You could say 1968 was a pretty big year for Steppenwolf...but that would be an understatement. First, "Born to Be Wild," from the band's self-titled debut album, became their breakthrough hit. Because Steppenwolf was contractually obliged to produce two records per year at the time, that meant the pressure was on to write another super popular single right away. The question was, could the group manage to make magic happen again so quickly?
As it turned out, yes. Released in September 1968 as the lead single from Steppenwolf's next album, The Second, "Magic Carpet Ride" peaked at #3 on the Billboard pop chart, where the catchy, upbeat rocker stayed for an impressive 16 weeks. To this day, the tune remains a classic; it's been featured in countless movies and TV shows and it's still a radio staple, not to mention a road tripplaylist mainstay.
And to think, the song might never have existed if not for one "bouncy" bass riff.
As Steppenwolf lead singer and co-writer John Kay told the Wall Street Journal in 2016, the band didn't have a full album's worth of songs when they headed into the studio to record The Second.
"One day, Jerry [Edmonton]’s brother Dennis, who had changed his name to Mars Bonfire, came in to show us a new song he had written," Kay recalled. "At some point, Rushton [Moreve] started playing this bouncy riff on his bass that he had played during sound checks on our first tour. Mars liked the riff and started playing chords against it on his Fender Jazzmaster guitar."
"The guys in the booth went nuts," he continued. "They came on the speaker and said, 'Hey, keep doing that. That’s really good,' so we kept at it. But all we had was this cool riff. Mars suggested we add an instrumental interlude. He played these chords that led into the jam, for which I later wrote the lyrics, 'Close your eyes girl/ Look inside girl/ Let the sound take you away.'"
Kay went on to explain that a few of the song's other lines were about "how great my new stereo sounded."
"Months earlier, as royalties from the success of our first album started to come in, [Kay's wife] Jutta and I replaced our lousy stereo with a top-notch system from a high-end audio store in Beverly Hills," he said. "As soon as I put in the cassette and heard the electronic sound effects in the opening, the song’s lyrics popped into my head: 'I like to dream/ Yes-yes, right between my sound machine/ On a cloud of sound, I drift in the night/ Any place it goes is right.'"
SteppenwolfPhoto by Gems on Getty Images
Realizing he had to "go someplace" with the rest of the lyrics, Kay "came up with, 'Last night I held Aladdin’s lamp' and all the imagery of making a wish."
"The 'little girl' in the song wasn’t supposed to be anyone specific," he added. "For me, it was Jutta."
Kay's account of how "Magic Carpet Ride" was written essentially shuts down the decades of rumors about the song being inspired by drugs.
"I didn’t drop acid before writing the lyrics, as many people later assumed," he quipped. "And the lyrics weren’t about an acid trip. I may have smoked a joint that night, but that was it. Since birth, I’ve had achromatopsia — complete color blindness. If I had dropped acid, I would have been hallucinating in vivid black and white. I doubt that would have helped me or the song much."
Decades later, it's clear the song didn't need any help anyway.
Related: 1968 Classic Rock Hit That Invented Heavy Metal Became a Generation-Defining Anthem
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