![]() Even the Beatles, the most forward-thinking band of the era, had just unveiled their first real exploration of Indian music with "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" from Rubber Soul, which came out in December. 25, 1966, and completed the version that was released as a single on March 14.įrom the start, the Byrds knew they were getting into something new and significant with "Eight Miles High." In early 1966, there still wasn't much that sounded like it. So, the band returned to an approved studio a few weeks later on Jan. A first take of "Eight Miles High" - preferred by the group's members - was rejected by the Byrds' record company because it wasn't recorded in one of its studios. When they entered RCA Studios in Los Angeles for a session in late December, they had an idea for a new song inspired by their recent obsession. The band listened to the tape nonstop for the rest of the tour. He recorded the album with a portable cassette deck he recently picked up, filling the other side of the tape with Indian ragas by Ravi Shankar. The music "seared through the center of my chest like a white-hot poker," noted Roger McGuinn - who, like Crosby, was one of the Byrds' three singers, songwriters and guitarists - in 2006's There Is a Season box set. One day, a friend of David Crosby's played jazz great John Coltrane's 1961 album Africa/Brass, which incorporated Afro-Indian improvisations into a more traditional big-band setting. ![]() They traveled city to city by bus and kept themselves occupied by listening to music. That fall, the band participated in a tour spearheaded by American Bandstand host Dick Clark. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" But as their busy 1965 - which included two albums and many live appearances - started to wind down, the Byrds were getting restless. The quintet pretty much spent the previous year mining the Bob Dylan songbook, fine-tuning its own collective songwriting talents and perfecting the folk-rock genre with chart-topping singles like "Mr. “ When the Byrds kicked off the second phase of their multistage career in March 1966 with the release of "Eight Miles High," they also happened to launch a new chapter in rock history. Learning how it came together and was received is really interesting. ![]() The first, from Ultimate Classic Rock discusses the story and history of the song. There are a couple of features about Eight Miles High that I want to bring together. Anyone can put the song on today and connect with it. Although it does evoke the sounds and sights of the 1960s, it has not dated at all. It is a classic that still gets played a lot to this day. Appearing on The Byrds’ third studio album, Fifth Dimension, Eight Miles High became their third and final U.S. It did get to fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number twenty-four in the U.K. Because of a ban, the song did struggle to make a big chart impact. It does have this mix of the laidback and the psychedelic that one can easily link to drugs. Listening to Eight Miles High, and it is impossible to not hear the drug mentions! The title alone makes me think of the band feeling high after smoking weed. Eight Miles High did get banned by some radio stations because of the possible drug references in the song. One of the first psychedelic Rock tracks, it definitely opened doors and minds for other artists. One of the best and defining songs of the 1960s, Eight Miles High was released on 14th March, 1966. Listen back to The Beatles’ work on Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966), and Eight Miles High sort of fits into that mould. Gene Clark, Jim (Roger) McGuinn and David Crosby, I often think The Byrds’ Eight Miles High was inspired by The Beatles.
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