Lame or not, Donovan (his surname was Leitch) was also kind of cute. He was often called 'Britain's answer to Bob Dylan', and his songs, though they lacked the power of the American folk artists of the era, had a gentle, engaging feel, and a dreamlike quality. Perhaps the best known, and most archetypal of his songs was Universal Soldier.
This style seemed to fit the love and peace ethos of the late sixties perfectly, but seems naive and simplistic in this more cynical age.
He appears in the movie If This is Tuesday This Must Be Belgium singing a fantasy song about a woman falling in love with a swan, a drifty, peaceful scene in an otherwise rather frenetic movie.