July 18 – When The Byrds Were Flying High

Was the Jupiter in line with Mars this day in 1966? Perhaps so because The Byrds put out their third album, The Fifth Dimension on that day. Among the more obvious ways the record changed the world was apparently making a singing group called the Versatiles want to change their name…enter the 5th Dimension who became that mere weeks after this album debuted.

The Byrds are in some ways reminiscent of the Velvet Underground in that they remain one of the most influential rock bands ever, but really didn’t set the commercial world afire. That said, The Byrds did sell well for a couple of years, and this record came on the heels of their only two #1 songs – “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

They’d formed only two years earlier in L.A. as a folk band, featuring guitarists and singers Roger McGuinn (who at the time was going by “Jim”)and David Crosby, drummer Michael Clarke, bassist Chris Hillman and Gene Clark who was a writer and played various secondary instruments like the harmonica. At first they were very folk-oriented and revered Bob Dylan (“Mr Tambourine Man” was one of several of his songs they covered), but as the ’60s moved forward, they became interested in the sounds of the Beatles and like the Fab Four, of the Far East. The influences of Indian music began to show up on The Fifth Dimension. As did the influences of various drugs they began to enjoy.

The album was a change for them, therefore, in that first, Gene Clark left the band soon after beginning the record (he did get partial writing credits on the hit single off the record), and so Crosby and McGuinn stepped up writing more than before. McGuinn had good qualifications for that – he’d been a staff songwriter at the famous Brill Building before joining the Byrds. It was also the first of their records without a Dylan song on it.

The Columbia album did parallel the changes in Dylan’s sound at the time, as well as the Beatles. Which (much like perhaps the Beatles Rubber Soul) created an album that was a little uneven and a sort of bridge between earlier simpler sounds and more experimental ones which would rule the next few years. So while you got the psychedelic “Eight Miles High” (the first single, and only one to make the American top 20) you also got a remake of the old traditional Celtic folk song “Wild Mountain Thyme” and a cover of Billy Roberts’ “Hey Joe”, later made famous by Jimi Hendrix.

If there was anything resembling a theme, it might be being high…literally and mentally, shall we say. There was “Eight Miles High”, which they at the time said was about flying in a jet. Eight miles was said to be a typical cruising altitude (actually six would be more typical, but they felt “Six Miles High” didn’t sound quite right) although David Crosby admitted in 1980, “of course it’s a drug song.” Some of the actual lyrics were said to be inspired by their British tour of the previous year, where they’d been exposed to some of the Indian raga music, psychedelic substances and people they found rather cold. There was also “2-4-2 Foxtrot”, dedicated to Bill Lear, owner of Lear Jets, and a friend of Roger’s. And let’s not forget, “Mr. Spaceman”, again a song obliquely linked to being high but not entirely missing its stated influence, that being the interest in UFOs and alien life several of them shared.

Kids of the day might’ve thought “Eight Miles High” was “far out” but many felt it too far out. A number of radio stations banned it, which probably led to it only getting to #14 in the U.S. and #24 in the UK. The album itself made the top 30 in both lands but didn’t go as high as the previous couple.

Critics at the time were lukewarm to them. While Hit Parader did consider it their “best” work to date, Disc magazine, quite big at the time, thought they sounded like “tired and disillusioned old men”. Today’s assessments are better, needless to say, although not entirely glowing. For instance, Mojo call it a “breakthrough” they aren’t quite happy with how it “can’t decide what sort of album it is.” The NME retroactively gave it an 8 out of 10 while Entertainment Weekly said it had enough keepers to be worth a listen “time hasn’t enhanced the group’s foray into psychedelia.”

While some would call them the American Beatles, The Byrds trajectory went in the opposite direction. While they hobbled along well into the ’70s with various lineup changes, their hit-making days and ones of being a major radio staple were done by 1967. Their influence however, especially that of McGuinn’s jangly Rickenbacker guitar playing, resonate to this day and had major impacts on the careers of R.E.M., Tom Petty, The Smiths, The Bangles and a host of other greats of the ’80s and ’90s.

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