Songfacts®:

• "Heaven Is In Your Mind" was written by Jim Capaldi (drummer), Steve Winwood (vocal frontman), and Chris Wood (saxophonist and flutist) of Traffic. It was released on their debut album Mr. Fantasy in 1967; even though the tracks are shuffled between the US and UK releases, this song appears on both releases of the original album.
  Collectors note: The initial release of the Mr. Fantasy album in the US under United Artists Records was also titled "Heaven Is In Your Mind" and pictured the group without Dave Mason, who left at the eleventh hour of their debut. They quickly changed the title back to Mr. Fantasy for subsequent copies.
• This song, with its trippy stereo channel shifts, wandering melody, and eccentric mixing, is a good example of early Traffic. Mr. Fantasy is widely regarded as their least mainstream effort; by their second eponymous album, they'd ironed out their rough edges and aimed more for mainstream psychedelic rock. Although the "psychedelic" part limited their success in the UK, they enjoyed better success in the US.
• Music fans today don't seem to recognize Traffic for the influential group that they were. For starters, Rolling Stone ranks Steve Winwood #33 in its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Winwood has also been a member of the bands the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith, and Go, winning multiple Grammy awards in the process. Chris Wood, growing up in Birmingham, England, jammed with the likes of Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, and Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer; he also played with Jimi Hendrix on Electric Ladyland. Jim Capaldi played and collaborated with such famous names as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Carlos Santana. And singer/guitarist Dave Mason has played alongside Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac and Cass Elliot. That's Winwood, Wood, Capaldi, and Mason of Traffic. If it happened in music in the '60s-to-'80s, they were there.