I was in my teens when this song was played on the radio, and I could never make sense out of the lyrics–not that that wasn’t typical of the time.
Superman and Green Lantern ain’t got
Nothing on me
I can make like a turtle and that’s for
A-float in the sea.
Some of the verses look as if he had pasted a verse and a half together, or cut verses in half; and much of the lyric is repeated. It’s one of the most baffling things I heard on radio in my teens–during the “Beatle era.”
Actually, it’s:
I can make like a turtle and dive for your pearls in the sea
I always found the lyrics to be kind of creepy. The guy sounds like a stalker.
Haj
It’s just “dive for pearls in the sea” not “your pearls in the sea.”
I think that after the first couplet, “Sunshine came softly, through my window today / Could’ve tripped out easy, but I’ve changed my ways” you have a license to turn your brain off.
Donovan is firmly in the bubble-gum genre – nothing too deep in any of his songs, references to Zen koans aside. (“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain…”)
Of course, compared to more recent bubble-gum music, Donovan’s right up there with J.S. Bach.
That “Sunshine Superman” character sure wasn’t the most persuasive suitor though-- Who would make their mind up to permanently commit to someone on the basis of a promise to “blow their little mind”? Piss off, ya condescending jerk!
I like Donovan, (his tunes are so cheesy that they always cheer me up enormously,) but I wouldn’t spend any time trying to deconstruct the lyrics, as I would some of his contemporaries.
(John Lennon, for example, strikes me as a working-class James Joyce-- Subtle, witty, often profound, and possessed of some sly alchemy which transmutes a low pun into high art.)
Speaking of subtle, witty, often profound lyricists, Bob Dylan liked Donovan.
Oh my.
I don’t think so.
Bob Dylan has always been known as a ‘bad interview’ in that he says little about himself and less about others. When he reaps praise it’s Great, like saying Jimi Hendrix’ made his song ‘All along the Watchtower’ his own.
Dylan never heaped an such praise on Roger Mcguinn - Richenbacher player extradinaire - for ‘Hey Mr. Tambourine Man’
From an interview (back to Donovan)
Q: What about Donovan?
Dylan: I like everybody. I don’t want to be petty.
Q: A word for your fans?
Dylan: The lamppost leans on folded arms…
Q: What do you think of the new Bob Dylan?
Dylan: What’s your name?
Q: Dave Mopert.
Dylan: Okay, what would you think if someone asked you, “What do you think of the new Dave Mopert?” “What new Dave Mopert?”?
Q: Is Joan Baez still relevant?
Dylan: She’s one of the most relevant people I know.
Q: Do you feel you’re living a real life?
Dylan: What’s that mean? If I’m not living it, who is? And if I’m not, who’s life am I living? Who’s living mine? What’s that?
Q: Do you feel you belong to your public now?
Dylan: No. I don’t have any responsibility to the people who are hung up on me. I’m only responsible for what I create – I didn’t create them.
Q: Has your success infringed ion your personal life?
Dylan: What personal life? Hey, I have none.
http://ilovemuggsy.tripod.com/BobDylan/id12.html
My favourite album by Bob Dylan is his first in 1962. Here’s a snip from ‘Talkin’ New York’
Wintertime in New York town,
The wind blowin’ snow around.
Walk around with nowhere to go,
Somebody could freeze right to the bone.
I froze right to the bone.
New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years;
I didn’t feel so cold then.
I swung on to my old guitar,
Grabbed hold of a subway car,
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride,
I landed up on the downtown side;
Greenwich Village.
I walked down there and ended up
In one of them coffee-houses on the block.
Got on the stage to sing and play,
Man there said, “Come back some other day,
You sound like a hillbilly;
We want folk singer here.”
Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play,
Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day.
I blowed inside out and upside down.
The man there said he loved m’ sound,
He was ravin’ about how he loved m’ sound;
Dollar a day’s worth.
Aargh - I’ve hijacked a fine Donovan thread!
I do like his stuff - and can ‘do’ his voice on songs like “Sunshine Superman”, “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Mellow Yellow”
Something I did not know is revealed at the bottom of this link:
http://www.classicbands.com/donovan.html
CLASSIC TRIVIA:
George Harrison played lead guitar on “Sunshine Superman”.
Cool. 
Corbomite, the interview you quoted hardly disputes my statement that Dylan liked Donovan; if anything, it supports it.
And Paul McCartny sang backup on “Mellow Yellow,” as that page also reveals.
Dylan aside, and there is a classic put-down confrontation in the “Don’t Look Back” documentary, Donovan was well thought of in Britain in the 60s. He was out of the folk rock tradition and handled both folk and folk rock extremely well. This is the first I’ve heard of him being called bubble gum. I can’t believe that anybody who remembers 60s bubble gum can make that statement. Some of it still haunts me.
His Greatest Hits album is one of the great albums of the 60s. Beautiful songs, enjoyable lyrics, and some great imagery.
Quite rightly!
Q
Regarding Dylan’s “Talkin’ NY Blues:” he mispronounces the name of New York’s countercultural neighborhood as “Green-witch” Village.
He also references Woody Guthrie in a later verse: “A very great man once said that some folks’ll rob you with a fountain pen…” This being a reference to Guthrie’s song “Pretty Boy Floyd” and the lyric “some folks’ll rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.”
I find the most puzzling Donovan song to be “Epistle to Dippy.” Combine already bizarre psychedelic lyrics with that Scottish accent and, yes folks, we have a winner in unintelligibility!