Eight Miles High
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| “Eight Miles High” | |||||
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| Single by The Byrds | |||||
| B-side | "Why" (Jim McGuinn, David Crosby) | ||||
| Released | March 14, 1966 | ||||
| Format | 7" | ||||
| Recorded | 1966 | ||||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock | ||||
| Length | 3 min 33 s | ||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||
| Writer(s) | Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn, David Crosby | ||||
| The Byrds singles chronology | |||||
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"Eight Miles High" is a song by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn, and David Crosby, first appearing as a single from 1966 by the rock band The Byrds. The single peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was included as well on their album Fifth Dimension, released on July 18, 1966. In tandem with its b-side, "Why," written by McGuinn and Crosby, the song was instrumental in ushering in a new strain of rock and roll in the mid-1960s, that of psychedelic rock.
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The obscure lyrics, penned by Clark, are about the group's plane trip touring England in 1965. "Eight miles high, and when you touch down, you'll find that it's stranger than known." Airliners fly at an altitude of six to seven miles high; but it was felt that "eight miles high" sounded better.
According to Clark, the lyrics were primarily of his doing, with the only contribution coming from David Crosby's line "Rain grey town, known for its sound". Since Clark's death, however, McGuinn has contended that it was he who conceived the idea for the song being about a plane ride, and that he and Crosby both contributed lyrics to Clark's unfinished draft. John Einarson's book, Mr. Tambourine Man, questions this claim and wonders if McGuinn's story would be the same had Clark lived.
Almost immediately after "Eight Miles High," the Byrds suffered the loss of Clark, their main songwriter. His fear of flying was the official reason for his departure, although other pressures were at work. After Clark's departure, the Byrds would never visit the top 20 with a single again.
[edit] Music
McGuinn's twelve string guitar playing — especially the famed introductory solo — was heavily inspired by Coltrane's saxophone on "India" from his 1961 Village Vanguard concerts on the Impressions album of 1963. McGuinn is very guarded of the effort that went into his approximation of Coltrane's technique to guitar. Chris Hillman's bass line drives the song, while the rhythm guitar work by Crosby and fast drumming of Michael Clarke add dramatic turbulence. On a 1966 taped interview added to the 1996 re-issue of the album, Crosby said that the catastrophic ending made him "feel like a plane landing."
[edit] The B-side
The B-side, "Why", equally pushed the envelope, its incorporation of raga aspects from Indian classical music even more pronounced than on the A-side. The lyric, unusual for the developing rock and roll groupie haven of Los Angeles, argues a very feminist viewpoint considering that it was written by two men, or one man, Crosby often claiming sole authorship of the song.[1] This version differs from the one later released on Younger Than Yesterday, by the more pronounced bass lines and vocal punch of the radio mix given a single side in the mid-sixties.
[edit] Other Versions
An earlier version of the song, along with "Why," had been recorded in RCA Studios in Los Angeles in December of 1965; those tracks saw release on the 1996 expanded reissue of Fifth Dimension on Legacy Recordings.
[edit] Covers
The song has been covered many times, notably by Golden Earring in 1970, who put a 19 minute version of the song on their Eight Miles High album.
| “Eight Miles High” | |||||
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| Single by Hüsker Dü | |||||
| Released | March 1984 | ||||
| Recorded | October 1983 | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 3:56 | ||||
| Label | SST | ||||
| Producer | Spot | ||||
| Hüsker Dü singles chronology | |||||
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Other artists who covered it include:
- Leo Kottke on Mudlark, 1971
- Roxy Music on Flesh And Blood, 1980
- Hüsker Dü as a bonus single released with their Zen Arcade LP of 1984.
- In 1988, the ELP spinoff group 3 covered the song on To the Power of 3, altering the lyrics.
- Rockfour on the Wild Animals EP (2000) and ...For Fans Only.
- Robyn Hitchcock
- Chris Hillman on The Other Side, 2005.
- Leathercoated Minds on A Trip Down to Sunset Strip, in 1966.[2]
- The song's title appears in the lyric "I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high" in the song "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)".
[edit] Legacy
In 2004 Rolling Stone Magazine named "Eight Miles High" the 150th Greatest Song of All Time. In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Eight Miles High" at number 50 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The Door's 1968 song "Spanish caravan", 27 seconds in, has a part which is similar to the opening chord progression of Eight Miles High, both being adaptations of the classical piece "Asturias" by Isaac Albéniz.
Don McLean's song "American Pie" makes reference to "Eight Miles High" with the line "Eight miles high and falling fast".
The indie rock band Okkervil River reference "Eight Miles High" in their song "Plus Ones" (from the 2007 album The Stage Names). The song, which mentions several classic numerical lyrics but alters their original intentions by adding one, includes the line, "You would probably die before you shot up nine miles high."
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ByrdWatcher: A Field Guide to the Byrds of Los Angeles
- BBC - Radio 2 Sold on Song
- All Music Guide profile
- Zimmer, Dave, and Diltz, Henry. Crosby Stills & Nash: The Authorized Biography (First edition), St. Martin’s Press, 1984. ISBN 0-312-17660-0
[edit] Notes
- ^ Zimmer and Diltz, p. 37
- ^ http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:dxfqxqq5ldte All Music Guide description
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