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Small Faces — Itchycoo Park
Album: There Are But Four Small Faces
Avg rating:
7.3

Your rating:
Total ratings: 1799









Released: 1967
Length: 2:43
Plays (last 30 days): 1
Over Bridge of Sighs
To rest my eyes in shades of green
Under dreaming spires
To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been

''(What did you do there?)'' I got high
''(What did you feel there?)'' Well, I cried
''(But why the tears there?)'' Tell you why
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful

I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun

I'll tell you what I'll do ''(What will you do?)''
I'd like to go there now with you
You can miss out school ''(Won't that be cool?)''
Why go to learn the words of fools?

''(What will we do there?)'' We'll get high
''(What will we touch there?)'' We'll touch the sky
''(But why the tears there?)'' I'll tell you why
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful

I feel inclined to blow my mind
Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun
They all come out to groove about
Be nice and have fun in the sun

It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
Ha

It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
It's all too beautiful
Comments (211)add comment
Love love love this song.
Reminds me of my first 2nd shift job working in a glass plant.
They played great music & that was back in the early 80s
the answer is “smoking pot in the park”…
 xcranky_yankee wrote:

Itchycoo Park...why ask why...but who came up with that? must be a 'great story' there somewhere (am not going to google it for fear of getting on some feminine hygiene website's potential contact list)



Wikipedia sez: Inspiration

The song was first conceived and largely written by Ronnie Lane, who had been reading a leaflet on the virtues of Oxford which mentioned its dreaming spires.[12]

A number of sources claim the song's name is derived from the nickname of Little Ilford Park, on Church Road in the London suburb of Manor Park, where Small Faces' singer and songwriter Steve Marriott grew up. The "itchycoo" nickname is, in turn, attributed to the stinging nettles which grew there. Other sources cite nearby Wanstead Flats (Manor Park end) as the inspiration for the song.[13]

Photo of Wanstead Flats, London E12 near Marriott's Manor Park home

Marriott and Small Faces manager Tony Calder came up with the well-known story when Marriott was told the BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references, Calder confirms:

We scammed the story together, we told the BBC that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids – we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off.[14]

Ronnie Lane said of the true location of Itchycoo Park: "It's a place we used to go to in Ilford years ago. Some bloke we know suggested it to us because it's full of nettles and you keep scratching actually".[15]

When I was hiking up in the Himalayas and picking some smokable weeds  this was on high rotation in my head
Own this on 45 vinyl. Still a fan. Sadly though my turntable and 99% of my vinyl collection were "inherited" by my son and daughter in law.
Itchycoo Park...why ask why...but who came up with that? must be a 'great story' there somewhere (am not going to google it for fear of getting on some feminine hygiene website's potential contact list)
 Madness1954 wrote:


But Itchycoo Park was in East London, UK, where the band grew up.

I've always interpreted the start of the song to mean they're being released, metaphorically, from prison* to go be free and trip in the park.

* School, work, East London, the mundane, etc.
 Ok_Sobriquet wrote:

The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice, Italy. It leads to a prison. Or used to.



But Itchycoo Park was in East London, UK, where the band grew up.
The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice, Italy. It leads to a prison. Or used to.
This song alway's takes me back to that time. I LOVED the 60s!
Tony Robinson (Baldrick in Blackadder as well as many other things) tells a story of going to school with Steve Marriot and being asked it he went to bunk off school and go the park. He didn't, but you get an idea what he missed in the song.
I wanna get high in the park too
I recently posted that "Incense and Peppermints" may be the quintessential Summer Of Love song, but on second thought, I think I have to change my vote to this flanger-laden beauty. It's all too beautiful!
From Small Faces to Humble Pie. What an amazing artist.
This was the most amazing song for a kid in grade school to hear in 1967!
 {#Clap}certainly a powerful force in music  Garyohh wrote:
Steve Marriott was the best!

 

 Stefen wrote:
Dropping acid in the park was a rite of passage in the 60s.
 
Yep but never mind the acid, one COULD go IN a park in the 60s...


Dropping acid in the park was a rite of passage in the 60s.
 oppositelock wrote:
It would be nice to have more Small Faces like Tin Soldier.
 

 
{#Clap}
 Niel wrote:
I've heard that the name of the band came from the fact that all four of the members were quite short, under 5'-6". Does anyone know if this was true?

 
According to Wikipedia's article:
 
The group chose the name, Small Faces, for many reasons: because of the members' small physical stature and "A 'Face' was somebody special, more than just a snappy dresser, he was Mister Cool."

