This is page 3 of the readers’ top psychedelic songs list. View page 1.
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‘2000 Light Years From Home’
The Rolling Stones | 1967
Reader Gerri Corrado says this is “the most amorphous ‘outer space song'” by the Stones. You feel stoned.” Reader Fritz adds: “The best, most psychedelic song on the only psychedelic album the Stones ever did”
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The most amorphous “outer space song” by the Stones.
‘Afterwards’
Van Der Graaf Generator | 1969
Reader Brian says this track is “suitably trippy and dreamy, verging on indulgent (like all the best psychedelic songs). Being recorded in 1969 positions it right at the epicenter of psychedelia.”
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Suitably trippy. Positioned right at the epicenter of psychedelia.
‘Glimpses’
The Yardbirds | 1967
Reader Sam Thomas finds “music laid out so delicately it’s floaty. A progressive song that builds. Great guitar from Jimmy Page. Fantastic instrumental, unless you consider the space message in the middle.”
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Music laid out so delicately it’s floaty. Great guitar from Jimmy Page.
‘The Orange Rooftop of Your Mind’
The Blue Things | 1966
Reader Artie Fisk recalls this “swirling slice of British-style psych” from a Kansas band. “Outdoes the Yardbirds — almost like a merger of the Yardbirds at the most psychedelic mixed with the Five Americans. Crazy.”
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From Kansas, a swirling slice of British-style psych.
‘Tapioca Tundra’
The Monkees | 1968
Reader Dan Higginbottom digs how “Mike Nesmith’s tinny vocals accentuates the trippy nonsensical lyrics. Studio effects at the end leave the impression the singer is coming down from an airplane high!”
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Mike Nesmith’s tinny vocals accentuates the trippy nonsensical lyrics.
‘A Very Cellular Song’
The Incredible String Band | 1968
Reader Brian Elmer points out how this seminal psych-folk track “describes and celebrates the ecstatic feeling of being at one with all of creation.” Mike Heron’s meditation on life, love and amoebas.
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The ecstatic feeling of being at one with all of creation.
‘The Last Thing On My Mind’
The Move | 1970
Reader Charles Monagan notes how “they take the Tom Paxton folk song and stretch it, twist it, melt it down and let it drip across the canvas like a Jackson Pollock painting. Yes, very psychedelic.”
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They take the Tom Paxton folk song and stretch it, twist it, melt it down.
‘Family Affair’
Sly & the Family Stone | 1971
Reader Bill Rutsey recalls how “Sly Stone personally consumed more psychedelics than most — the song has such a trippy feel.” Billy Preston on keys. No. 1 hit from “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.”
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Sly Stone personally consumed more psychedelics than most.
‘I Can See for Miles’
The Who | 1967
Reader tomdog Klisuric finds “the sound was/is expansive as was/is the lyrics.” Even now, “after so many years,” the Who’s biggest hit single “has a psychedelic vibe that’s hard to beat.”
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A psychedelic vibe that’s hard to beat.
‘San Franciscan Nights’
Eric Burdon and the Animals | 1967
Reader Troy Wilson says this celebration of the Bay Area’s hippie scene was “a psychedelic classic then, as now.” Hallucinogenic images of a “strobe light’s beam” on a street called “Love”: “Walls move, minds do too.”
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A psychedelic classic then, as now. ‘Walls move, minds do too.’
‘Wildwood Blues’
The Nazz | 1968
Reader Troy Wilson urges you to “drop a tab, slap it into the 8-track player and enjoy. A monstrous beat with mind-bending guitar from Todd Rundgren. Primitive but awesome stereo effects. Spine-tingling vocals.”
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A monstrous beat with mind-bending guitar from Todd Rundgren.
‘Safesurfer’
Julian Cope | 1991
Reader Troy Wilson hears a “power guitar solo along the lines of moon-age daydream” as this “belter of a freak out goes cosmic, with the jump-off-a-cliff chorus followed by an outro that brings you back to near-Earth orbit.”
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Belter of a freak out goes cosmic, with the jump-off-a-cliff chorus.
‘Higher And Higher’
The Moody Blues | 1969
Reader Jeff Balfoort advises you to “be prepared to be shot into another level of consciousness” with this opening track from “Our Children’s Children’s Children.” Grokked by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971.
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Be prepared to be shot into another level of consciousness.
‘Tomorrow Never Knows’
The Beatles | 1966
Reader Tom Westervelt says this “Revolver” track “was like a ‘permission slip’ to the music world to stretch the boundaries. Reader Patrick Maur says it “broke every rule; blew every mind.” Reader Bob calls it “the beginning of the beginning.”
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In 1966, this Beatles stunner “broke every rule, blew every mind.”
‘Endless Tunnel’
Serpent Power | 1967
Reader Marv Meyerson wants you to hear this long-forgotten San Francisco band. Middle Eastern influences a plenty in the 13-minute haunter that closed the short-lived group’s debut album.
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Middle Eastern influences a plenty in the 13-minute haunter.
‘Careful With That Axe, Eugene’
Pink Floyd | 1969
Reader Michael Long thinks back: “No other group playing any other music almost caused me to have a heart attack during a live performance in 1972.” A chilling Pink Floyd staple, sometimes recorded under other titles.
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Almost caused me to have a heart attack in 1972.
‘SWLABR’
Cream | 1967
Reader Bud Terry thinks this anachronistic-acronym number “is great psychedelia,” better than “White Room.” Another “Disraeli Gears” gem from Peter Brown & Jack Bruce. “She was like a bearded rainbow.”
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“She was like a bearded rainbow.” Yeah.
‘Frankenstein’
The Edgar Winter Group | 1972
Reader Doc says this instrumental track “veers all over rock/blues genres. Released in 1972, ‘Frankenstein’ stands as a thudding anthem for what came before and what has survived.”
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A thudding anthem for what came before and what has survived.
‘Paper Sun’
Traffic | 1966
Reader Barb says this debut single from Traffic “makes you high without being high.” That’s Dave Mason on the sitar with percussion straight out of India. Youngster Stevie Winwood on vocals.
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Makes you high without being high.
‘The Stars That Play With
Laughing Sam’s Dice’
The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1967
Reader Al Dorshkind says the drug experience of “STP with LSD must have sounded like this. The Milky Way Express is loaded. Indeed.” B-side to “The Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”
STP with LSD must have sounded like this.
‘Old Man Willow’
Elephant’s Memory | 1969
Reader Michael Somerset Ward gives two thumps up to this tune “immortalized in ‘Midnight Cowboy.’ Trip to the “heady organ riff and the otherworldly melody. Even the Coltrane-inspired sax joins in the psych.”
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Trip to the heady organ riff and the otherworldly melody.
‘Dark Lady’
The Mandrake Memorial | 1968
Reader Stephen thinks back to the Be-Ins in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. This track from the local band’s debut album features its psychedelic-baroque sound. Be at one with the Rock-Si-Chord.
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Be at one with the Rock-Si-Chord.
‘Soul Sacrifice’
Santana | 1968
Reader Tyler Modock recalls when Santana burst onto the scene just before Woodstock, “blowing minds with this 6-minute instrumental. A different approach to psychedelic rock with an intense signature Latin sound.”
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New psychedelic rock with an intense signature Latin sound.
> LISTEN to the psychedelic songs on this page as a Spotify playlist:
> MORE PSYCHEDELIC SONGS: view the readers’ list on PAGE 4.
- Nominate psychedelic albums (or songs).
- View readers’ top albums.
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