When I first started to blog, mostly all I did was older hits and pop culture. I then started to experiment with album cuts and they seemed to go over pretty well. I’m surprised that I never blogged this song at the beginning. I’ve always liked it… it’s a mixture of pop, bubblegum, and a little psychedelia. What stuck out to me is the sitar…which I love to hear.
Bubblegum has a bad name but there is good bubblegum and I do like some of it. I never cared for The 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Ohio Express but some I did like. Crazy Elephant’s Gimme Gimme Good Loving and songs like that…I’ve always been fond of.
The Lemon Pipers were formed in 1966 in Oxford, Ohio, by students from Miami University. The band played harder psychedelic and blues rock. Buddah Records had different ideas. They pushed The Lemon Pipers into more bubblegum-type music. The tension between the record company and The Lemon Pipers eventually broke the band up in 1969.
You could probably consider The Lemon Pipers a one-hit wonder. They had some other charting songs but none in the top 40 on the Billboard 100 except the song Rice Is Nice which peaked at #6 in New Zealand.
This song did well here and everywhere. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, #3 in New Zealand, and #7 in the UK in 1967. The song has appeared in various films and television shows and made its place as a symbol of 1960s pop culture.
Green Tambourine
Drop your silver in my tambourine
Help a poor man fill a pretty dream
Give me pennies, I’ll take anything
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
Watch the jingle jangle start to shine
Reflections of the music that is mine
When you toss a coin, you’ll hear it sing
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
Drop a dime before I walk away
Any song you want, I’ll gladly play
Money feeds my music machine
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
Listen and I’ll play
…
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
I certainly remember this song but I haven’t heard it in a while. This time it looks like the record company was right .
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Yes for once…I posted so many AM hits when I started that I don’t find many I haven’t posted before.
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A unique but light and catchy tune. Cheers Max.
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I like the way they used an echo effect on the voices,
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it’s a great record, mostly forgotten these days, but love those psychedelic vibes. Catchy and cooler than some might think and it takes me back to being a kid – but I never saw as bubblegum in the same way Simon Says and Yummy Yummy Yummy are. And I also rate Yummy Yummy Yummy, corny lyrics, sense of humour, catchy as hell and an example of something Sabrina Johnson has had a go at recently, among others – triple word repeat: Please Please Please. There is a special word for it I cant remember but google seems to be pretty shabby, which is reassuring that it doesn’t know everything after all.
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Yea I agree…they call a lot bubblegum including Monkees and I don’t think they are…
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Psychedelic bubblegum is a pretty good descriptor.
Sitar had a moment in pop music. Wikipedia’s article “Sitar in popular music” reminded me of how widespread it was. I remember looking at an electric sitar in a local guitar shop back then.
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I wanted one in the 80s and saw it. It was just a bit out of my price range…after I came back after payday…it was gone. :They are not common to find.
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The sitar is a sound that is redolent of the hippy era, but I still like it.
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Great groove from that era before heavy metal started. That ’66-’67…the 1 hit wonder ‘garage band era. Or ‘Bubblegum Pop’ era.
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Yea I like some of the bubble gum songs if they weren’t too silly…but most were catchy!
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Oh ya’ Max…that’s when I was in my formative years. My parents put a radio & a television in my brothers room & let us choose what we listened to & watched when we were in there.
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Yea…some of them are really dang good.
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a good song I haven’t heard in a long time.Wouldn’t have remembered who did it though, so your post is a good reminder!
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This is one of those AM hits that I liked…I’ve almost run out of them lol. I did them all starting out. My blog is like an AM station in the early 70s that switched over to FM for album tracks lol.
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A song that definitely belongs in the 60s
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I love this song, especially the sitar! I must now make sure it’s in my YouTube all-time favorites playlist! I think it is. Great post!
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Thank you Shelia!
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One of my favorites from that period is ‘Little Girl’…great guitars 🎸 & a great groove. I was 2 in ’66 when that one came out. I was a Tommy James fan when I was really little. The Archie’s (Don Kirshner).
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Yea Don Kirshner helped but the Monkees together until they broke that partnership… Oh Little Girl was by the Syndicate Sound… how I know that I don’t know!
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Ya, that’s it. You’re the man! I was too young to say that I remembered those songs but I seemed to have known them my whole life.
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Man my head is full of useless trivia…lol…nothing to be proud of lol.
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Me also Max…me also man. We’ll make a good team once we both can get together & do that YouTube show & stuff early next year.
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This is one from my pimply days. (a little bit of late advice Max- don’t try singing this one when your voice is breaking!) ‘Rice Is Nice’ was a medium hit here too, at least well known for me to recall it now. It sounds a bit shrill to my ear now though.
A couple of other bits of trivia. The bassist, Steve Walmsley, apparently was a Kiwi. Hey, I have to mention it, few make their mark out there in Pop World, at least till Lorde made it big. The lead guitarist Bill Bartlett was in Ram Jam who did that infectious ‘Black Betty.’ (Oooh ooh bam a lam…)
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That is cool about Walmsley…
Black Betty…that song has stayed with me…that guitar riff will not go away….and I still listen to it when I hear it.
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Yep the riff is simple, insistent, persistent, pretty near perfect.
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(“Money feeds my music machine … so listen and I play-ay-ay … my green tambourine ..”). Lemon Pipers made a few more – same style – hits and then faded around 1969.
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Thats about it!
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Bubblegum was great! Even the 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Ohio Express. And the Archies, and The Partridge Family, and The Osmond Brothers, and The Jackson 5, and…
“Green Tambourine” was a real classic.
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I liked some…I did…some I didn’t but I did like Sugar Sugar a lot…we played that one…but with more punch.
My favorite is Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes…
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“Green Tambourine” is the only song by The Lemon Pipers I knew. I’ve always dug it.
“Rice Is Nice” is pretty pleasant as well!
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Yea it’s the only one I know really…it has a great sound to it.
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Very cool Max! 😎
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It hits that midpoint between pop and psychedelia beautifully – a deserved hit.
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