangement. The string section consisted of Elliot Rosoff, David Sackson, Irving Spice, Louise Stone, Louis Gaborwitz, and Deborah Idol on violins; Seymour Berman on viola; and Seymour Barab and Sally Rosoff on cellos. The single's B-side, "No Help from Me," featured lead vocal by keyboardist Bob Nave and did not appear on either of the group's two albums.

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Personnel

* Ivan Browne – lead vocals, rhythm guitar * Bill Bartlett –

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...

* R. G. Nave – organ,

, fog horn, toys * Steve Walmsley – bass * Bill Albaugh – drums

Additional personnel

*Irv Spice Strings – string section * Ken Hamann (incorrectly credited on original album pressings as "Kenny ''Hammond''") – engineer (

Cleveland Recording Company Cleveland Recording Company was a historic recording studio located in the Carnegie Hall building at 1220 Huron Road in Cleveland, Ohio. The studio produced many hit records in the 1960s and 1970s by artists such as James Gang and Grand Funk Railr ...

) * Bill Radice – engineer (New York)

Cover versions

In 1968, an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...

version was released by Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra on the album ''Love Is Blue'', and as a single. Welk's version reached No. 27 on '' Billboard''s

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

chart, No. 21 on '' Record World''s "Top Non-Rock" chart, and No. 11 on ''Record World''s chart of "Singles Coming Up".

Mrs. Miller Elva Ruby Miller (October 5, 1907 – July 5, 1997), who recorded under the name "Mrs. Miller", was an American singer who gained some fame in the 1960s, for her series of shrill and off-tempo renditions of popular songs such as "Moon River ...

covered the song on her 1968 album ''Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing.'' The Status Quo covered the song on their 1968 debut album '' Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo.'' UK band Sun Dragon recorded a very similar version in 1968 for the

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

label. The Peppermint Rainbow covered the song on their 1969 album ''Will You Be Staying After Sunday''. Leka used the backing track of the Lemon Pipers' hit on this recording. In 1990, the Associates released a cover version as the B-side of their "Fire to Ice" single.

Tripping Daisy Tripping Daisy is a neo-psychedelic pop rock band that was formed in Dallas, Texas, by lead singer/guitarist Tim DeLaughter in 1990 along with Jeff Bouck (drums), Wes Berggren (guitar) and Mark Pirro (bass). The group disbanded in 1999 foll ...

covered the song on their 1992 debut album, '' Bill'' (The Dragon Street release). Robert Goulet covered the song for the 2001 film '' Recess: School's Out'', providing the singing voice for the character Mikey, releasing it as a single from the film soundtrack of the same name.

Ebert, Roger Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

(2002).
Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2003
',

Andrews McMeel Publishing Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC (formerly Andrews, McMeel and Parker (1975–1986) and Andrews and McMeel (1986–1997)) is a company that publishes books, calendars, and related toys. It is a part of Andrews McMeel Universal (which comprises AM ...

. p. 494. Retrieved April 24, 2018.

In popular culture

* The song was featured in a TV commercial for the

Plymouth Road Runner The Plymouth Road Runner is a mid-size car with a focus on performance built by Plymouth in the United States between 1968 and 1980. By 1968, some of the original muscle cars were moving away from their roots as relatively cheap, fast cars as t ...

in 1970. * Actor

Billy Bob Thornton Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, filmmaker and musician. He had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller ''One False Move'', and received international attention after writing, directing, a ...

's character of Lorne Malvo plays the song at the beginning of Episode 9, "A Fox, a Rabbit, and a Cabbage," of '' Fargo,'' adapted from the Coen Brothers' 1996 movie. * The song is featured in the end credits of the Disney animated film '' Recess: School's Out'', sung by Robert Goulet.

References

External links

Lyrics of this song
* {{authority control 1967 singles Status Quo (band) songs Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Cashbox number-one singles RPM Top Singles number-one singles American psychedelic rock songs Songs about music Songs about musicians Songs about musical instruments Songs written by Paul Leka 1967 songs Song recordings produced by Paul Leka The Associates (band) songs Bubblegum pop songs