For 1967, this was pretty innovative compared to some of the bubble gum that was playing.
https://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/images/0005/P5140918.jpg
Bridge of Sighs, Cambridge.
I've heard that the name of the band came from the fact that all four of the members were quite short, under 5'-6". Does anyone know if this was true?
All I can think of is...Boy have things changed since then.
 NeilBlanchard wrote:
I think this is the first song to use "flanging".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
 
Nope.  Toni Fisher's song The Big Hurt in 1959 had it!!!      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIukZsRS5r8
Steve Marriott was the best!

 NeilBlanchard wrote:
I think this is the first song to use "flanging".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
 
not sure about that, "flanging" was a word John Lennon made up, it was his shorthand for the process
As others have noted, this hearkens back to AM-Radio, heard in the family cars, in back yards, at picnics. It's a fine, telling Time-piece!
 NeilBlanchard wrote:
I think this is the first song to use "flanging".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks
 
Whoa. Love that tech.
I think this is the first song to use "flanging".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dB7skqrks

It would be nice to have more Small Faces like Tin Soldier.
 
Still love the tape flangeing. Legend has it they worked on off sync-ing two tape decks all night.
 Too beautiful for this 10 year old as well..always loved this song  Babette55 wrote:
too beautiful for a 12 year old....LOVED it! {#Bananajumprope}
had NO clue what this song was about....{#Daisy}

 


Always liked the special effect in the drumming. I looked it up and it's called flanging. In case you would like to know: Itchycoo Park turns out to be number one in the-top-10-greatest-flange-effect-recordings-of-all-time!

https://www.sourceaudio.net/blog/post/the-top-10-greatest-flange-effect-recordings-of-all-time/
Another classic oldie covered well on Nellie McKay's latest, "My Weekly Reader."
Breakthrough song and message in 1967!!
 Skydog wrote:
1960's AM radio at it's best,
well except for Beatles and Motown and Stax

 
Yup takes me right back to childhood and listening to songs like this via the elders transistor radios
1960's AM radio at it's best,
well except for Beatles and Motown and Stax
Reminds me of when I bought my first New Musical Express...{#Bananajam}
To cruise about....     LOVE IT!!!   MISS OUT SCHOOL...  before I use psychedelics  i knew what it was about from songs like this. 1967.

please keep running with the oldies.  makes me so happy!
too beautiful for a 12 year old....LOVED it! {#Bananajumprope}
had NO clue what this song was about....{#Daisy}
Mescaline, swimming in the sea of cortez at night with luminescence in the water.  Every stroke illuminated. This song playing on the boat. Ah the memories.   
Wow.  This dropped in 1967.  It's my first time hearing it and I gotta admit that I like it and that it has aged really well.  I love the "I got high" refrain.
I did a couple of blotters on top of Volcan Atitlan, Guatamela during the partial eclipse of the full moon.  But it was the San Pedro cactus at roughly 4,400 metres above sea level in the Bolivian Andes mountains that took that experience to a new level.

Anybody else? 

{#Mrgreen} 
 easmann wrote:
Aud wrote:
I always thought that one of the lines in the call and response section sounded like "Look like she's dead there" so I never could understand the appeal of this song. It was always kind of a creepy, drug song to me
 
Geecheeboy wrote:
I've been familiar with this song for more than 40 years. Read the lyrics today for the first time. Weird.
  
Getting the lyrics was often quite a challenge. I suppose it drove some percentage of sales, hoping for lyrics in the liner notes? I puzzled and pondered the lyrics of many songs. The Internet now reveals mysteries. : )

 
It's easy....drop acid, go to the park, feed ducks....ha ha. I've done it many times myself......way cool!
Very, very nice!
The song that introduced us to flanging....
{#Propeller}  Let's dance....
 its all too beautiful out here in deep space.. {#Sunny}
Easy to relate to itchycoo park....just received my draft notice ending my college deferment. Those were the days.....
 Geecheeboy wrote:
I've been familiar with this song for more than 40 years. Read the lyrics today for the first time. Weird.

 

Try MacArthur's Park, from same era!

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.  
I've been familiar with this song for more than 40 years. Read the lyrics today for the first time. Weird.
sounds like Freddy Mercury...
I always thought that one of the lines in the call and response section sounded like "Look like she's dead there" so I never could understand the appeal of this song. It was always kind of a creepy, drug song to me
{#Cool} ...... love it loads, "trippy stuff"
 HazzeSwede wrote:
This sound's so much better on vinyl.


 
What doesn't?
 
vivakitty wrote:
Do I need drugs to understand the appeal of this song?

Businessgypsy wrote:
No, but a flux capacitor would help.

 Cynaera wrote:
Oooh, good zap. I love you.
 
