Codes and Lyrics

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was on the Iron Butterfly album entitled “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, released in 1968. The song covered the entire flip side of the album, mostly with instrumentals. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida played for over seventeen minutes in its entirety. The single of the song held the number 30 spot on the U.S. Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

There are three various versions of how the song got its name. The original title was “In The Garden of Eden”, however through a mishap, the song received the name it is now known by.

The song’s title was given by one of three possibilities that exist in the history of this song. The first is that singer Doug Ingle was intoxicated and was unable to pronounce the words, forming the title that has stuck.

The liner notes inside the cover of “the best of” CD give the impression that drummer Ron Bushy listened to the track through a set of headphones. Apparently he couldn’t distinguish what Doug Ingle had said when he was asked what the title of the song was.

The third explanation of the title, as read in the liner notes of the 1995 re-release of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, is that Doug Ingle was intoxicated when first telling Bushy the title. Ron Bushy had written the title, but when Ingle had seen what he had scratched out on paper, the funny title stuck.