Avg rating:
Your rating:
Total ratings: 1842
Length: 2:43
Plays (last 30 days): 0
To rest my eyes in shades of green
Under dreaming spires
To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been
''(What did you do there?)'' I got high
''(What did you feel there?)'' Well, I cried
''(But why the tears there?)'' Tell you why
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun
I'll tell you what I'll do ''(What will you do?)''
I'd like to go there now with you
You can miss out school ''(Won't that be cool?)''
Why go to learn the words of fools?
''(What will we do there?)'' We'll get high
''(What will we touch there?)'' We'll touch the sky
''(But why the tears there?)'' I'll tell you why
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
Ha
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
Reminds me of my first 2nd shift job working in a glass plant.
They played great music & that was back in the early 80s
Itchycoo Park...why ask why...but who came up with that? must be a 'great story' there somewhere (am not going to google it for fear of getting on some feminine hygiene website's potential contact list)
Wikipedia sez: Inspiration
The song was first conceived and largely written by Ronnie Lane, who had been reading a leaflet on the virtues of Oxford which mentioned its dreaming spires.[12]
A number of sources claim the song's name is derived from the nickname of Little Ilford Park, on Church Road in the London suburb of Manor Park, where Small Faces' singer and songwriter Steve Marriott grew up. The "itchycoo" nickname is, in turn, attributed to the stinging nettles which grew there. Other sources cite nearby Wanstead Flats (Manor Park end) as the inspiration for the song.[13]
Photo of Wanstead Flats, London E12 near Marriott's Manor Park homeMarriott and Small Faces manager Tony Calder came up with the well-known story when Marriott was told the BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references, Calder confirms:
We scammed the story together, we told the BBC that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids – we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off.[14]
Ronnie Lane said of the true location of Itchycoo Park: "It's a place we used to go to in Ilford years ago. Some bloke we know suggested it to us because it's full of nettles and you keep scratching actually".[15]
But Itchycoo Park was in East London, UK, where the band grew up.
I've always interpreted the start of the song to mean they're being released, metaphorically, from prison* to go be free and trip in the park.
* School, work, East London, the mundane, etc.
The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice, Italy. It leads to a prison. Or used to.
But Itchycoo Park was in East London, UK, where the band grew up.
Yep but never mind the acid, one COULD go IN a park in the 60s...
Bridge of Sighs, Cambridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
Nope. Toni Fisher's song The Big Hurt in 1959 had it!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIukZsRS5r8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
not sure about that, "flanging" was a word John Lennon made up, it was his shorthand for the process
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
Whoa. Love that tech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
had NO clue what this song was about....
https://www.sourceaudio.net/blog/post/the-top-10-greatest-flange-effect-recordings-of-all-time/
well except for Beatles and Motown and Stax
Yup takes me right back to childhood and listening to songs like this via the elders transistor radios
well except for Beatles and Motown and Stax
please keep running with the oldies. makes me so happy!
had NO clue what this song was about....
Anybody else?
Geecheeboy wrote:
Getting the lyrics was often quite a challenge. I suppose it drove some percentage of sales, hoping for lyrics in the liner notes? I puzzled and pondered the lyrics of many songs. The Internet now reveals mysteries. : )
It's easy....drop acid, go to the park, feed ducks....ha ha. I've done it many times myself......way cool!
Try MacArthur's Park, from same era!
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
What doesn't?
Businessgypsy wrote:
No, but a flux capacitor would help.
Cynaera wrote:
Ha, just saw this today. Hope you're having fun in the next adventure, sweet lady! The rest of us will be along in dribs and drabs.
Great song from my youth. Evokes memories.
I know exactly what you mean.
Sounding really great today, RP, Thanks!
But not this one. Itchycoo Park still has "the magic". Curiouser and curiouser...
Many different people could have: Lewis Carroll, e.e. cummings, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl? In this case, it was probably Steve Marriott.
