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The Byrds "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" (1968)
Track Listing: Artificial Energy/ Goin’ Back/ Natural Harmony/ Draft Morning/ Wasn’t Born To Follow/ Get To You// Change Is Now/ Old John Robertson/ Tribal Gathering/ Dolphin’s Smile/ Space Odyssey (UK and US
Were the Byrds ever really notorious? Liked, admired
and respected by their peers they may have been, but most people tend to think
of the Byrds as angelic choir boys rather than the in-fighting back-stabbers
they actually are if you read one of their biographies. Notorious Byrd Brothers is fittingly named, however, both for the
fact that this is the album the Byrds famously started as a quartet and finished
as a duo (they’d be down to Roger McGuinn on his own in six months’ time) and
all of the love-hate brother-like relationships going on within the band at the
time (that’s brotherly love in the sense that’s shared by the similarly
back-stabbing and in-fighting Wilsons, Davies and Gallaghers brethren on this
list!) Not content with their shoddy treatment of fragile genius Gene Clark,
whose own gloriously complex and groundbreaking songs were replaced by songs
full of snipes about their former partner’s inability to cope with the pressure
of fame, the band self-destructed completely during late 1967. Drummer Michael
Clarke walked straight after these sessions, fed up with being jeered at for
his playing which had actually come on leaps and bounds during the Byrds’ years
– and David Crosby got unceremoniously booted out of the band in the end of
1967 because his songs were, ahem, ‘not very good’ and they’d be better off
without him – the 1st CSN album is barely a year down the line at
this point, remember.
In fact, the more I read about this most delightful
of dysfunctional bands, the more confusing it seems that such different
musicians ever even crossed paths in the early 60s never mind recorded
four-and-a-bit albums with losing just the one member. Hardly any bands stay
the best of friends during their recording years but this must surely be one of
the only bands to have started seriously rowing before they even got a record
contract! The other Byrds not mentioned so far, Roger McGuinn and Chris
Hillman, were never the most prolific of writers during the 60s and sure enough
they got so desperate for material that they raided Crosby’s latest batch of
demos and early recordings for this album, altering the lyrics along the way
and causing yet more friction among the five now scattered Byrds. As a parting gesture they decided not
to put Crosby on the cover and 'replaced' him...with a horse! (to be fair this
sounds like a bit of 'horse-play', an unplanned joke that got out of hand when
the band realised they didn't have a fourth head for their planned photo-shoot
in a shack in the hills and grabbed the nearest solution, but it genuinely
riled Crosby who still considers it a spiteful comment about his role in the
band).
You see, for all my accolades about it later on in
this review, Notorious really isn’t
the properly thought-out and painstakingly crafted album the Byrds want you to
think it is at all. Notorious is
really two albums in one, partly recorded with an on-form Crosby at his
unrepeatable 68-69 peak and then partly re-recorded in the singer’s absence;
the other songs feature McGuinn and Hillman working more or less alone to plug
up the holes and complete the record on time. Even with that convoluted and
confusing background, most of this album’s highlights still belong to Croz. His
lovely harmonies shimmer throughout this record and his songs – Draft
Morning, Tribal Gathering and Dolphin’s Smile - are among the Byrds’
most atmospheric and groundbreaking tunes. In fact Crosby probably wanted to
keep these songs for himself and CSN/Y, but after telling him his new songs
were useless and weird, the rest of the band found themselves short of material
and cannibalised old recordings and what they could remember from Crosby’s
half-completed demos (that’s why all of these songs bear co-writing credits but
they’re really Crosby’s with the odd line added!) Recorded in the most miserable of
circumstances, then, with band members tugging at the reigns this way and that,
unable to agree on anything any more, The
Notorious Byrd Brothers should be a horrid, pitiable mess - the album the
Byrds started as a quartet and ended as a duo (counting the loss of Hillman and
Gram Parsons on the next record, that's five members in four records!) Given
that the band had already sounded weary and disillusioned on their last album
('So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star' is cynicism on a pop-sicle stick) you'd
be fully within your rights to look at the dating (1968 was the most turbulent
year for music, at least across the 1960s, full of unrest assassinations and Nixon)
and find yourself be expecting an incoherent angry, screaming rant that doesn't
hang together.
