A Gift From a Flower to a Garden by Donovan (Album, Folk Pop): Reviews, Ratings, Credits, Song list - Rate Your Music
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A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
By Donovan
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ArtistDonovan
TypeAlbum
ReleasedDecember 1967
RecordedSeptember-October 1967
RYM Rating 3.65 / 5.00.5 from 2,348 ratings
Ranked#90 for 1967, #7,316 overall
Genres
Descriptors
psychedelic, mellow, soft, love, male vocalist, conscious, uplifting, children's music, warm, playful, pastoral, nature, melodic, calm, surreal, happy, peaceful, soothing, melancholic, fairy tale, fantasy
Language English

Track listing

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Previous in discography: Mellow Yellow
Mellow Yellow
For Little Ones
Next in discography: Mellow Yellow

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Issues

16 Issues

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16 Issues

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Credits

Credits

58 Reviews

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >>
2.50 stars
So you're saying that there really isn't a considerable difference in quality, when comparing this to Sunshine Superman?

Horseshit.
Published
5.00 stars
The beauty of this album is that it creates a magical world of its own, a gentle world filled with love, flowers, trees, babies, tinkers, crabs, starfishes, magpies and other assorted creatures: some might find all this quaint and naive hippy-dippy nonsense, but then on the other end of the stick there are those who feed on starry-eyed idealism daily and who will find it touching, uplifting and absolutely breathtaking. I am among the latter and thus consider A Gift From a Flower to a Garden the most positive album ever-I have yet to find an album that manages to convey such a quantity of happiness and pure optimism as this wonderful, wonderful double LP. The stripped-down folkiness of For the Little Ones is particularly enchanting with its earthy, natural simplicity and is bound to put a smile on your face. Actually, the whole album is pure joy set to music- buy now and see all your worries disappear :)
Published
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 5.00 stars
This album is so damn good it's unreal. Best way to capture its beauty is painting in the grass (yeah I know it sounds corny but that's how I discovered it!), it's pretty amazing how many tricks can Donovan pull off his sleeve and what a fantastic ear he's got for melody. The first part of the album is fun, catchy and childlike but very authentic. The second half takes it down a notch so you can just enjoy it, it can be repetitive, but this record is probably not meant to be heard on extremely close attention.

Beautifuly fun album.
Published
4.00 stars
Of the two halves of this album, I much prefer the latter (For Little Ones). Despite being given that title, I honestly think the musical and lyrical content of disc 2 is much more mature and introspective than the first, which to me comes across as more juvenile and shallow. Not to mention the stereo mix of the first disc is honestly one of the worst I've ever heard (i imagine back in the day on speakers it would be acceptable but it's hard to listen to with headphones).

I could honestly go on and on about the second half of this album, though. For Little Ones is some of the finest British folk I've ever heard. Tracks like Isle of Islay, Song of the Naturalist's Wife, and Widow With A Shawl (A Portrait) are beautiful, atmospheric songs filled to the brim with emotion. On the other hand, songs like The Enchanted Gypsy and Lay Of The Last Tinker are more upbeat and given percussion, unlike most of the other songs, which mainly feature the guitar only.

My personal favorite track from this album is The Tinker And The Crab (if you couldn't tell by my name), an endearing cheerful tune that, like many other tunes on this album, evokes the motif of walking along the beach.

I cannot recommend this album enough to anyone, especially those who enjoy the works of Nick Drake or Fairport Convention. In my humble opinion, this is easily one of the finest works of folk music of all time.
Published
3.50 stars
At the time of its release, this was easily Donovan's most ambitious album: an hour-long double album with 22 total tracks. It was pretty much twice as long as anything else he'd attempted up to that point. The result was a good but inconsistent album. The best tracks here are pretty great, with the likes of "Voyage Into the Golden Screen" and "The Mandolin Man and His Secret" being among the better songs here.

