Strawberry Alarm Clock recorded “Good Morning Starshine” for their fourth and final LP, also called Good Morning Starshine. It wasn’t their choice, though, and sounds like nothing else on the album.
The jarring anomaly, recording a version of “Good Morning Starshine” from the musical Hair was not the idea of the band members. They had by this time managed to wrest musical control from the managers and producers who had done so much to screw up the previous album, The World In A Sea Shell. But they did agree to do it.
“Good Morning Starshine” did not fit the style of the album or the mood of the band members in 1969. Its goofy “sing sing sing sing” chorus is wholly unrelated to the musical ideas the band was exploring at the time. It does, however, evoke the playfulness, gentility, and accomplished vocal harmonizing of much of the band’s previous work. (See “Go Back (You’re Going The Wrong Way)” from Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow and “Home Sweet Home” from The World In A Sea Shell.)
But pursuing commercial acceptance was not anathema to Strawberry Alarm Clock. Having had a fluke #1 hit with “Incense And Peppermints”, the band would be happy to achieve it again. This may have occasionally led to making some questionable musical decisions. The idea of making a track as silly as “Good Morning Starshine” the centerpiece of their new album is just the sort of choice that may seem regrettable in retrospect.
“Good Morning Starshine” did make it onto the pop charts – to #87. So I guess it wasn’t a total loss, but ultimately it represented neither the band nor the album it was on. Another chapter in the ignominious demise of the Clock.
“Good Morning Starshine” appears on…
Good Morning Starshine (1969)
“Good Morning Starshine” b/w “Me And The Township” (1969)
The Best Of Strawberry Alarm Clock (1970)
Incense & Peppermints (1990)
Strawberries Mean Love (1992)
Better than Olivers version, fine singing and playing, although an average song in entire sac catalogue.