Instead Notorious,
is one of the greatest albums ever made, not least because it's one of the most
beautiful albums ever made. How on earth did a band who could barely stay in
the same room as one another and all felt as if their futures were uncertain
and hopeless find it in themselves to create such powerful, restive songs is
beyond me - but they found the knack of turning all that tension into gold just
in time. Many of the songs are gorgeous, melodic ballads that float with a
serenity and calm and even those that aren't have lyrics that are wise beyonf
their years, full of references to brotherly love and getting along (even if
through gritted teeth) - a world away from the sometimes childish inter-band
rants taking place (listen to the band argument taking place during 'Dolphin's
Smile' and smuggled unlisted onto the end of the Norotious CD re-issue for an
insight!) Crosby is in particularly blissed-out state on this record, with his
'Dolphin's Smile' and 'Draft Morning' amongst his most hauntingly gorgeous
compositions (finished off by his colleagues after kicking him out the band
when they realised they needed material in a hurry). McGuinn's 'Space Oddysey'
imagines a happier future fifty years down the line, with the seeds planted in
the 1960s ending up sprouting into gorgeous fruit just a generation or so later
(sadly, we're still waiting). Hillman's 'Tribal Gathering' (written with
Crosby's help) is the single most 'brotherly love' song The Byrds ever made,
full of the peace and harmony and optimism that wasn't there in the studio. The
joint 'Old John Roberston' remembers a strange old man the teenage Chris used
to bully for being different and which the duo now want to worship and
celebrate in their new-found love of humanity. And best of all the pair's
classy fittingly turbulent but somehow serene
and accepting 'Change Is Now' shrugs it's shoulders and accepts the now
for what it is. 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' may have been recorded in trying
circumstances but only the opening track 'Artificial Energy' (the Byrds' only
drug song, whatever case has been made for 'Eight Miles High') sounds anything
like the angry, angtsy songs you might expect and even that's clever in a
'we'll-write-a-song-around-the-new-production-gimmicks-we've-just-found-instead-of-simply-using-them-for-no-other-reason-than-they-sound-cool
kind of a way).
Then again, if there's a theme to this record it's one
of brotherly love and how wonderful it is to be alive in 1968 when mankind is
coming together and everything in the future will be different - the last thing
you'd have expected in the circumstances. 'Tribal Gathering' is the most extreme
example, inspired by the 'Human Be In' at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (a
kind of early version of the Monterey Pop Festival), the first time so many
young people had gathered in one place without any call for it. 'Natural
Harmony' is a close second, with blurred images of people 'walking streets side
by side, head thrown back, arms open wide' as if in a trance from love. 'Old
John Robertson' is Hillman's adult guilt over his childhood antics with an
eccentric character he now feels had much to teach him. 'Wasn't Born To
Follow', soon to be a hippie anthem thanks to it's use in the 'Easy Rider'
film, is a statement that everyone is unique and have their own lives to lead.
'Draft Morning' sees two worlds moving in parallel: one a beautiful sunlight
morning paradise as the narrator makes his escape, another a horrifying image
of battlefields, our guide now 'up early to learn to kill'. 'Change Is Now'
delights in the change the youth of the day are bringing and in typical Byrds
style tries to tell us that our future sci-fi selves will always be linked back
to our country pasts (with one of the greatest instrumental breaks in rock
music history. Seriously, if you're not convinced of the power of the hippie
dream after the end then either you've been listening to too much George W Bush
or you need a new pair of ears - let's play this album the next time
there'a war on and see how quickly both
sides put down their arms!) 'Get To You' is a story-song about an aeroplane ride that yells with delight 'that's a little better!' as if simply taking this
one journey has improved the narrator's hopes for mankind's spirits. 'Dolphin's
Smile' tells us that the amphibians have beaten us to our universal peace and
understanding anyway Finally, 'Space Odyssey' imagines a brighter future when
our petty human differences have been put aside. In a nutshell the album's
message is this: 'Change is now, all around - dance to the day when fear is
unknown'.
