Green Tambourine
| "Green Tambourine" | ||||||||||
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| Single by The Lemon Pipers | ||||||||||
| from the album Green Tambourine | ||||||||||
| B-side | "No Help from Me" | |||||||||
| Released | November 1967 | |||||||||
| Format | 7-inch single | |||||||||
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| Length | 2:23 | |||||||||
| Label | Buddah | |||||||||
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| Producer(s) | Paul Leka | |||||||||
| The Lemon Pipers singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Green Tambourine" is a song about busking, written and composed by Paul Leka (who also produced it) and Shelly Pinz, that was the primary hit by the 1960s Ohio-based rock group The Lemon Pipers, as well as the title track to their debut-album Green Tambourine. The song has been credited as being one of the first bubblegum pop chart-toppers. Released towards the end of 1967, it spent 13 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 1 on February 3, 1968 and earned the group a gold record for over a million copies sold. The record remained on the chart for three months. It was also the first U.S. number-one hit for the Buddah label. The Lemon Pipers would never repeat this success, although "Rice Is Nice" and "Jelly Jungle" did make it onto the charts in 1968.
The song tells the story of a street musician pleading for someone to give him money. In exchange he offers to play his green tambourine. The song's instrumentation contains the titular tambourine as well as an electric sitar, a frequent signature of the so-called "psychedelic sound." Another hook 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 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 violin, Seymour Berman on viola, Seymour Barab and Sally Rosoff on cello.
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Wikipedia