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[Ben Zimmer]

Not sure how relevant it is, but Donovan recorded "Sunny Goodge Street" in
September 1965, just a couple of months after the release of the Beatles
movie "Help!" -- wherein the lads are terrorized by an Indian cult
worshiping the goddess "Kaili." That's a thinly veiled reference to Kali
and Western stereotypes about the Thuggee cult.

https://blog.oup.com/2010/07/beatles-orientalism/

A few years later, when they all traveled to the Maharishi's ashram in
Rishikesh, Donovan and the Beatles developed a more nuanced take on Indian
spirituality.

--bgz

On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 11:39 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Yes, actually “coke” makes a lot of sense given the context, except for
> how it relates to goddesses.  I guess the Genius lyrics web site wasn’t
> around when we first listened to the song 50-odd years ago.
>
> > On Aug 31, 2021, at 11:24 AM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > " crazy Kali goddess"? I always heard it as "crazy coke goddess" or
> "crazy
> > cult goddess," either of which makes more sense.
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 9:19 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> But does it really matter, Larry?
> >>
> >> Be free to be you.
> >>
> >> (PS: "Crazy-colored' is better anyway.)
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >> On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 5:00 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>>> On Aug 30, 2021, at 2:14 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Donovan's old song
> >>>>
> >>>> On the firefly platform on Sunny Goodge Street
> >>>> Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine
> >>>> Involved in an eating scene
> >>>>
> >>>> seems relevant here. A few decades later it would be an eating event,
> >>>> if he could get the rhyme down.
> >>>>
> >>> Hmmm.  I just checked the lyrics (to confirm my memory that Donovan
> >>> employed the nominalization "stonedness", which I don't think I've
> >>> encountered elsewhere) and discovered a mondegreen on my part. I always
> >>> thought he was referring to a "crazy-colored goddess", but I see the
> >>> line was actually something else. This is the first verse, immediately
> after
> >>> the part Marc quoted:
> >>>
> >>> Smashing into neon streets in their stonedness
> >>> Smearing their eyes on the crazy Kali goddess
> >>> Listenin' to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic
> >>> My, my, they sigh
> >>> My, my, they sigh
> >>>
> >>> I picked up on the "Mingus mellow fantastic"(a distant relative
> >>> of mellow yellow?), but not the call-out to Kali. Luckily, She didn't
> >>> exact revenge on me.
>

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