'Notorious' then is a real album of it's day - and
yet in many ways it's straining at the leash to go even further onto the next
adventure. For a time it was set to do exactly that. The ever mischievous Crosby wanted 'Triad' for the album, a tale about his emerging lifestyle as part of a
menage a trois that rejected all traditions of marriage and understanding with
the tagline 'I don't really see - why
can't we go on as three?' Shocking for some even today (I took great delight in selecting this track for one of my music lesson assignments to see if it still
had the power to shock - what do you know? It did!) , 'Triad' is the logical
conclusion to this album's boundary pushing but went too far for McGuinn and
Hillman who threw the track out along with the singer (Crosby hated the drippy
'Goin' Back' and only helped to record it on the understanding this song would
be left alone - in that context I'm with Crosby, straining towards the future
rather than woefully looking back to the past, although it's too far ahead of
our times now - it would have caused a revolution in 1968, which was exactly
what the guitarist wanted! He gave it to Jefferson Airplane to record instead,
where it made even more sense sung by Grace Slick's feminine voice but got far
less attention). While an understandable absentee, I still say it's this
album's loss - the mischevious debate held at this album's generational rallying
call that would have allowed the album to go even further than reflecting it's
times and imagining a brighter future - it could have lead them as well.
Now that we have the album re-issued on CD (with
lots of brand spanking new bonus tracks) the most revealing moment comes not
from the album itself but the unlisted 'hidden track' squirrelled away at the
end - perhaps the most revealing ten minutes of any Byrds CD. The Byrds are
trying to record 'Dolphin's Smile', the most serene and beautiful moment from a
record full of them. Those harmonies float. Roger's guitar sounds like an ocean
wave. The song takes shape. It's beautiful. And then - *crash*. Michael Clarke
is throwing all his weight behind his drums like he's Keith Moon. Crosby urges
his pal to 'try something gentle'. Clarke refuses. 'It's not beyond you
Michael!' Crosby retorts before adding that he's always like that when someone
suggests something he doesn't like. Producer Gary Usher kindly intervenes,
telling him he usually has some good ideas. Clarke gets sulky. Then he gets
cross, telling Crosby he's a 'drag' and 'attacks me all the time'. The band
lose their cool, Crosby barking the unhelpful suggestion 'try playing right!' 'Can't
you play the drums?' quits Hillman.'Send me away then!' cries Clarke. 'Poor
Baby!' cries Crosby. 'Well, I never liked the song anyway' digs Clarke, aiming
his digs where he knows they'll hurt. A band argument intervenes, the response
of the others sounding as if that was the third one they've had just that day. Within
mere months from this session (weeks in Crosby's case) both men are out the
band. The ironic thing is the final version of 'Dolphin's Smile' - cut mere
hours later - is beautiful. Clarke not only nails the lick the others are
trying to get him to play here, he's invented a whole new one that's much
trickier and complex than anything Crosby was trying to get him to do. Clarke's
greatest drumming is on this album, in fact, especially his hard pulse and relentless
rat-ta-tat that turns 'Draft Morning' drom a drifty dreaming song about
rebirth into a song about escaping the draft. Once again, the magic of
'Notorious' is how it took the sheer chaos of events like these and turned them
into positives, using band arguments as the springboard for pushing the
boundaries of what it even means to be in that band.
While fans have always debated which Byrds album is
the best (unlike The Beach Boys who always get lumbered with 'Pet Sounds' or
Simon and Garfunkel with 'Bridge Over TRoubled Water', there's never been a
general consensus on which Byrds record is 'the one') and I have soft spots for
many, I have to go with 'Notorious'. No other Byrds album sounds this
'complete'. All Byrds albums have some master stroke on them somewhere (yep,
even 'Byrdmaniax'!), but 'Notorious' is a remarkably consistent album where
practically every song is a gem (only a rather dreary cover of 'Goin' Back' lets
the field down). Gary Usher (once Brian Wilson's writing partner) glorious production
is the band's best: it fills up the sound with all sorts of squiggly
synthesiery bits (back when synthesisers were worth hearing and didn't sound
the same on every bleeding record as they will in 210 years' time) and yet the
vocals, guitar, bass and drums are always upfront and centre in the band's
sound (not always the case down the years!) Perhaps best of all there are three
terrific songwriters all arguably hitting their peak (or certainly one of them)
all at the same time: while Gene Clark was the Byrd who ruled the roost on
albums one and two, with McGuinn on album three and Crosby and Hillman swapping
works of genius on album number four it's 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' where
each man's distinctive style really comes into it's own. The songwriting
partnership struck up between Roger and Chris is especially good - light years
ahead from the tired 'Rock and Roll Star' - and makes you wish they'd started
writing together earlier: Hillman's love of roots and McGuinn's love of the
future makes for a terrific blend of styles that, for now, are truly compatible
(alas this record, only the second time the pair work together, is also the
last and Hillman is gone after just one more LP). Above all 'Notorious' flies
higher than any other Byrds album because it's the one that's more than the sum
of it's parts: the sequencing of songs is genius, with tracks seguing into each
other most naturally (despite coming from so many different sessions with so
many different line-ups playing on them) or linked by sound effects that
somehow work; each sounding as if it's 'meant to be'.
