In some ways, this song documents a sort of homecoming in that the band were highly influenced by that sound. The song was written around the time the Byrds went to London, the “rain grey town known for its sound” in the lyrics. Writers Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn, and David Crosby created this song under those musical influences, and from varied experiences ranging from airplane trips, to trips of other sorts that eventually caused some controversy, with this song being among the earliest songs about drugs recognized as such, although with claims otherwise by the band at the time in the face of a radio ban.īut, there is another reason why this song was so significant. On “Eight Miles High”, elements of “new thing” jazz, and the influence of Ravi Shankar’s Indian classical music all play into the sound of this song. It was a year which heralded a more experimental approach to the sound of those records too with tape loops, exotic instruments, and distortion being important elements. Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Soft Machine all formed in 1966, among other more sonically expansive-minded bands. Nineteen Sixty-Six in particular was an epicenter for this kind of artistic evolution, what with this track, the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”, The Yardbirds “The Shapes of Things”, and The Stones’ “Paint It Black” all exploring darker, and more inward-looking regions of human experience lyrically speaking. This song helped to shape what a pop record came to mean later into the decade. This song is like a wormhole back to a mythical period in pop music and cultural history of the mid-60s, a time when things really were a-changin’ in all sorts of ways, including the variety of influences that were having an effect on how bands and artists were approaching their work. It would be their last top 20 hit, and a single that would mark the end of their original incarnation.
It’s their 1966 hit record “Eight Miles High”, released as a single in March of that year, and eventually was featured on their third record Fifth Dimension.
LEO KOTTKE EIGHT MILES HIGH FREE
An Introduction to the Byrds The Collection Untitled There Is a Season The Essential Byrds Free Flyte Voyage America's Great National Treasure Very Best of the Byrds Fifth Dimension Greatest Hits 36 All-Time Favorites Collection Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971 Very Best of the Byrds Playlist: The Very Best of the Byrds Mr.Listen to this track by folk-rock janglers and supposed progenitors of ‘raga-rock’ The Byrds.
LEO KOTTKE EIGHT MILES HIGH FULL
1 (1965-1967) From the Earth to the Moon The Byrds' Greatest Hits Super Hits The Byrds' Greatest Hits Fifth Dimension Full Flyte (1965-1970) The Essential Byrds Mojo Presents. Reason:ĭefinitive Collection History of the Byrds 20 Essential Tracks from the Boxed Set: 1965-90 Original Singles, Vol. If I'm ever in a situation where I know I'm near the end, I'll put on this song, or maybe the Leo Kottke version. Sorry if that seemed unnecessarily morose, but I've always found this offbeat interpretation beautiful in its own strange way. This could frighten him and inspire second thoughts, although he knows he cannot turn back that could cover the "Nowhere is there warmth to be found/Among those afraid of losing their ground" stanza. Whatever these visions are, the dying individual can only wonder whether those "shapeless forms" will become tangible and he will at last "touch down" in this foreign land when he closes his eyes to sleep (and to die) or whether they will simply fade as the last of his thoughts slip away.
When I hear this song, I think of a depressed person attempting suicide, probably through inhaling gas like nitrous oxide that might at first induce a "high." When the gas is starting to reach dangerous levels and the user is nearly unconscious, the lyrics describe the faint visions that are just beginning to take shape in the suicidal person's mind, perhaps mere hallucinations (they certainly seem fragmented enough to be the inventions of an oxygen-starved mind!) perhaps distant memories, or perhaps remote visions of heaven, hell, or glimpses of an afterlife too strange for the living mind to comprehend. I'm pretty confident that this song was originally about a mere psychedelic experience, but to me it represents something a little different, although possibly related.
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