Single:
Magic Carpet Ride entered the Australian singles chart* on 9 November 1968 and peaked at #8. The song was #55 on the Top 100 of 1969.
Album:
The song is on The Second.
Songwriters:
Rushton Moreve, John Kay
Producer:
Gabriel Mekler
Record label of Australian release:
Stateside
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Songfacts:
In the late ’60s, rock music was best enjoyed between two towering speakers hooked up to a hi-fidelity stereo sound system (this was long before earbuds or sleek little speakers). These systems, with their 10-inch woofers, turntables and equalizers, were expensive and took up a lot of space, but the juice was worth the squeeze.
With royalties from Steppenwolf’s first album, lead singer John Kay bought one of these sweet sound systems. When they were working on their second album, bass player Rushton Moreve came up with a groove for a new song and inserted the line “I like my job, I like my baby” as a placeholder. Kay took the demo home to work on the lyrics. In a Songfacts interview with Kay, he explained what happened next:
“I popped the cassette into the player, and out of these rather large speakers came this track. And what popped into my head was, ‘I like to dream… right between the sound machine.’ The ‘sound machine’ being that stereo system. I wrote the lyrics and melody in 20 minutes, went and overdubbed the vocal, and then we did some more work on the track with instrument overdubs and the like, and Magic Carpet Ride evolved from that.”
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/steppenwolf/magic-carpet-ride
Lyrics:
I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here
Click for full lyrics
This song is also on our Spotify playlist Bang a Gong – the 60s
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