Best of all, each song takes you on a journey somewhere new - with most of the
journeys somewhere the Byrds have never been before. Even more than most groups
around in the ever-changing sixties, the Byrds seemed to change their style as
often as they changed their socks in this period, possibly more. Between 1966
and early 68 they went from Dylan-loving folk-rock cover artists, to Ivy League
type pop merchants to space age cowboys and psychedelic spaced-out atmospheric
splendour in the blink of an eye. We're used to hopping somewhere new with each
Byrds flight - that's something fans just have to do to keepn up (although the
sea-change from Notorious to the next record is a leasp to far for most,
however well it's regarded nowadays). If
you think that change in style in a little under three years is weird, however,
wait till you play this album, with its three-minute compact symphonies where
two or three of these styles are quite naturally welded together, with
traditional rockers breaking off for a good old country steel guitar solo in
between bursts of feedback, not to mention setting a space-age message from
infinity and beyond to a 19th century sea shanty backing. The
curious thing in retrospect, though, is what's happened to the 'country'
influence - first heard on the second album's 'Satisfied Mind', it's been
picked up by mandolin player Hillman for his sogs on 'Younger Than Yesterday'
but now - nothing (well nearly nothing, there's a little bit on 'Old John
Robertson' but that's still more rock than country and a brief pedal-steel
yee-hah kick to 'Change Is Now' which lasts for all of eight seconds per verse;
the session tapes revealed a lot of country songs were tried bu never used,
including Hillman's first go at future Manassas song 'Bound To Fall'). The
Byrds are about to take the biggest leap into the unknown of their career and
yet seem on this record to have turned their backs on the sound they're about
to go mainstream with (suggesting that Gram Parsons played an even bigger role
in the next record than suspected!)
What's odd, too, is that a 'country' record is
exactly what you'd expect from the date, the album title (much more likely for
a country band than a rock one) and the album cover: three Byrds and a horse in
a shack in the woods (left to right: Hillman, McGuinn, Clarke, Horse - the band
changed facial hair styles so often it's hard to keep track). Late 1967 and
early 1968 was all about being as 'weird' as possible - yet here are The Byrds,
just weeks on from The Beatles' weird album sleeve for 'Magical Mystery Tour'
in animal masks and The Stones' wizard-centric 'Satanic Majesties' - shooting
what seems like the lowest budget and plainest cover imaginable.Where are the
tribal gatherings? the dolphins smiling? The space oddyseys? Instead we get a
shack in the forest with a tin roof so badly someone really needs to call in
the builders...
That's about the only thing that is down-to-earth
about this record though: 'Notorious Byrd Brothers' is a real 'trip' of a
record (not withstanding the deeply anti-drugs and out-of-it's-times song with
which the record begins), one that comes in lurid psychedelic colours and which
sounds as if - at last - a lot of time has been spent on getting everything
just right. The bad news is that The Byrds never achieved this again before or
since - just think what Gene Clark or even Gene Parsons might have done with
this much care and attention lavished on their songs and weep. The good news is
that against all the odds The Byrds got near perfection at all during the
making of one of the most turbulent, frustrated, angry, back-stabbing sessions
ever held for a record. This album isn't just notorious, it's noteworthy, one
of the brightest shining gems from a golden age in music that deserves every
accolade going.
