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One of the most popular classic rock songs for the Halloween season is Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.” The “Hurdy Gurdy Man” singer once said the track was “prophetic.” When asked to explain the song’s meaning, he didn’t mention anything about real witches. Instead, he connected “Season of the Witch” to a major American subculture.

Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ was about ‘a darkness that was falling’

During a 2004 interview posted on Best Classic Bands, the “Mellow Yellow” singer explained the meaning of “Season of the Witch.” “It was about beatniks out to make it rich,” he recalled. “It was bohemia infiltrating the popular culture. It was tongue in cheek, but also it was about a darkness that was falling. That darkness was the freedoms that I spoke of, that opened the doors, and the Beats in the ’50s who helped us speak what we wanted to speak: [Bob] Dylan on this side of the world and me and The Beatles on the other side. We could now speak our minds on our records.

“That darkness was coming down to close it down, and ‘Season of the Witch’ was prophetic in a way, because I was the first to be busted for smoking hash, and that darkness fell,” he opined. “And it was like a season of the witch. We were in 1966, so it was serious stuff. And that spookiness in the record was real.”

Donovan played part of the song for 12 hours

Donovan discussed an interesting anecdote about “Season of the Witch.” After lecturing at a college, he recalled two students taking him back to their dorm because they wanted to learn the chord progressions from “Season of the Witch.” While the students seemed well-versed in guitar, they still saw the song’s chords as a secret only Donovan knew. 

Donovan said the tune featured an unusual combination of two chords. The tune appears to use the A7 and D7#9. After learning those chords, he could not stop playing them for 12 hours.

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“Season of the Witch” was not a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune appeared on the album Sunshine Superman. That record peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and spent 29 weeks on the chart. The tune’s title track became Donovan’s only No. 1 single in the United States, peaking at No. 1 for one of its 13 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. 

The Official Charts Company reports that “Season of the Witch” did not chart in the United Kingdom either. Meanwhile, the album Sunshine Superman reached No. 25 and charted for seven weeks, and “Sunshine Superman” peaked at No. 2 and charted for 11 weeks. In 1989, the song peaked at No. 100 for one week.

The tune became part of popular culture. It appeared in American Horror Story: Coven, and Lana Del Rey covered it for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Given the new prominence of witchcraft, “Season of the Witch” might be with us for years to come.

“Season of the Witch” is an eerie song — and Donovan thinks it was prophetic.

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