Favorite tracks: Mad John's Escape, The Land of Doesn't Have to Be, The Enchanted Gypsy, Voyage Into the Golden Screen, The Mandolin Man and His Secret, Lay of the Last Tinker, Widow With Shawl (A Portrait)
Published
â–¼ 3.50 stars
  • 4.00 stars A1 Wear Your Love Like Heaven
  • 3.50 stars A2 Mad John's Escape
  • 3.00 stars A3 Skip-A-Long Sam
  • 3.50 stars A4 Sun
  • 4.00 stars A5 There Was a Time
  • 3.50 stars B1 Oh Gosh
  • 3.00 stars B2 Little Boy in Corduroy
  • 3.50 stars B3 Under the Greenwood Tree
  • 4.00 stars B4 The Land of Doesn't Have to Be
  • 4.00 stars B5 Someone's Singing
  • 3.50 stars C1 Song of the Naturalist's Wife
  • 4.00 stars C2 The Enchanted Gypsy
  • 4.50 stars C3 Voyage Into the Golden Screen
  • 4.00 stars C4 Isle of Islay
  • 4.00 stars C5 The Mandolin Man and His Secret
  • 4.00 stars C6 Lay of the Last Tinker
  • 4.00 stars D1 The Tinker and the Crab
  • 4.00 stars D2 Widow With Shawl (A Portrait)
  • 4.00 stars D3 The Lullaby of Spring
  • 3.50 stars D4 The Magpie
  • 3.00 stars D5 Starfish-on-the-Toast
  • 3.00 stars D6 Epistle to Derroll
"A school field trip to Shangri-La"
The halcyon days of illustrious Scottish folkstar Donovan weren't that long ago, and the songsmith still releases music to this day in his old age, but already his initial releases sound like fairy tales from an generation of magic far removed from the modern age. One such relic from a bygone era of quaint drug-induced folk and pop music is A Gift From a Flower to a Garden, a glorious diptych of archaic ballads written upon hallucinogenic blotting paper with purple ink strained out of wisteria and lavender flowers.

Diving into the grape-colored soaking pool that this record inhabits is like wandering through the painted doors of a family-owned thrift shop, infused with sweet-smelling incense scents and embellished with glinting carved crystals of a healing nature. The lengthy double album is halved into Wear Your Love Like Heaven, a peculiar but fruitful orchard of Beatles-esque singsong and strumming that makes sense when considering Donovan was friends with the band at the time, and the flute-laden merriment of child-oriented For Little Ones. The latter far outweighs the former although both have their clear highlights, and while the cutesy factor of the first side of the two-part chronicle tends to become weary after some time, the jovial yarns of its second portion remain consistent in their entertainment, with an atmosphere like Donovan is telling his stories around a campfire.

It was something of the expected standard in the late sixties era, but occasionally an individual song's mixing will sound sparse and flatlined, the divisive panning between vocal and instrumental channels causing a glaring disparity between the two elements, but thankfully this is not always the case and the album finds more steady ground on which to lay out its tie-dyed picnic blankets as it progresses. Song by song, A Gift From a Flower to a Garden has its highs and lows in terms of quality, but overall never dips so far as to become anything less than deftly-performed old-world pleasantry.

★★★½
Published
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 3.50 stars
Donovan's massive double album is filled with songs that range from Psyche pop to folk. While it's definitely not as consistent as an album like Sunshine Superman or even Mellow Yellow, and is definitely a little overly long, it's arguably one of his best albums.

Certainly disc 1 is weaker. It's hard to choose favorites on this album; it's a little bloated and some songs definitely blend together. "Wear Your Love Like Heaven", "Mad John's Escape", "Sun" and "Someone's Singing" definitely stuck out to me the most though. Side 1 opens strong and ends strong, but is pretty ho-hum overall.

Disc 2 is much more consistent. "The Enchanted Gypsy", "Lay of the Last Tinker", "Wondow With a Shawl", "The Lullaby of Spring", "Starfish-on-the-Toast" and especially "Epistle to Derroll" were my picks here. Not much super noteworthy, but an overall more consistent experience.

