7/11/2023 0 Comments Eight miles high roger mcguinn![]() For a song so deeply associated with psychedelic rock that it’s regularly cited as the movement’s origin point, “Eight Miles High” found purchase anywhere that a band either felt like spiralling out into the exosphere with improvisation or needed a melodic, instant-hook pop classic to filter through their sensibilities. The funny thing about “Eight Miles High,” in fact, is that it wound up being interpreted through the lens of nearly every single subgenre of rock music from metal to UK indie - including hardcore punk, of course, in the form of Hüsker Dü’s peerless cover (more on which is below here’s where I note that the passing of Grant Hart is what spurred this edition of Gotcha Covered in the first place). (Well, OK, maybe a little about drugs, but more significantly about homesick alienation in the middle of a crowd.) And while there’s been some custody disputes over who actually contributed what to the song - the late Gene Clark, shortly to leave the band, claimed majority authorship, while Roger McGuinn and David Crosby later claimed they simply finished his first draft - at this point it feels like one of those songs that wound up belonging to any succession of artists who found a way to take it through - and past - its proto-psychedelic origins. 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.For a song that’s been so often reduced to ’60s Montage Cliche #00001B ( Note: Please use only in case of rights restrictions for the Youngbloods’ “Get Together”), the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” is still something of a miracle - a successful translation of avant-garde jazz into pop music, a harmonic convergence where every singer and player is at their best, and a song that actually feels more resonant when you discover it’s not about drugs. 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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