The
Songs:
The lovingly lethargic [73] Artficial Energy is an interesting place to start, with the
band singing of ‘coming down’ off something, but whether its drugs or a musical
elation we never find out. The song even manages a cheeky reference to
another alleged drug song with the line ‘took my ticket to ri-i-i-de’ – again
giving us mixed messages of music or drugs. Each of this song’s parts should be
energy personified – Chris Hillman’s bass stretches its legs every chorus, the
horns blast at double-time and the song’s tempo is definitely upbeat. McGuinn -
the least drugged up member of a drugged up band - delivers a lead vocal
gloriously blurred and out-of-it, suggesting either that he's made a rare
exception during the making of this record or that he's been closely watching
how his colleagues act while 'tripping'. However what's odd for the times is
how un-1967/68 these lyrics are: the drugs/music doesn't give the narrator any
brilliant insight, just the fear that 'I'm going to die before my time' and
later lands him in jail where 'I killed a queen' (ambiguously worded so we
don't know if its a Royal or a man in drag - I'm hoping for the former). The
fact is everything achieved on whatever stimulation this is isn't real - so the
narrator needn't have bothered wasting his energy; the downside of 'Lucy In The
Sky' this is, proof that not everyone in the 1960s was swayed by drugs (we'll
ignore for now the fact that Crosby alone was responsible for turning half of
America on to them!) So many phasing effects have been added to this song that
it’s as if all the elements are taking place in some sort of fog – a neat
mirroring of the song’s ‘artificial energy’ in that the energy is real, it’s
the studio tricks that make it sound artificial on this song. A complete
one-off for The Byrds, this song features blaring horns and Clarke’s drumming
particularly high in the mix – one of Clarke’s most inventive parts, he
fittingly gets his only writing credit for a Byrds song because of it, as well
as for thinking up the song’s suitably blurry title. It's a strong start to a
strong album, already most unlike anything else the band have ever tried - or
will ever try again.
[74] Goin’ Back has its
fair share of fans and often features on CD-length best-ofs, but I have to
admit I’m not myself a fan of the Byrds’ rather dreary version. A rather drab
and slow arrangement of a rather drab and slow tune masks Goffin and King’s
actually rather clever and astute words and in album archive favourite Nils
Lofgren’s hands this nod to childhood is a happy, snappy wistful little song.
Here, like nearly all of the many cover versions of this song that exist, the
band sound as if they are singing themselves a lullaby to send them to their
childish sleep. I’m with Crosby on this one, who was partly booted out of the
group for the tantrum he had on the day of the recording, refusing to take part
in such an inane song until the Byrds’ production team physically barred him from
leaving until he’d sung his part. The harmonies are in fact the Byrds’ saving
grace – wistful and wise and yearning for simpler days – but you wish they’d
pick the tempo up just a little bit and get on with it. Still, there’s no
denying that this song’s simple but memorable lyrics deserve a better fate than
the shoddy version the band put together here. Unlike most of Notorious, this
track is neither daring nor beautiful.
The driving [75] Natural Harmony is a
Hillamn song that finally gives McGuinn the right setting to play with all his
futuristic toys. Roger also takes the lead vocal in a
rare act pof Byrds diplomacy and even treated with lots of feraky distortion
it's one of his better vocal performances too. The rest of the band (well, the
bits that were left) also back him up superbly, especially Hillman’s
mesmerising bass runs. The lyrics of the song sound more like Crosby’s work,
though, championing the hippie generation’s growing belief in nature and
natural order, experiencing what (so they believed anyway) their parents’
generation never had. The song’s chorus is the song’s secret weapon: goading on
his pursuers with the line ‘catch us if you can’, McGuinn’s narrator seems to
step into some sort of space-time continuum divide (hear this track and see
what I mean), stretching Columbia’s recording facilities to their limit. The
result is one of the more powerful songs on the album and new of the Byrds'
rare forays into all-out psychedelia: a world where mankind is in tune in an
awful lot bigger ways than just music. A neat crossfade brings us to...
