100 Great Songs From The British Invasion: 1963-1966: Season Of The Witch- Donovan. Even though Donovan has been very active over the last 50 years- he is an artist who when you think of him- you think 1960’s. In fact all of his hits came within the 1960’s- his last hit 1969. Season Of The Witch was not released as a single- which surprises me. Back in 1966 Donovan had his two biggest American hits- ‘Sunshine Superman’ #1 and ‘Mellow Yellow’ #2. ‘ Season Of The Witch’ was an album track on the Sunshine Superman album. I assumed it was also a hit single. While the song is credited to Donovan- it was disputed by his sometime collaborator Shawn Phillips who claimed authorship. Because of this dispute the song wasn’t released in the UK until 1967. Another note on the song- there were two session men who played in a number of Donovan’s sessions in the era- their contributions to the song- are unknown- those fellows were Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones- future members of a little band called Led Zeppelin.
- Song: Season Of The Witch’- Donovan
- Record Company- Epic
- Genre: Psychedelic Rock
- Written by Donovan
- Time: 4:56
- Album- Sunshine Superman
- Grade: A
- Was not released as a single.
slicethelife 
Sounds like a session man or two had reasons for a bitch.
So that explains the great guitar work in the song. Most likely Page played on Hurdy Gurdy Man also.
Nice tune I had to look up, even though I’ve listened to the “Sunshine Superman” album before. For the most part, I’m only familiar with a limited amount of Donovan tunes. It mostly comes down to his best known songs. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were quite active as session musicians before they became famous.
Oh man, in 1966, the teenage girls in our high school were such Donovan disciples, they took to Scottish and or English accents, and that’s strange hearing a Texas girl attempt that. It was a bit creepy to hear them talking in the hallways about their Pied Piper, using a Mary Quant lilt. To me, he was a decent folkie with bad teeth. Now that I know Jimmy Page played on those tunes, I might see him a bit different. I recently saw a picture of him and oh no, the poor man looks rough. Hail Atlantis!
I didn’t realize he had such a following- especially among Texas schoolgirls.
It’s hard to explain. They did the same thing when the Beatles were big in 64. Maybe it was our school, but a friend of mine in Houston said he experienced the same behavior.
hmm I can see The Beatles- I didn’t realize Donovan was so huge..
He was cuter than Paul at the time.