PART 14
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) - Iron Butterfly
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) - Iron Butterfly
Many people may have heard of the band and the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida but not many people would realise how big this band was. Like bands such as Vanilla Fudge and The Rascals. Iron Butterfly sold a lot of records while they were popular but just seemed to dissolve into obscurity as the seventies progressed. The 17-minute song that was one side of the album of the same name sold 8 million copies and stayed in the U.S charts for 3 years. It was the very first Platinum Record recipient. Most people these days would have heard it on the Simpsons, when Bart changed the sheet music at church and every one thought they were singing ‘In The Garden Of Eden’. Which by the way is what the song was originally going to be called. As history recalls, Band members Lee Dorman and Ron Bushy were paying a visit to song-writer Doug Ingle they discovered he was in the middle of a typical sixties binge and hadn’t slept for over 36 hours. When he played the others the new song he had written, he was so shattered when he tried to say In the Garden of Eden as was intentioned it came out In-A Gadda-Da-Vida. Bushy thinking this strange wrote it down phonetically and when the band met again the name stuck. As you may have guessed by now Ingle having written the song in such a state and agreeing to the wacky title the song doesn’t exactly reveal the Dead Sea Scroll secrets. Now you are probably wondering how a song that is 17 minutes long and has a drum solo in it got air play to sell so many records. The answer to that is it coincided with the birth of F.M radio who embraced it as thinking mans rock. The same F.M radio that evolved into the horrid Classic radio stations of today, who strangely don’t have In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on their play lists.
© 2005 Shidot Prod.
