Top 10 Most Psychedelic Songs

We know that almost every band from the 60s made at least one psychedelic song. This includes The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Doors. So, what is the most psychedelic song ever made?
The Top Ten
1 The End - The Doors

I am 52 and recall this song when growing up in the late 60s around my dad's 12 younger brothers and sisters. More than any other song, it transports me back to that time immediately and triggers memories long since forgotten, like only music can do to us. The perfect anthem for the time, quieter and more subdued than the chart favorites at the time (or even the other flower power hits by the likes of Guthrie, Dylan, Hendrix, Iron Butterfly, etc.), so controversial radio would never play it. No, in my opinion, no other song can touch this Doors' classic.

And no song has ever found a better soulmate than 'The End' and 'Apocalypse Now'. Growing up next to the Rock Island Arsenal during the Vietnam War, with the daily, constant artillery testing, the dozens of flyovers every single day by the Chinooks and the Huey helicopters, we knew we were a country at war then. What makes this song so strong is that it represents such complete dichotomies to what they represented in the 60s.

Finally, a comment on Jim Morrison. Focusing on his death or his drug use is shallow and vicarious. Millions of people did drugs and thousands died of overdoses in the 60s and 70s. But his voice! He had an amazing voice, so unique even to this day. The richness is 1 in 100 million. Long live 'The End'...

2 White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

The San Francisco Sound with a thumping rabbit-foot-like bass and a wafting, curling smoke ring guitar, eventually pierced by Grace Slick's magnificent, clear, and knowing vocal. Awesome.

This is and always will be my favourite all-time song. It takes me back to such a gentle time in my youth. I've told my kids I want it playing at my funeral!

In my opinion, the best psychedelic band is The Animals. They were trailblazers of this style. But I love Jefferson Airplane as much as possible.

3 Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

There are three kinds of psychedelic songs: songs that sit you down and take you for a ride (Echoes), songs that make your brain melt (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), and then there's this song, which straight-up gives you a brain transplant. Arguably the first song that truly pioneered electronic (yes, this is a half-psych rock, half electronic song), what this song does is take away everything you think you know and destroy it. It then replaces it with train horns, seagulls, down tempo electric guitar, and some proto-trance-style tape tampering. Either this, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or Echoes is the most trippy song overall.

4 Purple Haze - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Nothing compares to Hendrix and his guitar work. When I saw his guitar at the EMP, I felt this aura of passion and love. I think of all the black musicians he inspired. Seattle still is the best town for rock music. It's a shame he was so involved in drugs, like most of the artists from there. He will be missed.

Jimi Hendrix was not only a guitar god but he was an acid legend too. This song was about drugs, written for people who took drugs, by a man who took drugs. How psychedelic can you get?

Trippy tune, trippy production. The guitar and drums are all in the middle, like it's a mono track, and then Jimi's voice on either side really pulls your mind out.

5 Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

I know most of you know it, but if you don't, it's obviously about drugs. Listen to the lyrics. Pink Floyd is one of the greatest bands out there, or that will ever be there. But not the best...

Amazing song in my opinion, everyone should listen to it. It really teaches you that school is a terrible place.

This song speaks to you and heals your mental ailments through lyrics and powerful guitar solos. Number 1 in my book.

6 Echoes - Pink Floyd

"It's not just a song... rather, it's a journey." That's what my friend said about it, and he was right. You don't just listen to a good song. It takes you places, man! You just sit down, relax, and try to enjoy the journey. The journey through the planets and galaxies of the universe. Try to feel how small you are compared to stars and galaxies, and how gigantic you are compared to the quarks, leptons, and other subatomic particles. It's the best song ever made by a band in the history of mankind, at least for me.

It is probably not just one of the best psychedelic songs ever, it's one of the best songs a group of human beings could possibly ever compose.

7 I Am the Walrus - The Beatles

The intro takes me somewhere I've never been before. Like a peaceful land with color and simplicity. Listening to this has changed my view of the world. It makes me take a step back and think about what matters in life. What a mean rock song this would make, with screaming guitar solos after the chorus and power chords in that ascending part of the song. I believe music is the most powerful medium.

It's just so good. Might be a bit biased, but my first acid trip, I listened to this, and every time I get high and listen to this song, it takes me right back to that amazing trip at my summer cottage with my friends in midsummer! Love this song!

8 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - The Beatles

Lennon kept claiming that the song didn't actually stand for LSD. It was just the idea of his 5-year-old son, or something of that sort. But even when you think about it this way, you can't help but notice how psychedelic it actually is when you listen to the lyrics. Magic!

This song is not about LSD. It has been said by the band many times that it is not. It is about a child's drawing. Get your act together and do your research!

Come on! Even the initials for this song are LSD! This website's main demographic are 8-year-old jerkfaces with iPhones who are spoiled and listen to crappy music. That's also 80% of America's youth.

