Tommy James And The Shondells – Crystal Blue Persuasion

My sister had most of Tommy James’ hits back in the day on singles. Crimson and Clover was cracked so I taped it up on the other side…and it played great…minus the scratches. I would probably never buy an album by him unless it was a greatest hits because he had some good ones.

Most people thought this song was about drugs and I can see that. At the time there was a popular blue color LSD tablet in circulation so people automatically thought it was about that. The line “It’s a new vibration” was about James becoming a Christian. James realized afterward that the title fit with his budding interest in religion, with the words sourced from the Biblical Book of Revelation.

Tommy James and The Shondells regretted a decision they made. They turned down Woodstock which would have made their hip meter go up a bit. At the time he was writing this song he was working with another band. The band was Alive and Kicking and James wanted them to record Crystal Blue Persuasion but Tommy James’ label boss would not let him give them this song. He ended up writing another song for that band…Tighter, Tighter. That song became a huge hit for them. What’s strange about that…is Alive and Kicking were on the same label as Tommy James…Roulette who was rumored to have mafia ties.

There have been numerous cover versions of the song, including those by Tito Puente, Joe Bataan, The Heptones, Morcheeba, Concrete Blond, and John Wesley Harding. The song has also appeared in films, TV, and commercials. It was used in an episode of Breaking Bad titled “Gliding Over All,” where Walter White expands his crystal meth business overseas.

The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100 and #1 in Canada in 1969. The credited writers are Eddie Gray, Tommy James, and Mike Vale.

Tommy James on recording it: “When we got it into the studio, we just overproduced it, plain and simple, We got it done and listened to it and we said, ‘That’s not the song we wrote.’ I spent the next month or so going in the studio every week pulling stuff out and putting stuff in, trying to make it work. Finally, in about four weeks, we had pulled out the drums completely. We took out all the guitars except for my rhythm guitar on tremolo, and Eddie had a little flamenco guitar part that he played. One keyboard, just kind of a trickling Hammond organ. And a bongo drum. And that was it. About 80 percent of the instruments on there, we had to pull out. We let it breathe.”

Tommy James: “‘Crystal Blue’ was interesting. First of all, I was becoming a Christian at that time, and we never thought a thing about it. We never thought that doing something semi-religious was any big deal. We didn’t think of it as being politically incorrect or anything like that. We just did what felt right. I wrote ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ with Eddie Gray and Mike Vale. Eddie came up with the little guitar riff, and Mike and I did the lyrics. And it just felt very right as a sort of semi-religious poetic song, but it turned out to be one of the hardest records I’ve ever made.

We went in and had a set of drums, we had guitars, we had keyboards, and by the end, we just realized we had totally overproduced the record. It just was not ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ anymore. It was a nice track, but wasn’t right. So we had to produce the record, and then we had to un-produce the record. And one by one we just started pulling the instruments out, until we ended up with a conga drum, a bongo, a tambourine, a flamenco guitar, and a very light-sounding bass. We took out the drums completely. We took out all the keyboards except one, which was a Hammond. And basically ended up with about four instruments on it. And suddenly it became ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion,’ the song that we had written. It has kind of an effervescent sound about it, a lot of atmospherics that just weren’t there when it had all those instruments on it. Suddenly when you emptied out the record it sounded like ‘Crystal Blue’ again. It had that light airy sound, which it needed to be right. And it took us about six weeks to do all that. It really was a very intricate un-production, pulling all the things out. Actually, it was tougher than putting them in because you didn’t want to mess up the record, but you wanted to empty it out. So it came out and went #1 for us. It was the follow-up to ‘Sweet Cherry Wine.’ We were in Hawaii when it went #1, and I often think of Hawaii as I think of ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion.'”

