In addition to this striking guitar motif, the song is also highlighted by Chris Hillman’s driving and hypnotic bass line, Crosby’s chunky rhythm guitar playing and the band’s ethereal harmonies. John Einarson has noted that the influence of Coltrane’s saxophone playing and, in particular, his song “India” from the Impressions album, can be clearly heard in “Eight Miles High”-most noticeably in McGuinn’s recurring twelve-string guitar solo. The master recording of “Eight Miles High” was recorded on January 24 and 25, 1966, at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, with record producer Allen Stanton guiding the band through the recording process.
Tambourine Man: The Life and Legacy of the Byrds’ Gene Clark, author John Einarson disputes this claim and ponders whether McGuinn’s story would be the same were Clark still alive. Since Clark’s death, however, McGuinn has contended that it was he who conceived the initial idea of writing a song about an airplane ride and that he and Crosby both contributed lyrics to Clark’s unfinished draft. Clark then showed the song to McGuinn and Crosby, with the former suggesting that the song be arranged to incorporate Coltrane’s influence.
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Over the following days, Clark expanded this fragment into a full poem, eventually setting the words to music and giving them a melody. This is John Coltrane’s “India” from the album “Impressions” featuring Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet.Ĭlark began writing the song’s lyrics on November 24, 1965, when he scribbled down some rough ideas for later development, following a discussion with guitarist Brian Jones, before the Byrds made a concert appearance supporting the Rolling Stones. The influence of these recordings on the band would manifest itself in the music of “Eight Miles High”. To alleviate the boredom of traveling from show to show during the tour, Crosby had brought along cassette recordings of Master sitarist Ravi Shankar’s music and the jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane albums Impressions and Africa/Brass, which were on constant rotation on the tour bus.
In addition, “Round the squares, huddled in storms/Some laughing, some just shapeless forms” describes fans waiting for the band outside hotels, while the line “Sidewalk scenes and black limousines” refers to the excited crowds that jostled the band as they exited their chauffeur-driven cars.Īlthough the basic idea for the song had been discussed during the band’s flight to England, it didn’t actually begin to take shape until the Byrds’ November 1965 tour of the U.S. Other lyrics in the song that explicitly refer to the Byrds’ stay in England include the couplet: “Nowhere is there warmth to be found/Among those afraid of losing their ground”, which is a reference to the hostile reaction of the UK music press and to the English group The Birds serving the band with a copyright infringement writ, due to the similarities in name.
The song’s lyrics are, for the most part, about the group’s flight to London in August 1965 and their accompanying English tour, as hinted at by the opening couplet: “Eight miles high and when you touch down, you’ll find that it’s stranger than known.” Although commercial airliners fly at an altitude of six to seven miles, it was felt that “eight miles high” sounded more poetic than six and also recalled the title of the Beatles’ song “Eight Days a Week”.Īccording to Clark, the lyrics were primarily his creation, with a minor contribution being David Crosby’s line, “Rain grey town, known for its sound”, a reference to London as home to the British Invasion, which was then dominating the U.S. The failure of “Eight Miles High” to reach the Billboard Top 10 is usually attributed to the broadcasting ban, but some commentators have suggested that the song’s complexity and uncommercial nature were greater factors. The band strenuously denied these allegations at the time, but in later years both Clark and Crosby admitted that the song was at least partly inspired by their own drug use. radio ban shortly after its release, following allegations published in the broadcasting trade journal the Gavin Report regarding perceived drug connotations in its lyrics.
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