[76] Draft Morning,a Crosby song 'rewritten' by the
others from what they could remember from an early recording (down to just two
songwriters they were stretching themselves very thin across 1968). 'Morning'
is
daring and beautiful all at the same time, an uncharacteristically tender song
about a favourite Crosby theme – mankind facing a choice between war and peace
and why they should choose the latter (it's also very similar indeed to what
Crosby's new pal Stephen Stills was up to in the dying days of the Springfield
with one of his best last songs for the band , the draft-dodging 'Four Days
Gone'). The band’s harmonies on the gloriously blissful verses - with Hillman
taking Crosby’s part - are never better than on this track, gliding peaceful
but eerily across the speakers in contrast to the trivial battle going on just
outside proper earshot in the middle section. A barrage of battle sound effects
competing with some of Michael Clarke’s hard-hitting drumming also conjures up
a particularly chilling scene, with Hillman’s bass holding it all together and
going for a bit of a stroll up and down the octaves as he does so. A CSN/Y
prototype in all but name, Crosby must have been fuming when the band decided
to hi-jack this partially recorded song after telling him to get lost,
re-writing many of the words in the process because they couldn’t remember
them! Out of all the great Crosby compositions around in late 67/early 68, this
is one of the least known but one of the greatest; even though it came with the
mixed blessing of re-writing most of the words, the Byrds obviously knew what a
good song this was too. The song would also have made a fine addition to the first
CSN album (Stills especially excelled on songs of draft dodging and melancholic beauty), ending with a lift from 'The Last Post' riff that sounds remarkably
similar to an idea nicked by Neil Young for the CSNY 'Freedom Of Speech' tour
in 2006.
The gentle lilt of [77] Wasn’t Born To Follow offers the usual conservative Byrdisan break
at this point in the album, a chance to take a breather from all that
psychedelic weirdness and go back onto firm hard land. Even in this
delightfully peaceful song about escape, rebellion and happiness, however,
there are some terrifically scary sound effects, mainly the loud distorted
phasing solo that comes out of nowhere and catches your breath for a few
seconds before disappearing again. Not one of this album’s better moments,
psychedelic effects aside, this song was still perfectly cast for use in the
1969 Easy Rider film, which legend has it was based loosely on
the characters of McGuinn (Peter Fonda) and Crosby (Dennis Hopper).
[78] Get To You ends the
side with a slight McGuinn song that once again veers from his two favourite
styles – gutsy country and psychedelic rock and roll. A simple tale of how the
narrator spent years trying to woo his missus and is excitedly waiting for her
on the next plane, the song even starts with a slamming door just to get us in
the right mood for the distance between the couple. This simple song develops a
new layer of meaning courtesy of the exquisite middle eight, however, which
explodes out of nowhere with strings, more psychedelic effects and some ‘vocal
percussion’ in the Pink Floyd 60s style. Is McGuinn singing ‘that’s a little
better’, ‘back to the garden’ ‘back to the better’ ‘back to the mountains’ or
something else entirely during this part of the song? No one’s ever been able
to tell for certain, probably including McGuinn.
[79] Change Is Now
might well be the highlight of the album, meshing a burbling bass and tight
guitar hook with some other-worldly vocals and space age lyrics. Another Byrds
song about the growing feeling of change in the air in 1967-68, the fragmented
lyrics are terrific and has there ever been a better line to sum up the 60s
than ‘change is now, all around, dance to the day when fear is unknown’?! The
restless tune is itself the perfect fit for this song about change and never
knowing what might be next around the corner but – being the Byrds – the past
and future sounds get a bit mixed up. Much of the song is based around the
band’s space-age past of experimentation (and features Crosby on guitar), while
the middle eight is more like the pure traditional country-style they are about
to embark on during the next album (future member Clarence White also makes his
present felt for the first time here). Hillman proved himself a master of going
in unexpected directions with his material on Younger Than Yesterday (this song is a close cousin of that album’s
stand-out track Thoughts And Words)
and this melody is one of his best, sweepingly psychedelic in the way it takes
us out into distant horizons but winningly cosy in the way it brings us back to
earth too. The slightly out-of-control McGuinn guitar solo - which is just
about crossing into feedback at the song’s end - and the gradually growing
growl of the bass which both suddenly break free of their moorings for a
second-half instrumental also constitutes perhaps the best 30-second burst in
The Byrds’ back catalogue, as the band slowly spiral up and up, reaching for
the stars and sounding like they make it too.