9 Interstellar Overdrive - Pink Floyd

Listen to the end of the song, and you'll know why it needs to be number 1. Psychedelia isn't all about hippies, trust me. Being a young man in London in the 60s, I know this. It is about creativity and a different style of rock that changed a lot. This is psychedelia. British psychedelia is better than American, trust me. Having also known Syd Barrett, he was not very hippy, but more a child's heart in a man's body.

This song is a great blend of psychedelic rock and space rock. It's very psychedelic, in my opinion, and is very influential to psychedelic music, space rock, Pink Floyd's later work in the 1970s, punk rock, grunge, and progressive rock. This song is underrated. I love this song!

10 Sunshine of Your Love - Cream

Possibly the best-known guitar riff next to Smoke on the Water.

Awesome trippy riff, and the most psychedelic cover art I have ever seen.

Not just the best psychedelic rock song, but also the best rock song ever made. Legendary!

The Contenders
11 Flying High - The Arcana
12 Astronomy Domine - Pink Floyd

As others have said, this should be Number 1. Some of the songs higher on the list are normal people's *idea* of psychedelic. But this is the song that psychotropic drugs would vote for, if they could vote. Which they can, but you don't know it's happening. Yet...

People need to understand that this absolutely NEEDS to be in the top 3 at least. It's an absolute masterpiece, and no other song will ever come close to taking you on a journey while you're tripping hard.

This needs to be #1. It is a journey through the universe. This is not just a song, but a psychedelic masterpiece, more psychedelic than Comfortably Numb, Echoes, and everything above it. It needs to have that #1 spot.

13 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly

This is one of the most heavy non-underground American heavy psychedelic rock songs released back in 1968. This deserves much more credit, and this song, and this band, is better than the overrated Beatles.

I am not even sure how to define psychedelic music, but when I hear this song, I think psychedelic! Check out Iron Butterfly Theme -- Psychedelic!

The full version has the best backbeat and grooviest instrumental break of all time.

14 Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan

The solo was not by Beck. It was Jimmy Page during his studio period. However, if Beck had done it, it might have been even greater!

The Beck solo transforms a folk song into a major experience.

Great lyrics and just so weird. It really defined Donovan's style.

15 Baba O'Riley - The Who
16 1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, baby - you are looking at the genuine customer. Right at the heart of it. Not some white guys sniffing around the blues. Jimi was the psychedelic blues. Also, check out Room Full of Mirrors. Hold your hand? Move over, Rover, and let Jimi take over.

A far greater psychedelic song than his more famous Purple Haze, 1983 has the capacity to transport you to a surreal land, which is what psychedelia is all about, in my opinion.

Largely ignored, but truly a psychedelic classic, much more so than other cliché songs. It's the feeling of the song that really drives it home.

17 Venus In Furs - The Velvet Underground

Lou Reed has the most distinct and amazing voice.

18 Incense and Peppermints - Strawberry Alarm Clock

Even today, when someone on a TV program is having a psychedelic experience, many times this song plays somewhere in the background. Incense and Peppermints should be a top 10 entry. It is one of the most psychedelic sounding and flavorful songs ever created. When people think psychedelia, this is one song that immediately comes to mind.

This song got Strawberry Alarm Clock famous. It was released in 1967, and this is one of the most famous psychedelic songs coming from the American West Coast. This song, and especially this band, is underrated.

19 The Red Telephone - Love

Yep, great song. It might be of interest that the line "we are normal and we want our freedom" was nicked from the song "We Are Normal" by the Bonzo Dog Band on their album Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse.

The most underrated band of the 60s. The lyrics are so eerie and odd, you just can't listen to it without being hypnotized by it. "We're all normal when we want our freedom." Amazing.

20 Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles

This song is the epitome of psychedelic. From the lyrics to John Lennon's vocals to the warped instrumentation, it's a perfect drug trip of a track.

If not number one, then in the top 3.

This should definitely be at number 1! Great song from the greatest band ever.

21 Within You Without You - The Beatles

The experience is beyond the hallucinations and visualization of the psychedelic world but even transcends to a spiritual level. One of the best of George's songs.

A lot of Pink Floyd and Tame Impala songs came to mind, but Within You Without You was the first to come to mind.

22 Flaming - Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd was better before The Dark Side of the Moon, released much later in March of 1973. This is not only one of my personal favorite Pink Floyd songs, but it is one of my favorite psychedelic rock and psychedelic pop songs, and perhaps, one of the best songs of all time.

Probably the greatest psychedelic album of its time. Floyd was never able to re-create anything as trippy once Syd left.

So incredibly happy to see this beautiful early Floyd masterpiece on this list!

23 Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - Pink Floyd

Well, whatever, nevermind. That song is what hash smokers are looking for. It would definitely make you fly. Listen, the judge.

24 Tomorrow is Yesterday - The Arcana
25 A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum

I like this song, and I love this band. Procol Harum released this song as a single, and on their first self-titled album in the same year, 1967. This song has psychedelic aspects, but it also has classical aspects, along with baroque pop and baroque music. These mixtures may form some progressive rock music. So overall, it's a great song, but it is much more progressive than psychedelic.

Defined British psychedelic music. Classic song.

Best single of all time. Love it.

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