 mistaken for Father Time. Note His Surliness on this cover for the suggestively titled "69" album!
| "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" (Mickey Newbury) (Reprise Records) released Feb, 1968
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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you star of stage, screen, rotisseries and acid rock--Kenny Rogers! Most people think of Kenny as the play-it-safe Sentinel of slow poke, Driving-Miss-Daisy styled country music. Few remember the risks the Gambler took early on in his career with (insert shudder) psychedelic music! It hardly seems possible but Kenny once bent people's minds as the bearded beacon behind The First Edition. The group's very first hit was a hallucinogenic gem entitled "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)". With its backwards acoustic guitars, fuzzy molten lava lamp leads and heavily phased vocals, "Just Dropped In" was a most credible psychedelic hit. In fact, it soared all the way to number 5 in the spring of '68, besting the highest chart positions of such worthy wasted adversaries as Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues" (no.14), Bubble Puppy's "Hot Smoke and Sassafrass" (also no. 14) and even The Balloon Farm's flowery "A Question of Temperature" (no. 37). Even more unbelievable, it was co-produced and arranged by Mike Post, who'd later be renown for his nauseating TV themes like "The Rockford Files" and "Magnum PI"!
|  Although his cool jacket would indicate Kenny's on the "fringe" of grooviness, the haystacks behind him are a harbinger of country corn to come! |
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We've included all the tune's lyrics here so you can spot its excessive overuse of the psychedelic crutch word "mind", as well as three references to "eight miles", a tip of the hat to those high flying, drugged out Byrds. As you listen to the blistering guitar solo and the spooky false ending like "Strawberry Fields", try imagining the song's hilarious promotional video which aired, appropriately enough, on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It featured a freaked out, Nehru jacketed Kenny wandering through a house cursed with flashing colored lights, looking for all the world like he could use a coupla Anacin!
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I found my mind in a brown paper bag but then I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high I tore my mind on a jagged sky I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
"I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it
"Someone painted 'April Fools' in big black letters on a dead end sign |
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I guess we could all use a little Anacin now, eh, kiddies? Let that be a lesson to you, pharmacudicals and Memphis don't mix
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| Speaking of dull aching pains, once Rogers achieved solo success with the tearjerkin' "Lucille", Liberty Records released a Kenny Rogers Ten Years of Gold collection. Natch, it contained re-recordings of all the First Edition hits, most notably a slightly discofied, less mind-blowing "Just Dropped In." No doubt Kenny's newly-won old biddy following would've gone spiralling into cardiac arrest had the hair-raising original version been included! Coward of the County--no fooling! .
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