[72b]
Old John Robertson
may well be the last track the core quartet of the Byrds ever played on (that’s
Crosby back on harmonies and, unusually, bass). If so, then it’s a strangely
fitting track to end on, with Hillman’s lyrics about a social outcast who was
jeered at by his peers but may have possessed some great secret to life after
all fitting not only for Crosby’s acrimonious departure but Gene Clark’s as
well. Actually, Hillman is here remembering a figure from his childhood who was
dismissed for being weird but in retrospect seemed hyper-intelligent, unlocking
truths that Hillman could only now appreciate in the psychedelic age and the
bassist probably had no ulterior motive in mind when he wrote the song. In fact
this trick seems to have struck a chord with several musicians and is one of a
number of similar pieces written around this time by archive alumni (The
Monkees’ Mr Webster, The Hollies’
B-side Mad Professor Blyth, and
10cc’s Old Mister Time among them). The fact that this might be the last
‘proper’ Byrds recording until an un-mitigatingly awful re-union LP is a shame,
as Hillman’s joyous romping guitar riffs and McGuinn’s impassioned lead make
for an enjoyable few minutes. However, what the instrumental section with its
baroque string quartet solo (!) is all about I’m not quite sure (Hillman
memorably said in an interview that ‘we weren’t intending to use that kind of a
solo at all - these Salvation Army types just happened to walk into the studio
one day playing that solo when we were playing that track and it just seemed to
fit’ – although like many interviews with the Byrds in this period one senses
he was pulling somebody’s leg).
[80] Tribal Gathering is
another late-period Hillman classic, an atmospheric chant-like song whose
understated poetic verses are unnervingly simple until giving way to an
absolute sting of a guitar break that hints at the complexity behind the piece.
Another candidate for McGuinn’s best guitar solo, over several repeat
performances throughout the song it manages to tread a thin line between velvet
jazz and feedback blistered rock before finding its way back to the main tune.
The words are fascinating too and have been seized on by more than one music
author to sum up the changes happening in the mid-60s: ‘strange thing,
gathering of tribes…’ (more than one Byrds commentator reckons this song was
inspired by the crowds at the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, at which the
Byrds performed and in the brief film clip of which you can see McGuinn staring
at Crosby with a look of pure hatred during one of his politically provocative
outbursts). Tribal Gathering is very
sketchy but it does conjure up a very strong image of comparing the present
(and future) trends of youngsters to get together in groups, listening to music
and spreading their own creativity with their caveman ancestors, huddled round
a camp-fire telling stories. Even
though Hillman had composed more songs for the band than McGuinn and Crosby
combined by this point in the Byrds’ history, Hillman still hadn’t formulated a
compositional style anything like as distinctive as his fellow group members.
Here he takes his lead from McGuinn’s more futuristically-focussed arrangements
with the emphasis on sudden surging instrumental passages and Crosby’s
burgeoning hippie philosophy, based around wordy lyrics and strong harmonies.
The resulting typically Byrds-like mix is a quiet triumph and another album
highlight.
[81] Dolphin’s Smile
might be short – it clocks in at two minutes exactly – and it may sound like a
rough draft for Crosby’s later ocean-faring epics, but in many ways it’s a
landmark in Crosby’s writing, the first time he uses his familiar metaphor of
the healing powers of the sea. Using everything Crosby can think of that’s
spiritual and great about the ocean – and sounding mightily like the Beach Boys
in the process – he turns in one of the most poetic fragmented lyrics of his
career. Dolphin’s Smile is among the
lightest, prettiest songs the Byrds ever performed, even with another roaring
guitar solo from McGuinn near the end that seems to mirror the rather worried
verses, debating the scary future for America’s crystal-clear oceans. Like the
rest of the album, McGuinn passes up his more usual jangly 12-string
Rickenbacker for something much more expressive and it’s a shame that so many
later Byrds albums find him aping his early style rather than the fluid,
squealing sound he almost single-handedly invents here. As calm as a sea breeze
and as deep as the ocean, Dolphin’s Smile
is another of the album’s highpoints.
