Donovan: Want

“I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it.”

Donovan

Grip interview (1997)
Context: The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, which was my obsession and my compulsion when I was 16 years old. So, behind all of this fame and fortune, there was a seeker, on a spiritual path — a young man who wanted to discover and share with others an alternative way of looking at the world. I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it. And there was the Buddhist way, and the Celtic way.

Stupidity

“The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture”

Donovan

Grip interview (1997)
Context: The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, which was my obsession and my compulsion when I was 16 years old. So, behind all of this fame and fortune, there was a seeker, on a spiritual path — a young man who wanted to discover and share with others an alternative way of looking at the world. I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it. And there was the Buddhist way, and the Celtic way.

Idea

“In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty
I want to be
In the warm hold of your lovin' mind.”

Donovan

Catch The Wind (1965)
Context: In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty
I want to be
In the warm hold of your lovin' mind. To feel you all around me
And to take your hand
Along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

“I found myself at the top of the the ladder, with everything, but with one thing missing: that one thing was a companion. Because, it's cliché to say, but nothing really means anything in the end unless you're really doing what you want to do, and… I walked off a huge world tour, with a yacht and television specials, and record deals, and film deals. I walked away and my whole thing collapsed. I shocked my business world and walked back to my cottage, which I had been renting to two American girls. One of them was Cynthia, and I stayed with her for two days, then her friend Lori came back from Clapton's house, where there had been a party going on for almost a week. Lori came in with another friend, and it was Linda, my Sunshine Supergirl from 1965 whom I'd written all my songs for. We hadn't married then, because she had a child with Brian Jones and wasn't ready for another relationship. And it was good that we didn't marry back then, because my four years of '60's fame would have wrecked the marriage. But we met again, and I went away from fame and into the arms of my muse, my lover, and then my wife, and then the mother of my children.”

Donovan

Grip interview (1997)

Marriage , Children , World , Girl

“For standin' in your heart
Is where I want to be
And long to be,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.”

Donovan

Catch The Wind (1965)
Context: When rain has hung the leaves with tears
I want you near to kill my fears,
To help me to leave all my blues behind. For standin' in your heart
Is where I want to be
And long to be,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Heart