Psychedelic rock didn’t end in one fell swoop. It took years for this hazy trend to drop out of fashion. But by the early ’70s, rockers had pretty much moved on to the new horizons of soft, prog, and funkified rock. This made the final years of the ’60s a last gasp for psychedelia. Below, revisit three songs from 1967 that marked psychedelic rock’s final bow.
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“Strawberry Fields Forever” (The Beatles)
The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a perfect psychedelic track. What’s the point in trying to follow up perfection? This Beatles hit didn’t end the psychedelic movement, but it was one of the final great songs in this vein.
The unsettling melotron and the nonsensical lyrics were psychedelic gems. Every rocker who claimed to be a part of this movement dreamed of penning a song like this. The Beatles flexed their inventive chops with this 1967 release, sending psychedelic rock out with a bang.
“See Emily Play” (Pink Floyd)
“See Emily Play” is one of Pink Floyd’s more subdued tracks. There’s an earworm melody chorus that listeners can sing along to, which is more than can be said for many of their more experimental, off-kilter hits. Yet, this song is peak psychedelic rock, perfectly encapsulating the sub-genre’s hallmarks.
This song still has the surrealism that Pink Floyd thrived on, but it’s a little more accessible than many of their calling cards. The band gave psychedelia one of its final major moments with “See Emily Play.”
“She’s A Rainbow” (The Rolling Stones)
“She’s A Rainbow” is one of The Rolling Stones’ most beloved tracks. It’s a kaleidoscopic vignette of a woman (whose identity is the subject of many theories) who embodies the psychedelic movement.
She comes in colors ev’rywhere / She combs her hair / She’s like a rainbow, the band sings in the chorus. The lyrics have the perfect amount of weird to make this song a psychedelic staple. Songs in this movement can’t be iron-clad in their logic. Something has to feel a tad off. The Stones managed to toe the line between oddball lyrics and an endlessly catchy song with “She’s A Rainbow.”
(Photo by Hiro/Courtesy of Interscope/UMe)
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