{"id":744955,"date":"2026-07-05T17:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744955\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:27:09","slug":"one-of-the-first-psychedelic-rock-songs-ever-recorded-was-actually-a-romantic-transcontinental-message-to-an-old-flame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744955\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the First Psychedelic Rock Songs Ever Recorded Was Actually a Romantic Transcontinental Message to an Old Flame"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to get the attention of an old flame in the hopes of rekindling a spark, but Donovan might\u2019ve taken the cake for most creative and culturally significant in the summer of 1966. On July 1, the Scottish singer-songwriter released what would become one of the first notable psychedelic rock records, \u201cSunshine Superman\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Donovan didn\u2019t have genre pioneering on the brain when he wrote it. He had someone on his mind.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

Donovan Wrote \u201cSunshine Superman\u201d for an Old Flame<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In the mid-1960s, Donovan met a woman named Linda Lawrence while on the set of Ready Set Go! The pair struck up a relationship, but it was short-lived. Lawrence had recently gotten out of a relationship with The Rolling Stones\u2019 multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones. She had a baby to look after. The two parted ways. Donovan never stopped thinking about her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote \u2018Sunshine Superman\u2019 knowing she\u2019d hear the lyrics and realize I still loved her,\u201d Donovan explained in a 2016 interview with The Guardian<\/a>. \u201cI sang, \u2018It\u2019ll take time, I know it \/ but in a while \/ You\u2019re gonna be mine, I know it \/ We\u2019ll do it in style.\u2019\u201d Donovan sent out his musical message in a bottle, so to speak. But this was the 1960s, and Lawrence had moved from the United Kingdom to the United States. The musician would have to wait quite a while before knowing if she heard the song and realized he was singing about her.<\/p>\n

It took four years in total. In the late 1960s, Donovan bumped into Lawrence again after she returned to the U.K. with her American friend, Lorey. Somehow, Lorey put two and two together and realized that Donovan, the musician from whom she was renting a cottage during her visit, was Lawrence\u2019s old flame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, I don\u2019t know if Lorey was setting us up,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cBut she told Linda, \u2018I\u2019m renting a cottage. Want to see it?\u2019 I met them when they came round, and Lorey said, \u2018Oh, do you two know each other?\u2019 We were married a few weeks later and have been together ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pair Had a Full-Circle Moment Years Later<\/p>\n

Speaking to Jeff Tamarkin in 2016<\/a>, Donovan recalled a full-circle moment with Linda Lawrence, his \u201cSunshine Supergirl.\u201d The married couple was riding in the car together when Donovan noticed a song on the radio that sounded a lot like \u201cSunshine Superman\u201d. \u201cI said, \u2018Hey, listen to that. It\u2019s another band that was influenced by what we did,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Don\u2019t be stupid, Don. That is you!\u2019 It was \u2018Sunshine Superman\u2019. I was listening to it at such a low level that all I could hear was the essence of the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

From hoping Lawrence would notice his song on the radio from across the pond to her being the one to remind Donovan that it was, in fact, him singing on the radio, this psychedelic love story is certainly among the sweetest in 1960s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lore.<\/p>\n

Photo by Mirrorpix via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are many ways to get the attention of an old flame in the hopes of rekindling a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[177455,88,216,91141,2156],"class_list":["post-744955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-donovan","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-psychedelic-rock","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}