One of the First Psychedelic Rock Songs Ever Recorded Was Actually a Romantic Transcontinental Message to an Old Flame

There are many ways to get the attention of an old flame in the hopes of rekindling a spark, but Donovan might’ve 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, “Sunshine Superman”.

But Donovan didn’t have genre pioneering on the brain when he wrote it. He had someone on his mind.

Donovan Wrote “Sunshine Superman” for an Old Flame

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’ multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones. She had a baby to look after. The two parted ways. Donovan never stopped thinking about her.

“I wrote ‘Sunshine Superman’ knowing she’d hear the lyrics and realize I still loved her,” Donovan explained in a 2016 interview with The Guardian. “I sang, ‘It’ll take time, I know it / but in a while / You’re gonna be mine, I know it / We’ll do it in style.’” 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.

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’s old flame. 

“To this day, I don’t know if Lorey was setting us up,” Donovan said. “But she told Linda, ‘I’m renting a cottage. Want to see it?’ I met them when they came round, and Lorey said, ‘Oh, do you two know each other?’ We were married a few weeks later and have been together ever since.”

The Pair Had a Full-Circle Moment Years Later

Speaking to Jeff Tamarkin in 2016, Donovan recalled a full-circle moment with Linda Lawrence, his “Sunshine Supergirl.” The married couple was riding in the car together when Donovan noticed a song on the radio that sounded a lot like “Sunshine Superman”. “I said, ‘Hey, listen to that. It’s another band that was influenced by what we did,’” he said. “And she said, ‘Don’t be stupid, Don. That is you!’ It was ‘Sunshine Superman’. I was listening to it at such a low level that all I could hear was the essence of the track.”

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 ‘n’ roll lore.

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