Released 1967 Length 2:31 | Format 7" Label Warner Bros. | |
B-side "The Great Mandella (The Wheel of Life)" Genre Folk rock
psychedelic folk | ||
"I Dig Rock and Roll Music" is a 1967 song by the American folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, written by Paul Stookey, James Mason and Dave Dixon.
Background
Credited to Stookey-Mason-Dixon, the song's lyrics references contemporary rock artists including: the Mamas & the Papas, Donovan, and the Beatles. The song parodies and satirizes the vocal style of the Mamas & the Papas in the first verse, Donovan in the second verse and the Beatles in the third verse. Matthew Greenwald of AllMusic commented that the song "simply celebrates the simple joy of pop music at the time." The song was a hit single for the group and reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100.
In an interview with the Chicago Daily News in 1966, a year before the song's release, Mary Travers had expressed contempt on the emergence of the folk rock genre, "it's so badly written. ... When the fad changed from folk to rock, they didn't take along any good writers."
The line about Donovan and "his crystal images" refers to the mention of "crystal spectacles" in "Epistle to Dippy". The song is also noted for its psychedelic feedback effects, miming the volume swell on the electric guitar from Donovan's 1966 song "Sunshine Superman". The backing vocal effect in the verse, parodying the Beatles, reflects "Yellow Submarine".