‘Green Tambourine’ is a song written and composed by Paul Leka (who also produced it) and Shelley Pinz. It was the biggest hit by the 1960s Ohio-based rock group the Lemon Pipers, as well as the title track of their debut album, Green Tambourine. The song was one of the first psychedelic pop chart-toppers and became a gold record.
Released toward the end of 1967, it spent 13 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 1 on February 3, 1968, and sold over a million copies. The record remained on the chart for three months. The Lemon Pipers never repeated this success, though their ‘Rice Is Nice’ and ‘Jelly Jungle’, both also written by Leka and Pinz, made the charts in 1968.
The song's lyricist, Rochelle "Shelley" Pinz (1943–2004) was a writer at the Brill Building, working with Leka. She said: “In early Spring, 1966, while standing in front of the Brill Building, I watched a man holding a tambourine begging for money. I wrote a poem about him and called the poem 'Green Tambourine.' I added it to my lyric collection ... Sometimes I wonder what happened to the man in front of the Brill Building, holding a tambourine begging for money. I remember writing the lyric, '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' as if it were yesterday..; in the 60s, on the streets between Seventh Avenue and Broadway there was a magic one could only imagine.”
The song's instrumentation contains the titular tambourine as well as an electric sitar, a frequent signature of the so-called "psychedelic sound".
Label – Buddah
Songwriters – Paul Leka, Shelley Pinz
Producer – Paul Leka
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]Drop your silver in my tambourine
Help a poor man build a pretty dream
Give me pennies, I'll take anything
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine
[Verse 2]
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
[Verse 3]
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
[Outro]
Listen and I'll play