McGuinn explained in There Is a Season that his solo "wasn't mapped out" instead, he had a "basic skeleton" borrowed from a four-note Africa/Brass riff he then improvised on. 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. That classic song's key sitar line was inspired by Shankar, whose music the Byrds were immersed in during their recent tour.īut they took it even further in "Eight Miles High," capping it with a head-spinning guitar solo based on a jazz progression inspired by Coltrane. So, the band returned to an approved studio a few weeks later on Jan. 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. 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.
LYRICS TO EIGHT MILES HIGH BYRDS PORTABLE
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.
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