Yellow Balloon was not on the recording, having been in a recent near-fatal car accident. The week of May 20, 1967, the Yellow Balloon's version placed at #25 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, while Jan & Dean's version placed at #111. This was due largely to the fact that many disc jockeys around the United States played only the Yellow Balloon version of the song. The B-side was the song played backwards, entitled "Noollab Wolley". However, several radio stations banned the song in fear that the song was about yellow hallucinogenic pills for a drug trip, just like the Donovan song "Mellow
The Yellow and Blue The Yellow and Blue The Yellow and Blue is the alma mater of the University of Michigan, written by Charles M. Gayley. Gayley composed the lyrics in 1886 while he was a professor of English and Latin at UM. He was motivated to write the song in hopes of winning a $20 prize from the student editors of the yearbook (The Palladium). As he wrote the lyrics, Gayley was thinking of the school colors, "azure blue and maize." Ultimately the song became a paean to the color and light of late summer in Michigan: the yellow grain in the fields,