THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,371) The Ones — “Lady Greengrass”
Before he had a tangerine dream, Edgar Froese and the Ones gave us a “psych-pop delight” (Stephen Troussé, https://www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/film-reviews/nostalgia-2-141731/), “[a] splendid slice of German psyche”, (Baronrhubarbpostoffice, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jHKKjjn5FDw&pp=ygUYVGhlIG9uZXMgbGFkeSBncmVlbmdyYXNz), “an excellent slice of the Psychedelic Rock movement . . . charmingly hippie-ish and dreamy” (Matti, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=9807), an “enigmatic masterpiece that continuously shines on unopposed”. (liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur)
Easy Livin is more equivocal about the One’s only A-side:
As for “Lady Greengrass”, which Froese plays on but had no part in writing, the song has little in common with the work of Tangerine Dream during any stage of their career. This is a pretty straightforward psychedelic pop song with dreamy lyrics and echoed vocals. The best comparison is probably with the lighter Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd material such as “See Emily Play”. Perhaps coincidentally (perhaps not) the lyrics include the line “Puff the trees turn tangerine, Puff the sky is suddenly green, Her eyes breath in a state of mind, She’s beginning to fly”.
As to the Ones:
Formed in 1965 by Edgar Froese in West Berlin where he was attending the local Art College. The Ones suffered near neglect at the hands of the pop parade only to be saved by a Star-Club single in 1967. . . . After playing at a real “Salvador Dali’s garden party” (having been invited by the artist himself), The Ones became embroiled in more experimental directions and diversions abroad and eventually transformed into the more notorious Tangerine Dream after returning to Berlin in 1969.
liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur
Gary Graff tells more about the encounter with Dali:
Froese’s experimental streak was encouraged by Salvador Dalí after The Ones performed at the artist’s villa in northeast Spain. “Dalí was quite a big influence in my life because of his philosophy of being as original and authentic as possible had touched me very intensively at that time,” Froese said during a 2005 interview with The Quietus. “I invested a lot of time, too, in training myself to follow such a philosophical path. When I met Dalí the first time, I was 22, a youngster who knew immediately that nearly everything is possible in art as long as you have a strong belief in what you’re doing.”
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/tangerine-dream-ed-froese-dead-appreciation-6450808/amp/
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