Together, they create a disjointed, varied, but enjoyable and happy experience. I can see why people call it Donovan's best. I'd recommend it.
Published
4.50 stars
Ideas as out there as Beefheart but served on a bed of folk pop so light and pretty that much of this could work as lullabies. Seems like this one has been forgotten with time but it's a gem of that innocent and wide-eyed psych sound I love from '67/'68 which hardly ever got fully captured again.
Published
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Catalog

Ratings: 2,348
Cataloged: 1,886
Track rating sets:Track ratings: 151
Rating distribution
Rating trend
Page 1 2 .. 15 .. 31 .. 47 .. 62 .. 78 .. 94 .. 109 .. 125 .. 141 .. 157 >>
25 Apr 2024
jakepauler69  4.00 stars
25 Apr 2024
McCater  4.00 stars
23 Apr 2024
ilvmsc  3.50 stars
23 Apr 2024
Da_li  4.00 stars
23 Apr 2024
c4m1lle Wishlist3.50 stars
19 Apr 2024
fabriziodimartino  4.00 stars ⚬
18 Apr 2024
irga  4.00 stars
16 Apr 2024
brayden1  3.00 stars Average
13 Apr 2024
2001davidelai  3.00 stars
13 Apr 2024
Crackerhead  2.00 stars It's ok
10 Apr 2024
Cattgirl14  â–¼4.50 stars
  • 5.00 stars A1 Wear Your Love Like Heaven
  • 3.00 stars A2 Mad John's Escape
  • 5.00 stars A3 Skip-A-Long Sam
  • 5.00 stars A4 Sun
  • 5.00 stars A5 There Was a Time
  • 4.00 stars B1 Oh Gosh
  • 5.00 stars B2 Little Boy in Corduroy
  • 4.00 stars B3 Under the Greenwood Tree
  • 5.00 stars B4 The Land of Doesn't Have to Be
  • 5.00 stars B5 Someone's Singing
  • 2.00 stars C1 Song of the Naturalist's Wife
  • 4.00 stars C2 The Enchanted Gypsy
  • 5.00 stars C3 Voyage Into the Golden Screen
  • 5.00 stars C4 Isle of Islay
  • 5.00 stars C5 The Mandolin Man and His Secret
  • 5.00 stars C6 Lay of the Last Tinker
  • 5.00 stars D1 The Tinker and the Crab
  • 5.00 stars D2 Widow With Shawl (A Portrait)
  • 5.00 stars D3 The Lullaby of Spring
  • 5.00 stars D4 The Magpie
  • 5.00 stars D5 Starfish-on-the-Toast
  • 5.00 stars D6 Epistle to Derroll
10 Apr 2024
beatles5525  4.00 stars
9 Apr 2024
agent_orange000  3.00 stars
7 Apr 2024
carlydavis  â–¼4.50 stars
  • 5.00 stars A1 Wear Your Love Like Heaven
  • 4.50 stars A2 Mad John's Escape
  • 5.00 stars A3 Skip-A-Long Sam
  • 4.50 stars A4 Sun
  • 5.00 stars A5 There Was a Time
  • 5.00 stars B1 Oh Gosh
  • 4.50 stars B2 Little Boy in Corduroy
  • 4.50 stars B3 Under the Greenwood Tree
  • 4.50 stars B4 The Land of Doesn't Have to Be
  • 5.00 stars B5 Someone's Singing
  • 4.50 stars C1 Song of the Naturalist's Wife
  • 4.50 stars C2 The Enchanted Gypsy
  • 4.50 stars C3 Voyage Into the Golden Screen
  • 5.00 stars C4 Isle of Islay
  • 5.00 stars C5 The Mandolin Man and His Secret
  • 4.50 stars C6 Lay of the Last Tinker
  • 5.00 stars D1 The Tinker and the Crab
  • 4.50 stars D2 Widow With Shawl (A Portrait)
  • 5.00 stars D3 The Lullaby of Spring
  • 4.50 stars D4 The Magpie
  • 4.50 stars D5 Starfish-on-the-Toast
  • 5.00 stars D6 Epistle to Derroll
5 Apr 2024
tearsfallingdownmyface  2.00 stars lightness of being
Cover art for A Gift From a Flower to a Garden by Donovan
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Previous
Next
Previous in discography: Mellow Yellow
Mellow Yellow
For Little Ones
Next in discography: Mellow Yellow
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Track listing

Credits

388 Lists

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Contributions

Contributors to this release: alanranta, snellius, Joci, fixbutte, Alenko, jhendrix110, lammterra1, coolidge, lombow, ulio, AppleScruff
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