“Do You Believe In Magic?” by The Lovin' Spoonful

"Do You Believe in Magic" is where the Lovin' Spoonful's story starts. John Sebastian wrote it in May 1965, it went out that summer as the band's debut single on Kama Sutra with Erik Jacobsen producing, climbed to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, and gave its title to their first album that November. In 2017 it turned up again on A Real Spoonful of the Lovin' Spoonful.

The spark came from one night at the Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, where the band held a residency. Folk shows usually drew an older beatnik crowd, but Sebastian spotted a teenage girl dancing the way his own generation danced, and he and Zal Yanovsky spent the evening elbowing each other: a new, younger audience was turning up at last. The song bottles that moment.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.