November 19, 1968 (1 week)
During the first eleven years of the Canadian singles chart — combining the CHUM and RPM eras — only seven homegrown talents managed to reach the number one spot. Then, over the space of just eleven weeks, two more were added to the list. Both, it just so happened, by the same Can-Am rock group: Steppenwolf, the ultimate two-hit wonder who just so happened to have around a dozen actual hits. Thus, they are the first of several Canadian acts to notch more than one domestic chart topper.
"Magic Carpet Ride" is almost as well remembered as their previous number one smash "Born to Be Wild". While their breakthrough hit would become an anthem to bikers and, eventually, metalheads, this follow-up would seem to be more for the hippie crowd. The title alone gives away that it's all about massive drug intake, going on crazy trips and, hopefully, some enlightenment as a result. It's their "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", their "Incense and Peppermints" and their "See Emily Play" — at least up to a point.
But just as "Born to Be Wild" was just as much a gesture to the beautiful people as it was the motorcycle gangs, "Magic Carpet Ride" has one foot in the rougher camp of Hell's Angels and the Sturgis Rally while the other foot sips tea and pretends to be moved by the works of Carlos Castaneda. First, it opens with a few seconds of buzzsaw feedback before giving way to a storming Bo Diddley-esque melody. John Kay's guttural vocal stands in contrast to the more tripped out and/or beatific singing of the acid rock age. The longer, inferior album version ends with a lengthy jam which is both acid-fueled and laced with more than a little menace.
This being the late stages of 1968, it's hard to hear "Magic Carpet Ride" and not get the feeling that something suspect is going on in the background. The idealism of '67 had rapidly vanished during a year of student demonstrations and jackbooted government crackdowns on protests. Rather than sounding like a wise old sage tripping balls on LSD and proclaiming peace and love, Kay gives off the vibes of a opportunistic cult leader looking to recruit young and impressionable drug addicted high school dropouts to become his followers. This magic carpet ride of his is meant to lure them in.
(Such a perspective is inevitable given the nightmare that unfolded a year later when the Manson Family went on their killing spree. The members of Steppenwolf weren't to know what was to unfold but there's no question that their brand of psychedelic rock leaned more in the direction of pleasing one's primal desires rather than achieving a higher level of understanding)
The other important thing to consider about the time period is that many had already abandoned the hippie subculture and its accompanying drugs and music by the time "Magic Carpet Ride" had come out. (If acid rock had been little more than a fad then it was equally true that giving up on it was every bit as fashionable; I will be expanding on this point in an upcoming review from the early part of 1969) Rather than dispensing with it as The Beatles and The Byrds had done by this point, Steppenwolf seemed to be adapting it to the hard rock they had already begun to master. Unfortunately, there wasn't much left in that well and so they evolved into more of a straightforward rock band as the seventies approached. Though the law of diminishing returns began to impact their chart placings, they still had a decent run of hits for another five or six years. Still, they'll always be known for two songs and rightfully so.
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