At the height of one of the greatest years in the history of pop music, a band of teenagers with a bizarre name released a bizarre song with a bizarre story behind it. And they watched as it soared to the top of the pop charts.
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A product of the psychedelic era, the 1967 single “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock has nonetheless earned a timeless spot in the pop pantheon. It’s a marvelous oddity that came together in the unlikeliest fashion imaginable.
The Clock is Ticking
The story behind “Incense and Peppermints” gets a little convoluted when you try to sort out all the different claims as to its authorship and creation, so we’ll try to give you just the consensus basics of it all. It started with a California cover band named Thee Sixpence, who were just starting to branch out into creating their own music.
Keyboardist Mark Weitz and guitarist Ed King wrote a whirling instrumental to start the whole process, although there were no words at that point. The band’s manager liked what he heard, and since Thee Sixpence didn’t yet have any established lyricists, he farmed it out to other writers.
Those writers were John Carter and Tim Gilbert (although some accounts claim Gilbert didn’t contribute much to the final song, even though he received credit). The pair came up with the title “Incense and Peppermints,” a suitably trippy phrase considering the tenor of the times, and Thee Sixpence set about recording it.
The “Peppermint” Twist
When the band laid down the track, several of its members tried to step up to the task of lead vocals. None of them could get it quite right. A friend of the band named Greg Munford, who was all of 16 years old at the time, just happened to be there at the session, and he delivered the vocal that would appear on the recording.
That would be the extent of Munford’s contributions to the song and the band in total, as he never became an official member. “Incense and Peppermints” was initially tabbed as the B-side of a single. But a DJ flipped the record and the song took off on a local level.
The idea was then floated that the band should release the song as an A-side to capitalize on its undeniable allure. One problem: It was discovered there was already a group named Thee Sixpence (hard to believe, but it was the ‘60s). That’s why they switched it to Strawberry Alarm Clock for the wide release, which caught on like wildfire and put the band at No. 1.
Behind the Lyrics of “Incense and Peppermints”
On the one hand, the words of this song are nonsensical. Don’t forget this was an era where even The Beatles were purposely writing songs like “I Am the Walrus” that were meant to befuddle listeners. But a deeper dive into “Incense and Peppermints” reveals a sly message about the futility of finding true leaders in a world where so many people are out for themselves.
Who cares what games we choose, the narrator shrugs. Little to win, but nothing to lose. He suggests there’s no difference to the two sides of the societal divide: Beatniks and politics, nothin’ is new / A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view. Maybe the only sane move is to drop out from it all: Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around.
Sadly, Weitz and King (who later joined Lynyrd Skynyrd) didn’t receive credit for their contributions to “Incense and Peppermints.” Strawberry Alarm Clock, beset by massive lineup changes and managerial tumult, had largely imploded by the early ‘80s (although there’s still an incarnation of the band giving live performances today). What an impact they left behind with this one-of-a-kind creation.
Photo by CBS via Getty Images
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