Ha, just saw this today. Hope you're having fun in the next adventure, sweet lady! The rest of us will be along in dribs and drabs.
What will you do there?
Great song from my youth.  Evokes memories.
Great memories if this song when I was a wee lad!
geiler Song!
 wlpendley wrote:
. . . Itchycoo Park still has "the magic". . .
 
I know exactly what you mean.
Any day every day is a good day to get stoned and go wandering around in a park...It's all too beautiful, really!
Sounding really great today, RP, Thanks!
All of a sudden I am very tired of most 1960s songs.  I listened to them for decades, and it was amazing how long I loved them.  But after 40 years, I find myself deleting most of them from my playlists and donating my old CDs to charity.

But not this one. Itchycoo Park still has "the magic".  Curiouser and curiouser...   {#Curtain}
 eswiley2 wrote:
Who comes up with a name like Itchycoo Park?  :)

 
Many different people could have: Lewis Carroll, e.e. cummings, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl?  In this case, it was probably Steve Marriott.
Loved this as a kid...still do as an older gentleman
 eswiley2 wrote:
Who comes up with a name like Itchycoo Park?  :)
 
Don't know "who" but this is where:

https://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question27896.html

The Itchycoo Park in the song is actually University Parks in Oxford. The Small Faces were sent to stay in a hotel in Oxford to get them away from the London scene and supposedly concentrate on writing more songs. They got very stoned and wandered around the park on one particular day, and that's where the song came from. (From a 'Story Behind The Song' article in Mojo, and the accompanying book.) 
Who comes up with a name like Itchycoo Park?  :)
 oldviolin wrote:
nuttin' but net...
 

{#High-five}
Just wanna go back to those times!!
Sounds Queen-ish at times... not necessarily in a good way
 BillG wrote:

No Rod here. Ronnie Lane + Steve Marriott. 
 
Quite correct. Became a Steve Marriott fan later on, during his Humble Pie days. {#Yes}
 joelbb wrote:
The original parental indignation tune.  Great if for nothing else than historical reasons.  Rod and Ron were teenagers.
 
No Rod here. Ronnie Lane + Steve Marriott. 
 meadowwoods wrote:
This song still brings a smile to my face :)
 
Me Too!!    {#Jump}
 vivakitty wrote:
Do I need drugs to understand the appeal of this song?
 
Of course—-it's even a cliche that one would speak those exact words "it's all too beautiful" when one was on acid. (I didn't get the good stuff back in the sixties, mind you.)
The original parental indignation tune.  Great if for nothing else than historical reasons.  Rod and Ron were teenagers.
One of many great like-minded tunes on this compilation...




Proclivities wrote: The concoction with Stewart and Wood joining the other three members was known as "(The) Faces".

Yes, I know.  I think they dropped the "Small" because they simply had big plans.  I actually prefer the stuff Rod Stewart did with Beck and The Faces to most of his solo work.  Stewart even re-teamed with Beck to cover People Get Ready and it is a great cover.  I think that was in the 80s.
When you could listen to AM radio{#Sorry}
This song still brings a smile to my face :)
 fredriley wrote:

Well I was alive when this effort came out, and thousands (no exaggeration) of exposures to it later over the decades and I'm sick to the back teeth with it. I could likely sing it from heart I've heard it so often on the radio. There's nothing intrinsically bad about the song or the group, but even a 10 can become a 1 after serious over-exposure. Where the feck is Itchycoo Park anyhoo?

 
That's funny. Back in the cradle of psychedelia, we looked on the sentiments expressed by "Itchycoo Park" as, well, quaint, a lot of paisley-adorned wannabes climbing on the peaceandloveandgetstoned bandwagon. Then you heard Small Faces live, and you knew they were one, tight rock'n'roll band. Other pretenders like Scott McKenzie ("San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)") and Eric Burdon ("San Franciscan Nights"), despite their pedigrees, fared less well—although Burdon's work with War played well live.
cuttin school, going to the park, and getting high. Beautiful back then...
 fredriley wrote:
 ...  Where the feck is Itchycoo Park anyhoo?
 
Cute poery in your question!  Thanks to Wikipedia:
Marriott and Small Faces manager Tony Calder came up with this well-known story when Marriott was told the BBC had banned the song for its overt drug references: "We scammed the story together, we told the BBC that Itchycoo Park was a piece of waste ground in the East End that the band had played on as kids - we put the story out at ten and by lunchtime we were told the ban was off."
 
Ronnie Lane on the true location of Itchycoo Park:  "It's a place we used to go to in Ilford years ago. Some bloke we know suggested it to us because it's full of nettles and you keep scratching."
 bachbeet wrote:
I like this song more now than I did then.  Rod Stewart joined them with Ron Wood after he left Jeff Beck and after Marriot left Faces.
 
