The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse



The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse is the second album by the British comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. In the United States, it was released as Urban Spaceman and added their U.K. hit single "I'm the Urban Spaceman" to the track listing.

Background
By 1968, the group's sound had expanded beyond their music hall and jazz roots, drawing inspiration from the blues and psychedelic rock movements that had grown in popularity at the time. They recorded the album at the newly established Morgan Studios in London. The phrase "the doughnut in granny's greenhouse" is obscure British slang for the lavatory. The band first heard it when Michael Palin told them a joke featuring it.

The chorus of "We Are Normal" features the lyric "We are normal and we want our freedom", a reference to a line from the 1963 play The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade or Marat/Sade, also quoted in "The Red Telephone", a song by the American band Love from their 1967 album Forever Changes. The track also features the playful rhyming interjection "We are normal and we dig Bert Weedon" in which Stanshall pays fleeting tribute to one of the most influential guitarists of his day.

The track 11 Moustachioed Daughters is an evocation of the traditional Witches' Sabbath and features lyrics referencing the traditional hallucinogenic flying ointment prepared from Atropa belladonna (and other Solanaceous plants - including the fabled mandrake, said to shriek when uprooted). Stylistically, the track is also a homage to the original 1963 recording "The Feast of the Mau-Mau", by one of Vivian Stanshall's favourite musical artists Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

In 2007 the U.K. version of "Doughnut" was re-issued by EMI on CD with 5 bonus rare or unreleased tracks.

Sleeve notes
The instruction that "The noises of your bodies are a part of this record." can be found on the booklet that came with the gatefold edition.

Personnel

 * Vivian Stanshall - vocals
 * Neil Innes - guitar, vocals
 * Rodney Slater - saxophone
 * Roger Ruskin Spear - saxophone
 * Dennis Cowan - bass
 * Larry Smith - drums