Crystal Blue Persuasion

Look over yonder
What do you see?
The sun is a-rising
Most definitely

A new day is coming (ooh, ooh)
People are changing
Ain’t it beautiful? (Ooh, ooh)
Crystal blue persuasion

Better get ready to see the light
Love, love is the answer (ooh, ooh)
And that’s all right

So don’t you give up now (ooh, ooh)
So easy to find
Just look to your soul (your soul)
And open your mind

Crystal blue persuasion, hmm, hmm
It’s a new vibration
Crystal blue persuasion
Crystal
Blue persuasion

Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field (ooh, ooh)
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
There’ll be peace and good brotherhood

Crystal blue persuasion, yeah
Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah
Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah
(Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah)

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

49 thoughts on “Tommy James And The Shondells – Crystal Blue Persuasion”

      4. It starts off with someone getting shot in the head I believe… I think Sam Cooke was involved with some mob company also…not really his choice though I don’t think.

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  4. 2 days in a row some obscure-ish 60s single I love. I like ‘Tighter Tighter’ a lot too, great power-pop as you’d say! I always forget who did that one though even though I have written about it before.

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      1. Tommy did a few great tunes…also had weird distinction of having back-to-back #1 songs in cover versions in ’88 (87?) with ‘Mony Mony’ and ‘I think We’re Alone Now’

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    1. I didn’t either until I wrote it up… I was thinking drugs… because of the era… glad it was a good message

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  8. I never checked out a whole lot of Tommy James’ stuff, mainly knew him for writing a ton of stuff that got covered later on. This is a pretty sweet track, and yeah I totally would have assumed it was about drugs, but my head is usually in the gutter.

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  9. Growing up, I always thought of Tommy James & The Shondells as a local band because they were from Michigan and they played in Chicago a lot. Always been some of my favorites, and I love this and “Crimson & Clover.”

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  12. Yeah, the drug/God lines can blur nicely into whatever you like, be it blissed out or believing in some other (dare I say ‘higher?’) power. Interesting how they dissected it, it is quite spacey.
    I also liked ‘Crimson And Clover’ best.
    As for the Mafia side, I guess that mob always went for where there was money, and good luck on getting your cut without bleeding out in some dark alley behind the Studio headquarters. ‘Roulette’ sounds the perfect name for that piece of business.
    There must be many stories of those heavy days that will never be heard, one way or the other.

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      2. Yes it was and many believe mobsters were involved. He was supposedly having an affair with a mobster’s girlfriend…not a good idea…not the law…but “the mob won”

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  14. Tommy James & The Shondells had some pretty good songs. Two of them, “Mony Mony” and “I Think We’re Alone Now”, I first knew because of ’80s renditions by Billy Idol and Tiffany, respectively. In my youthful innocence, at the time, I thought they were their tunes! 🙂

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  15. I loved this song back then, along with “Crimson & Clover”, and bought their greatest hits. I never thought the song was about drugs, nor did I think it had anything to do with god, but was instead sort of a ‘hippie’ type song with lyrics advocating peace, love and understanding. But now that I’m much older and see these lyrics you wrote: “Maybe tomorrow, when he looks down on every green field and every town. All of his children, and every nation. There’ll be peace and good, brotherhood”, it’s more clear that he was singing about his new-found faith.

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  16. Fabulous track this, Tommy had had massive UK hit with Mony Mony (a huge fave of mine) but that was all she wrote from then on! The Shondells were never really referenced much till all those 80’s cover version hits started happening in the UK. I was aware of the existence of this song in late 1969 as I bought a music book in Singapore with sheet music and lyrics of the biggest hits of that time, including Crystal Blue Persuasion. So I loved the title – but I’d never heard the record! And it must have been well into the 80’s before it got a single UK radio play that I caught. Loved it. And as soon as I started holidaying in the USA around 1990 onwards I bought their Greatest Hits on CD. Totally worth it. Oldies radio was playing loads of their stuff, and I was off on a voyage of discovery of all these great US 60’s and early 70’s hits that I’d never heard… 🙂

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