Stoned Soul Picnic

Album

Stoned Soul Picnic

Label

Soul City Records

Genre

Pop Soul

Media Type

45s

Composer(s)

Laura Nyro

Entered Chart

Jun 1, 1968

Peak Date

Jul 27, 1968

Released

May 1968

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Soul City 766

B-Side

The Sailboat Song

Original Artist

Laura Nyro

The members of the 5th Dimension loved this song and were shocked to find out it was written by a Caucasian 20-year-old girl from New York City named Laura Nyro. After this song became a hit, they recorded several other Nyro songs, including "Sweet Blindness," "Blowin' Away" and "Save The Country." >> Bones Howe, who engineered the 5th Dimension track "Up-Up and Away," became the group's producer and introduced them to this song. Howe explained in the book By the Time We Got to Woodstock: The Great Rock 'n' Roll Revolution of 1969: "Laura (Nyro) was a good friend and I used to visit her in New York whenever I was there and she made me tuna fish sandwiches. She was great and I was a huge fan and I recorded enough of her songs so that there could be a 5th Dimension album of all Laura Nyro songs. I believe she was really an important songwriter and brought poetry to her work that kept it from being just pop. But she went where she went and the world didn't follow." "Stoned" doesn't always mean getting high on marijuana. In this case, it refers to drinking alcohol and having a good time at a glorious picnic - Nyro mentions wine and moonshine in the lyrics as the beverages of choice. Two years earlier, Ray Charles released "Let's Go Get Stoned," which was also about alcohol. Craig G sampled this on his 1991 track "Smoothing Out the Rough Spots"; Crystal Waters sampled it on her 1994 track "Ghetto Day."

Can you surry, can you picnic, whoa?
Can you surry, can you picnic?
Come on, come on and surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine
Stoned soul, stoned soul, whoa

Come on, come on and surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Rain and sun come in again
And from the sky come the Lord and the lightning
And from the sky come the Lord and the lightning
Stoned soul, stoned soul
Surry on, soul

Surry, surry, surry, surry

There'll be trains of blossoms (There'll be trains of blossoms)
There'll be trains of music (There'll be music)
There'll be trains of trust, trains of golden dust
Come along and surry on, sweet trains of thought, surry on down
Can you surry, can you surry, can you surry?

Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine (Red yellow honey)
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine, moonshine
Stoned soul, yeah
Surry on, soul

Surry, surry, surry, surry
Surry, surry, surry, surry
Surry, surry, surry, surry