The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
I'm just mad about Saffron
Saffron's mad about me
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
I'm just mad about Fourteen
Fourteen's mad about me
I'm just mad about Fourteen
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
Born high forever to fly
Wind velocity nil
Wanna high forever to fly
If you want your cup our fill
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(So mellow yellow, he's so mellow)
Electrical banana
Is gonna be a sudden craze
Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase
They call it mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
Saffron, yeah
I'm just mad about her
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Oh so yellow, oh so mellow)
Saffron's mad about me
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
I'm just mad about Fourteen
Fourteen's mad about me
I'm just mad about Fourteen
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
Born high forever to fly
Wind velocity nil
Wanna high forever to fly
If you want your cup our fill
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(So mellow yellow, he's so mellow)
Electrical banana
Is gonna be a sudden craze
Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase
They call it mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
Saffron, yeah
I'm just mad about her
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Quite rightly)
They call me mellow yellow
(Oh so yellow, oh so mellow)
Lyrics submitted by pink_angel016, edited by jaZZjaZZ54
Mellow Yellow Lyrics as written by Donovan Leitch
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Also, I'm listening to the Donovan In Concert album of 1968 and he sings "I'm just mad about 14-year-old girls." It amuses me.
Nope. I heard the same thing but it isn't true. Also, Paul McCartney played with him on this track, as well as many others. It was Donovans way of setting a lightly visible tribute to Yellow Submarine, and McCartney was pleased and played along with him in the song.
When this song first came out we thought it was about smoking the white stuff scraped from the inside of banana peels, too. So one day we loaded up one of our buddy's cars and headed out for San Francisco from LA during the Easter Break. When we arrived at Golden Gate Park sure enough, all of the hippies were smoking what they called "Mellow Yellow"! We asked one guy what the high was like and he said it just mellowed you out and it was perfectly legal to smoke it. So we thought, "What the Heck! Let's try it!". Well, besides rasping our lungs out, it didn't do a thing, but we sure had a great time. Will never forget the beautiful girls walking around with nothing but a white sheet wrapped around them. Some of them were so high on other drugs they never realized it when the sheets fell off. Quite an eye bulging experience for 3 - 17 year-old guys at the time! Sure wish someone would organize one more love-in just to have the chance to relive that day. What a fantastic period to have lived in.
Just remembered that we even went to the extent of making our own peace sign pendants from thin copper rods and solder in Metal Shop so we might fit in to the crowd. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We stuck out like sore thumbs, but everyone was really cool and it didn't seem to matter that we weren't dressed like all of them. That was before the hippie scene in San Francisco went bad because of the money everyone was making off drugs, et cetera. It was truly the Summer of Love for us.
@prog_rocker7 The banana peel thing was a joke by Country Joe MacDonald and it stuck. It was giving people the idea to smoke them.\r\n
the velvet underground/nico album artwork was meant to look phallic. that's why it has the "peel slowly and see" arrow next to the banana peel. everybody who bought the album in the sixties was expecting to see a big penis underneath the banana, but instead you get just a pink banana.
Yeah but the pink banana is kinda penile, so there's the joke. Warhol, you scamp!
One thing you have to keep in mind is that when songwriters write songs, they will quite often just use words that fall out of their mouths when strumming a guitar, playing a piano or just humming a melody that is stuck in their head. If words SOUND good, the MEANING can often take a back seat.
As for the banana on the cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico album, it was designed by Andy Warhol, who also designed the cover to The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album. The two are so similar in concept (VU's coming first) that one has to wonder if Warhol ripped off his own idea when doing the Stones' album cover.
Your point, particularly, defines about 80% of everything Bob Dylan ever wrote. You're right!
ps, who/what is saffron?
Saffron, as well as the extremely very very expensive yellow spice / colouring, is a girls' name. Who knows which one Donovan's so mad about?<br />
@mrs-mojo-risin when he and Gypsy Dave were roaming the coast he had a bakery in the town that used to give him "Day old Saffron Buns". That\'s according to his biography anyway!
This one is always funny as so many even at the time thought is was about bananas they even stopped selling them in places in America. It's actually about vibrators and Safron is a fourteen year old meantioned in the song 'superlungs my supergirl' who was a big hit on the scene. If you don't believe me then ask the man himself.
this song was released in europe in november 1966, around the same time the banana rumor was started. this means that it was probably written earlier in the year.
and as for the velvet underground, even though the album was released in 1967, the artwork was made in may of '66, so it's all coincidence.
i read this stuff in a good article in "the believer" (the 2005 music issue).
xoxo conor
Oh dear, my little girl is called Saffron, I've been nicknaming her Mellow Yellow... I didn't know what this song was about though, maybe I should keep the meaning from her until she's much older :)
'Electric Banana' was also a Club right around the corner from the Fillmore East