Eight Miles High
March 14, 1966
Eight Miles High is a song by American rock band The Byrds, written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn (later Roger McGuinn ) and David Crosby, who was released by Columbia Records as a single in March 1966 and the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and reached Top 30 on the charts in the UK. The song was also released on the third album of the band, Fifth Dimension, in July 1966.
Shortly after the release was imposed a ban on the radio single in the U.S., because behind the lyrics of the song a drug-related was suspected. Influenced by Indian music ( Ravi Shankar ) and jazz ( John Coltrane ), sat Eight Miles High, together with the single B side Why ( McGuinn / Crosby ), new standards and coined the terms Psychedelic rock and raga rock.
History
The song was written by Gene Clark during a tour of the band through England in August 1965, in its original form for a typical Clark ballad. The processing along with the other band members began in November 1965 during a tour of the USA. David Crosby had the tour bus a music cassette with the albums Impressions and Africa / Brass by John Coltrane and the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar LP a while. Especially the modal jazz of Coltrane as a precursor of the free jazz musicians influenced significantly the Arrangement. The single- back Why, however, was inspired by Indian ragas. While McGuinn at Eight Miles High tried to imitate the saxophone playing of Coltrane on the 12saitigen Rickenbacker guitar, he wanted to imitate at Why with the same instrument the sound of a sitar.
The Byrds presented at a press conference, in which the single was presented, even a real sitar, which had, however, played no role in the recordings. On 22 December 1965, the band recorded two songs for the first time at the RCA Studios in Los Angeles. However, Columbia Records insisted on admissions in their own studios. Only this, taken on 24 and 25 January 1966, produced by Allen Stanton, were released on single and album. The RCA recordings were introduced only in 1987 on the album Never Before and 1996 on the CD re-release of the album Fifth Dimension to the public.
In the month of occurrence of Single Gene Clark left the band. Eight Miles High was the last single of the Byrds, which should reach the Top 20 on the charts. Eight Miles High was part of the live repertoire of the band until its dissolution in 1973 and was listed among others in TV shows such as Popside and Beat-Club. The duration of the song could reach during a concert times of over 15 minutes, as on the album ( Untitled ). Gene Clark until his death in 1991 the song regularly in his live program as well as McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman in their short-lived Byrds reunion in 1989, Roger McGuinn solo until today (2010 ), Chris Hillman with Herb Pedersen and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young on their reunion tour in 2000.
Importance
With Eight Miles High, and Why the Byrds were among the musicians who have worked to further development of popular music by the inclusion of non-European music genres, jazz and impressionistic lyrics. 2004 reached Eight Miles High place 151 on the list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time magazine Rolling Stone and 2005 50th place of the magazine Q on the list of The 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Since 1966, different musicians Eight Miles High have covered, including the Ventures ( 1966), Golden Earring (1969 ), Leo Kottke (1971 ), Roxy Music (1980 ) Hüsker Dü (1984 ), Three ( 1988) and the Postmarks (2008 ).