"Green Tambourine" is a song written and composed by Paul Leka (who also produced it) and Shelley Pinz. It was the biggest hit by the 1960s Ohio-based rock group the Lemon Pipers, as well as the title track of their debut album, Green Tambourine. The song was one of the first psychedelic pop chart-toppers and became a gold record. Released toward the end of 1967, it spent 13 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 1 on February 3, 1968, and sold over a million copies. The record remained on the chart for three months.<ref name="ROCK ON">Nite, Norm N. and Newman, Ralph M.: ROCK ON: The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Rock N' Roll''': Thomas Y. Crowell: 1978. p 276.</ref> It was also the first U.S. No. 1 hit for the Buddah label. The Lemon Pipers never repeated this success, though their "Rice Is Nice" and "Jelly Jungle", both also written by Leka and Pinz, made the charts in 1968. Song and recording The song's lyricist, Rochelle "Shelley" Pinz (1943–2004) was a writer at the Brill Building, working with Leka. She said: In early Spring, 1966, while standing in front of the Brill Building I watched a man holding a tambourine begging for money. I wrote a poem about him and called the poem 'Green Tambourine.' I added it to my lyric collection ... Sometimes I wonder what happened to the man in front of the Brill Building, holding a tambourine begging for money. I remember writing the lyric, 'watch the jingle jangle start to shine, reflections of the music that is mine. When you toss a coin you'll hear it sing. Now listen while I play my Green Tambourine' as if it were yesterday..; in the 60s, on the streets between Seventh Avenue and Broadway there was a magic one could only imagine. The song tells the story of a street musician pleading for someone to give him money. In exchange he offers to play his green tambourine. The song's instrumentation contains the titular tambourine as well as an electric sitar, a frequent signature of the so-called "psychedelic sound". Another hook is the heavy, psychedelic tape echo applied to the word "play" in each chorus and at the end, fading into a drumroll ("Listen while I play play play play play play play my green tambourine"). The echo is noticeably different in the mono and stereo mixes. The