Don't know "who" but this is where:
https://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question27896.html
The Itchycoo Park in the song is actually University Parks in Oxford. The Small Faces were sent to stay in a hotel in Oxford to get them away from the London scene and supposedly concentrate on writing more songs. They got very stoned and wandered around the park on one particular day, and that's where the song came from. (From a 'Story Behind The Song' article in Mojo, and the accompanying book.)
No Rod here. Ronnie Lane + Steve Marriott.
Quite correct. Became a Steve Marriott fan later on, during his Humble Pie days.
No Rod here. Ronnie Lane + Steve Marriott.
Me Too!!
Of course—-it's even a cliche that one would speak those exact words "it's all too beautiful" when one was on acid. (I didn't get the good stuff back in the sixties, mind you.)
Yes, I know. I think they dropped the "Small" because they simply had big plans. I actually prefer the stuff Rod Stewart did with Beck and The Faces to most of his solo work. Stewart even re-teamed with Beck to cover People Get Ready and it is a great cover. I think that was in the 80s.
Well I was alive when this effort came out, and thousands (no exaggeration) of exposures to it later over the decades and I'm sick to the back teeth with it. I could likely sing it from heart I've heard it so often on the radio. There's nothing intrinsically bad about the song or the group, but even a 10 can become a 1 after serious over-exposure. Where the feck is Itchycoo Park anyhoo?
That's funny. Back in the cradle of psychedelia, we looked on the sentiments expressed by "Itchycoo Park" as, well, quaint, a lot of paisley-adorned wannabes climbing on the peaceandloveandgetstoned bandwagon. Then you heard Small Faces live, and you knew they were one, tight rock'n'roll band. Other pretenders like Scott McKenzie ("San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)") and Eric Burdon ("San Franciscan Nights"), despite their pedigrees, fared less well—although Burdon's work with War played well live.
Cute poetry in your question! Thanks to Wikipedia:
Marriott and Small Faces manager Tony Calder came up with this well-known story when Marriott was told the BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references: "We scammed the story together, we told the BBC that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids - we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off."
Ronnie Lane on the true location of Itchycoo Park: "It's a place we used to go to in Ilford years ago. Some bloke we know suggested it to us because it's full of nettles and you keep scratching."
When Marriott left to co-form Humble Pie, "The Small Faces" was essentially disbanded. The concoction with Stewart and Wood joining the other three members was known as "(The) Faces".
Freudian slip? LOL
Yep - and wow. I remember this song - and I keep thinking it ended up in a commercial... Still, so funky and fun... And to the naysayers who are bitching about the mix - it was about twenty years before you were born, so just shut up. Thank you.
Well I was alive when this effort came out, and thousands (no exaggeration) of exposures to it later over the decades and I'm sick to the back teeth with it. I could likely sing it from heart I've heard it so often on the radio. There's nothing intrinsically bad about the song or the group, but even a 10 can become a 1 after serious over-exposure. Where the feck is Itchycoo Park anyhoo?
It's psychedelic, man.
I love the tune! Takes me back... Marriott went on to sing with Humble Pie.
Yep - and wow. I remember this song - and I keep thinking it ended up in a commercial... Still, so funky and fun... And to the naysayers who are bitching about the mix - it was about twenty years before you were born, so just shut up. Thank you.
...like bluedot said...
I can't get past the fact that I think the percussion sounds like a guy beating on trash cans with hammers.
Cornfest. 3.
That's not a surprising opinion from someone born in 1980: the majority of recordings from that era would be considered "lo-fi" by contemporary standards.
I missed free form radio. And then I found RP.
"Radio's" never been freer! (dang, it seems like the word should be "freeer" but three of the same letter in a row isn't allowed in English...lol)
Haha, if you have to ask that question, the drugs probably wouldn't help. You'd probably have a BAD TRIP! LOL
I missed free form radio. And then I found RP.
And he showed it OUT LOUD as the guts of Humble Pie.
This song has made me laugh out loud (or at least chuckle audibly) every single time I hear it. "It's all too beautiful, baby!"
The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice, Italy. It leads to a prison. Or used to.
No, it's here: bridges of sighs robin trower