You know that feeling when the sun goes down a little too early in October and the wind starts rattling the windowpane? That’s the exact sonic space Donovan Leitch occupied in 1966. Most people think of him as the "Mellow Yellow" guy or the starry-eyed hippie singing about Atlantis, but Season of the Witch by Donovan is something else entirely. It’s dark. It’s paranoid. It’s arguably the moment when the "Summer of Love" started to rot before it even fully bloomed.
It’s a weird track.
Recorded in Los Angeles rather than London, it ditched the acoustic folk-pop vibes of his earlier work for something grittier. You’ve got this hypnotic, two-chord progression that just circles the drain. It doesn’t resolve. It just stays there, vibrating with anxiety.
The Sound of 1966 Shifting Gears
By the time Donovan headed to CBS Studios in Hollywood to record the Sunshine Superman album, the music world was fracturing. The Beatles were getting weird with Revolver. The Velvet Underground were lurking in NYC.
But Donovan? He was working with Mickie Most and a young session musician named Jimmy Page. Yeah, that Jimmy Page. While there’s been some historical debate over the years about whether Page or Big Jim Sullivan played that iconic, scratchy guitar part, the DNA of Led Zeppelin’s heavy blues is all over the atmosphere.
The song is built on a foundation of "spooky." It’s not a horror movie soundtrack; it’s more like a psychological thriller. You’ve got Bobby Ray on bass and "Fast" Eddie Hoh on drums creating this slouching, heavy groove. It’s a far cry from "Catch the Wind."
Why the lyrics feel so paranoid
"When I look out my window / Many sights to see."
Sounds innocent enough, right? Wrong. Donovan isn't looking at birds and flowers. He’s looking at "step-down" people and the strange, shifting identity of the mid-60s counterculture. There’s this recurring theme of masks and phoniness. Honestly, the song feels like a bad trip. It’s the sound of looking at your friends and realizing you don’t actually know who they are.
He’s singing about the "Season of the Witch," but he’s not talking about actual Wicca or broomsticks. He’s talking about a vibe. A shift in the wind. A realization that the peace-and-love movement had a shadowy underbelly.
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It’s frantic.
During the "pick up loves" bridge, his voice gets strained. He’s almost shouting. It’s a massive departure from the breathy, gentle delivery fans expected from him. He was only 20 years old when he wrote this, but he sounded like he’d seen things that made him very, very tired.
The Epic Production of Sunshine Superman
The album itself was delayed for months because of a messy contractual dispute between Pye Records and CBS. By the time Season of the Witch by Donovan actually hit ears in the U.S. in August 1966 (and much later in the UK), the world was ready for it.
The track clocks in at nearly five minutes. In 1966, that was an eternity. Most pop songs were tight two-minute packages designed for AM radio. Donovan and Mickie Most let this one breathe. They let it fester.
The arrangement is sparse.
- The drumming is slightly behind the beat, giving it a "drugged" feel.
- The organ swells act like fog rolling in.
- The guitar scratches at the speakers like a fingernail.
It's actually a masterclass in tension. There is no release. The song ends basically where it started, trapped in that circular riff. It’s the musical equivalent of a cat chasing its tail in a dark room.
From Donovan to Lana Del Rey: The Song’s Long Life
If a song is truly great, it becomes a shapeshifter. This track has been covered by everyone and their mother.
Al Kooper and Stephen Stills did a legendary version on Super Session in 1968. They turned it into an eleven-minute jam that basically defined the "heavy" blues-rock sound of the late sixties. It’s sprawling and indulgent, but it works because the core of the song is so sturdy.
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Then you have the 2019 Lana Del Rey cover for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
Lana was born to cover this song. She leaned into the "witchy" aesthetic that Donovan only hinted at. Her version is polished, cinematic, and dripping with modern noir. It introduced the track to a whole new generation of kids who probably think Donovan is just a name on a vintage t-shirt.
But it’s also been in everything from Curb Your Enthusiasm (strangely enough) to Britannia. Why? Because it communicates "something is wrong" better than almost any other song in the rock canon. It’s a shortcut for directors who want to tell the audience that the protagonist is losing their mind or that the town has a dark secret.
The Misconception of the "Folksinger"
People love to put Donovan in a box. They call him "The British Dylan."
That’s a lazy take.
Dylan was a poet and a protestor. Donovan was a mystic and an experimentalist. While Dylan was going electric and shouting at his audience, Donovan was in the studio blending jazz, folk, Indian ragas, and psychedelic rock. Season of the Witch by Donovan is the ultimate proof that he wasn't just a folkie with a guitar. He was an architect of the psychedelic sound.
He was using the studio as an instrument before it was cool.
The Cultural Weight of the "Witch"
It’s worth looking at the timing. 1966 was the year Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan. It was the year of the "Paul is Dead" rumors. There was a weird, occult energy bubbling under the surface of the "Swinging Sixties."
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Donovan tapped into that.
Whether he meant to or not, he captured the moment the dream started to sour. It’s the "Helter Skelter" before "Helter Skelter." It’s the sound of the shadows getting longer.
When he sings about "looking over my shoulder," he’s speaking for a generation that was starting to feel the heat from the establishment. The drug busts were starting. The Vietnam War was escalating. The "witch" wasn't a lady in a hat; it was the looming sense of dread that the party was about to be crashed by reality.
Practical Ways to Experience the Track Today
If you want to actually "get" this song, don't just listen to it on tinny smartphone speakers while doing dishes.
- Find the original mono mix. The stereo mix is fine, but the mono version has a punch and a claustrophobic density that makes the paranoia feel way more real.
- Listen to it alongside "Hurdy Gurdy Man." These are the two pillars of Donovan’s "dark" period. They show a side of the 60s that often gets edited out of the documentaries.
- Watch the live versions from the 70s. Donovan would often extend the song into these long, rambling stories. It shows how much the song meant to him as a piece of performance art, not just a radio hit.
- Check out the Luna cover. It's a 90s indie-rock take that strips away the psych-rock and makes it feel like a cold, rainy night in NYC.
The legacy of the song isn't just in the notes. It's in the way it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable. It’s a rare piece of pop music that manages to be catchy and unsettling at the exact same time.
Donovan might have been the "Sunshine Superman," but he knew better than anyone that you can't have sunshine without creating some pretty deep shadows. The Season of the Witch by Donovan is where those shadows live.
To really dive into the history of this era, check out Donovan’s autobiography, The Hurdy Gurdy Man. He goes into detail about the L.A. sessions and what it was like being at the center of the hurricane. You’ll realize pretty quickly that the song wasn't a fluke—it was a snapshot of a very specific, very strange moment in time.
Next time you're putting together a playlist for a late-night drive, put this on. Just don't be surprised if you start checking your rearview mirror a little more often than usual.
Actionable Insights:
- Audio Quality Matters: To hear the intricate bass work by Bobby Ray, listen to a high-fidelity FLAC or vinyl pressing; the low-end frequencies are what drive the "unsettling" feeling of the track.
- Contextual Listening: Pair this track with The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" and The Doors' "The End" to understand the 1966-1967 shift from pop-rock to "Dark Psychedelia."
- Historical Deep Dive: Research the 1966 drug bust of Donovan—the first high-profile pop star bust in the UK—which heavily influenced the "over my shoulder" paranoia found in the lyrics.