McGuinn gets the last word on the album in the
comparatively long (nearly 4 minutes, double the length of the last track) and
certainly comparatively weird track [82] Space Odyssey. With a
tune straight out of a sea shanty (a slowed down version of Jack Tarr, which the Byrds in fact go on
to cover on their 1969 Easy Rider
album) and lyrics that try a bit of fortune-telling about mankind’s future
progress, the song is a typical McGuinn track in that it tries to be everything
at once and only half gets away with it. Amazingly
McGuinn even guesses the imminent lunar landing wrong – ‘In 92 and 96 we ventured to the moon’ –
despite the fact that as a science buff he surely must have known preparations
were underway, with the landing less than 18 months after this album came out
(unless you believe the very convincing conspiracy theories that we never
really landed there of course – but that’s another website for another time…) You were a bit out there, McGuinn (in both
senses of the word!) Elsewhere the lyrics are equally dodgy and the tune
repetitive to the point of boredom and yet so thrilling are the synthesiser
effects and the burbling rocky guitar that you almost don’t notice. I’d also love to hear McGuinn revive this
song as the bare-bones ballad it’s crying out to be underneath all that
psychedelic clobber, as I bet it would sound even better! A strange
false ending – after a few seconds pause the synthesiser drifts in and out
again playing the song’s root chord – adds to the confusion of the listener.
In fact, confusion is a good word for this album all
round as its not quite clear what the Byrds are trying to do. Beautiful as much
of it is, pioneering as a good half of it might be, the Byrds - living up to
their ‘notorious’ title - have thrown just about every contradicting style and
lyrical theme they can into mix and yet somehow despite all that Notorious runs together beautifully, one
of the last great psychedelic artefacts from a near-perfect era even though I
haven’s got a clue what the hell most of it means. Not bad for a group falling
apart and it makes you wonder just what miracles the Byrds could have put
together in more stable conditions. Sadly the inspiration leaking out of nearly
every song on this album is not to be found again for a while in their back
catalogue. Once Chris Hillman checks himself off The Byrds’ flightplan and the
trimmed down band get on their country high horses, their albums gradually
become more and more ordinary and certainly far more unpleasantly schizophrenic,
veering from the old to the new clumsily and artlessly in a way that this album
does so beautifully and poetically. Read
on for the band’s one last moment of greatness when they finally get rid of the
trappings that dogged them long before the Notorious
years and finally set off for a brave new sunset….
A Now Complete Link Of Byrd Articles Available To Read At
Alan’s Album Archives:
'Mr Tambourine Man' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/news-views-and-music-issue-134-byrds-mr.html
'Mr Tambourine Man' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/news-views-and-music-issue-134-byrds-mr.html
‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ (1965)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-byrds-turn-turn-turn-1965.html
'(5D) Fifth Dimension' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-49-byrds-5d.html
'(5D) Fifth Dimension' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-49-byrds-5d.html
'Younger Than Yesterday' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-108-byrds.html
'The Nototious Byrd Brothers' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-20-byrds-notorious-byrd-brothers.html
'Sweethearts Of The Rodeo' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-byrds-sweetheart-of-rodeo-1968.html
'Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-68-byrds-dr.html
‘The Ballad Of Easy Rider’ (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-byrds-ballad-of-easy-rider-1969.html
'Untitled' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-38-byrds-untitled-1970.html
'Byrdmaniax' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-byrds-byrdmaniax-1971-album-review.html
‘Farther Along’ (1972) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-byrds-farther-along-1972.html
'The Byrds' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-byrds-1973.html
Surviving TV Appearances http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-byrds-surviving-tv-appearance-1965.html
Unreleased Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-byrds-unreleased-songs-1965-72.html
Non-Album Songs
(1964-1990) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-byrds-non-album-songs-1964-90.html
A Guide To Pre-Fame Byrds
Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-byrds-pre-fame-recordings-in.html
Solo/Live/Compilation
Albums Part One (1964-1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-byrds-sololivecompilation-albums.html
Solo/Live/Compilation
Albums Part Two (1973-1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-byrds-sololivecompilation-albums.html
Solo/Live/Compilation Albums Part Three (1978-1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-byrds-sololivecompilation-albums_9.html
Solo/Live/Compilation Albums Part Three (1978-1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-byrds-sololivecompilation-albums_9.html
Solo/Live/Compilation
Albums Part Four (1992-2013) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-byrds-sololivecompilation-albums_16.html
Essay: Why This Band Were Made For Turn! Turn! Turn!ing https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/byrds-essay-why-this-band-were-made-for.html
Essay: Why This Band Were Made For Turn! Turn! Turn!ing https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/byrds-essay-why-this-band-were-made-for.html
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