“Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” is the first song on Side 2 of Strawberry Alarm Clock’s 1967 album Incense And Peppermints. Simultaneously dense and flowing, it is one of the album’s more prominently psychedelic moments – and one of the highlights of SAC’s career.
Beginning with a dashing flute, and led throughout by bongos, the lyrics of “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” are a perfect mirror for the soft, blissed-out feel of the music, with a very subtle (and SAC-esque) hint of cynicism.
“Poison dreams
Distorted dreams
Mushroom dreeeeeams”
Notable is the understated guitar figures that rustle here and there, providing a slight jaggedness to counteract the smoothness of the rest of the track. Also, notice the glowing organ which drones majestically throughout, giving shape to the track when the vocals drop off.
Instrumentally, “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” is impressive for its highly evocative nature, and that it achieves this with a very small number of notes and changes.
The fact is, it rained back in the 1960s just as it does now, and there were methods for whiling away a rainy day in a pleasant fashion then too. If you’re a fan of 1960s psych, “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” is perhaps Strawberry Alarm Clock’s most recommended song, exceeding even “Incense And Peppermints” itself.
“Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” appears on…
Incense And Peppermints (1967)
Psych-Out soundtrack (1968)
Incense & Peppermints (1990)
Strawberries Mean Love (1992)
The Strawberry Alarm Clock Anthology (1993)