Mandrake Root
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Mandrake Root" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Deep Purple | |
| from the album Shades of Deep Purple | |
| Released | July 1968 |
| Recorded | 11–13 May 1968 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 6:09 |
| Label | Parlophone (UK) Tetragrammaton (United States) |
| Songwriters | Ritchie Blackmore, Rod Evans, Jon Lord |
| Producer | Derek Lawrence |
"Mandrake Root" is a song by Deep Purple that is featured on their debut album Shades of Deep Purple. The title is in reference to the mandrake plant, but is also the name of a pre-Purple band that Blackmore was trying to form in Germany when he got the call from Deep Purple's original management.[2]
Deep Purple recorded their first studio album in May 1968. Of the eight songs that were included, (an additional one, "Shadows", was cut as a demo but scrapped from the album), only four of them were written by the band itself. Additionally, one of these songs, "And the Address", is an instrumental. The studio version of "Mandrake Root" is just over six minutes long. Many full recordings of the live arrangement exceed the twenty-minute mark.
"Mandrake Root" was performed and recorded at the same time as their first instrumental, "And the Address", and was originally meant to be an instrumental as well. The lyrics weren't added until after rehearsals took place before the album-recording of Shades of Deep Purple in May, 1968, the group having decided that they did not want more than one instrumental track on the album. The main track was recorded on 12 May. The song features many sound effects, which were picked from the BBC Library.