When Marriott left to co-form Humble Pie, "The Small Faces" was essentially disbanded.  The concoction with Stewart and Wood joining the other three members was known as "(The) Faces".


We used to dance to this in h.s., looking forward to the day when we could get HI-IGH!
 DaveInVA wrote:
I was in High School when this Small Feces song came out, hard to believe it was that long ago, like in another lifetime....
 

Freudian slip?  LOL
 Cynaera wrote:

Yep - and wow. I remember this song - and I keep thinking it ended up in a commercial... Still, so funky and fun... And to the naysayers who are bitching about the mix - it was about twenty years before you were born, so just shut up. Thank you.

 
Well I was alive when this effort came out, and thousands (no exaggeration) of exposures to it later over the decades and I'm sick to the back teeth with it. I could likely sing it from heart I've heard it so often on the radio. There's nothing intrinsically bad about the song or the group, but even a 10 can become a 1 after serious over-exposure. Where the feck is Itchycoo Park anyhoo?

Far out!  Always dug this tune man
 gigikent wrote:
What's with the horrible metallic sound? some precursor of house music?
 
It's psychedelic, man.


Freddie Mercury was in another band before Queen? {#Cheesygrin}
What's with the horrible metallic sound? some precursor of house music?
 bachbeet wrote:
I like this song more now than I did then.  Rod Stewart joined them with Ron Wood after he left Jeff Beck and after Marriot left Faces.
 
I love the tune!  Takes me back...    Marriott went on to sing with Humble Pie.

nuttin' but net...
I like this song more now than I did then.  Rod Stewart joined them with Ron Wood after he left Jeff Beck and after Marriot left Faces.
 Businessgypsy wrote:
No, but a flux capacitor would help.

 
Oooh, good zap. I love you.

 hippiechick wrote:
Woo Hoo! Back in High School again!

{#Dancingbanana_2}
 
Yep - and wow. I remember this song - and I keep thinking it ended up in a commercial... Still, so funky and fun... And to the naysayers who are bitching about the mix - it was about twenty years before you were born, so just shut up. Thank you.

vivakitty wrote:
Do I need drugs to understand the appeal of this song?
No, but a flux capacitor would help.

 bluedot wrote:
RIP STEVE MARRIOTT!
 
...like bluedot said...

This sound's so much better on vinyl.

 auburntigerrich wrote:
Yugh... this recording is awful. The definition of lo-fi. The song's nothing to shout at either.

I can't get past the fact that I think the percussion sounds like a guy beating on trash cans with hammers.

Cornfest. 3.

  
That's not a surprising opinion from someone born in 1980: the majority of recordings from that era would be considered "lo-fi" by contemporary standards.

Woo Hoo! Back in High School again!

{#Dancingbanana_2}
Beautiful
Bill, this would be fun paired with CCR's "Looking Out My Back Door"... Mice having fun in the sun, happy creatures dancing on the lawn!

 jenntenn wrote:

I missed free form radio. And then I found RP.
 
"Radio's" never been freer! (dang, it seems like the word should be "freeer" but three of the same letter in a row isn't allowed in English...lol)

RIP STEVE MARRIOTT!
 vivakitty wrote:
Do I need drugs to understand the appeal of this song?
 
Haha, if you have to ask that question, the drugs probably wouldn't help.  You'd probably have a BAD TRIP!  LOL

 capandjudy wrote:
This just reminds me that in the 1960s you could hear anything from Jimi Hendrix to Otis Redding on AM radio. Now a listener is locked into particular genres which is too bad really. By the way, this is a great tune.

 


I missed free form radio. And then I found RP.
I love love this song.   ....back in day.  
Do I need drugs to understand the appeal of this song?
This just reminds me that in the 1960s you could hear anything from Jimi Hendrix to Otis Redding on AM radio. Now a listener is locked into particular genres which is too bad really. By the way, this is a great tune.

I remember my Mom guffawing at the song title as well as the song itself.  Ah, the memories of my childhood in 1968.

 Proclivities wrote:
This is a good song, but it would be great to hear some more Small Faces; Steve Marriott was brilliant.
 
And he showed it OUT LOUD as the guts of Humble Pie.

This song has made me laugh out loud (or at least chuckle audibly) every single time I hear it.  "It's all too beautiful, baby!"


Its all too cool.  As Van Morrison sings 'take me back, take me back, take me back...'
I was in High School when this Small Feces song came out, hard to believe it was that long ago, like in another lifetime....
Oh, take me way back! It's all too beautiful!
I think this song is fantastic, one of my "All time" top ten.
 DeeCee1109 wrote:
Context is everything.  Life seemed so much simpler back in that day . . . . 
    It sure was!  (i love this song) #9


"I feel inclined to blow my mind, get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun" - lyrics don't come much better than that