The chemical components of the smoke were examined by ultraviolet and infrared spectrophotometric procedures.
#SONG MELLOW YELLOW SERIES#
The FDA's "smoklng machine" consisted of a series of tubes and retorts which trapped the smoke. The FDA began the laboratory test after its Bureau of Drug Abuse Control received reports that dried scrapings from banana peels were being smoked for their hallucinogenic effect. "There were no detectable quantitieg of known hallucinogens in these materials." "The Bureau of Science has made an analysis of the smoke obtained from several recipes for dried banana peel and concentrated banana juice," the FDA said. Since my recollection is that we sprang bananas on the world in December of '66, and the song was recorded in September, I wouldn't think so, but I could be wrong about the date.Ĭheck out also The Great Banana Hoax from the Oz 'zine Pigmeat.Ī laboratory apparaus "smoked" dried banana peels for more than three weeks and never did get high, the Food and Drug Administration reported today. He looked at me for a moment, then said, "What do you think?" He wouldn't say anything else.
So I asked him if his song "Mellow Yellow" was about smoking bananas. Donovan was there, whom I had never gotten to meet before. Then I remembered the psychedelic water and thought, "Ah, that explains everything."Īddendum: In 1997 I went to the opening of the "Psychedelic Era" exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The article said that the FDA puffed a banana joint through its joint-smoking machine, and it told them that bananas do nothing. I was reading the newspaper, and way in the back was a little headline that said Drug Agency Smokes Banana Joint. We all forgot about it until some months later.
Well, you couldn't get a banana in the Bay Area that day. Then I noticed it huge headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that said: Banana Turn-0n: New Hippie Craze. I went over to Safeway and there were no bananas there either. A few days later, I got up to get breakfast at the Berkeley co-op, and there were no bananas in the banana bin. At that event, we passed out five hundred banana joints and told everybody that bananas get you high. We returned to the Bay Area and almost immediately played a benefit to legalize marijuana. We started puffing the banana joints and looking at each other and saying, "Man, this **** is really working! I'm getting really ripped! This stuff is incredible!" Afterward, we went all over Vancouver telling people that bananas get you high. After the second set we just ran across the street because of those bananas. We went back across the street for the second set, took a couple more hits off the water jar and played our second set. We started smoking them and looking at each other, saying, "You gettin' high?" "No, you gettin' high?" "I don't know, man, maybe." Well, they seemed like they were ready, so we rolled about twenty-five banana joints. After intermission, we checked out the banana peels. After a while, we returned to the theater, took a couple more hits off the water jar and played our first set. We felt the banana peels, but they were still too wet to smoke. If you want any just help yourself." So we all took a couple sips off the water jar, did our sound check and went back to the psychedelic shop. While we were waiting, the Kitsilano Theatre stage crew pointed to a water jar and said, "We just dissolved a hundred tabs of LSD in that water jar. We ate the bananas and, put the peels in, then left to see how sound check was coming. We turned the stove on a low temperature so that we wouldn't destroy the THC in the banana peels. Then we went to the psychedelic shop and asked if we could use the back room, where there was a kitchen, to dry out the banana peels. While the roadies were setting up the equipment, we went to the grocery store on the corner and bought a bunch of bananas. We went over to the theatre, and across the street was a psychedelic shop. We were just throwing the peels away, so this sounded like a great idea.
At that time, the band was living on peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. His theory was that if you dried out a banana peel and smoked the white pulp on the underside, you would get high. On the way up our drummer, Gary "Chicken" Hirsch, said he had just figured out that banana peels have qualities similar to marijuana. Sometime around December in 1966, Country Joe and the Fish went up to Vancouver to play the Kitsilano Theatre. Well I guess I'm the only one to fess up.
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