![]() "Eight miles high," the chiming vocals solemnly intone, climbing up a succession of minor chords, "and when you touch down / You'll find that it's / Stranger than known." Sure, that's weird grammatical usage, but we know what he means. It's not just vague and dislocated it's about vagueness and dislocation, and a drug user's surreal disconnect with reality. In Robyn Hitchcock's hands, of course, psychedelia is a good thing. ![]() I did not buy that single, or anything else by the Byrds, ever again.Īnd I never gave this song another thought - until a few months ago, when I saw Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 perform it as part of their encore set. ![]() It was the first undeniably psychedelic song I'd ever listened to, and while I could pretend that the Beatles' "Rain" and Donovan's "Season of the Witch" meant something else, there was no pretending with this one. Young as I was, I knew perfectly well that the word "high" in the title had nothing to do with an airplane taking off. It didn't really register in my Beatlemaniac mind that these guys were Americans - their sound fit right in with the rest of the British Invasion stuff I loved.Īnd then, in the middle of 1966, they came out with this strange new song, "Eight Miles High." That jangly guitar was now spinning crystalline strands of dissonance, and the close harmonies suddenly sounded less earnest, more. Tambourine" line about the "jingle-jangle morning" seemed completely apt, didn't it, given the metallic clang of McGuinn's guitar?). Their hootenanny harmonies were lovely, and though it was apparently an electric guitar that Roger McGuinn was playing, he still seemed to be picking it folk-music-style (that "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" as singles I'm pretty sure my brother owned that first album, the cover looks so familiar to me. The man having spoken, I say we give this one a rest.At first (I'm talking ancient days here, 19), I liked the Byrds. I have no idea how that rumor got started.” Glen Campbell was not on that session, or any other Byrds recording. “I played the lead guitar on Eight Miles High. When I dropped him a line, here was his reply: We can just ask Byrds guitar genius Roger McGuinn, a regular participant in the Usenet newsgroup. So Campbell’s studio career was, presumably, finito by the time the Byrds released “Eight Miles High” on Fifth Dimension (1966).īut we don’t need to rely strictly on our powers of deduction. Campbell was soon replaced by Bruce Johnston–a lucky break for Glen but a serious blow to music lovers, since Campbell then signed with Capitol and began churning out the ersatz country hits that infected America’s airwaves for many years thereafter. For a few months in 1965, Campbell was a genuine Beach Boy, filling in for Brian Wilson (who had suffered a nervous breakdown) when the group went on tour. When Glen Campbell first arrived in Los Angeles, a fresh-faced country boy from (where else?) Delight, Arkansas, he worked as a studio musician for a number of high-powered acts, including Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, and the Mamas and the Papas. Dear Cecil: Did Glen Campbell really play lead guitar on “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds? Phil D., Los Angeles
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