THE STORY OF A SONG: The Byrds - "Eight Miles High" (1966)

Recorded Jan. 25, 1966; chart debut April 9, 1966 (reached #14 Billboard and #24 in U.K.)

Roger McGuinn’s twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar was one of the defining sounds of 1960s pop, and never was it heard to more brilliant effect than on Eight Miles High. He has said his soloing here was inspired by jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane, and indeed Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” is a phrase that applies to the breathtaking torrent of notes cascading from McGuinn’s guitar here—no doubt in turn also inspiring an up-and-coming virtuoso named Jimi Hendrix.

It was Byrds colleague David Crosby who first turned McGuinn on to Coltrane and Indian sitar wizard Ravi Shankar. When the Beatles stayed in a Benedict Canyon mansion above Beverly Hills during their August 1965 U.S. tour, McGuinn, Crosby, John Lennon, and George Harrison (relates Richie Unterberger) “sat in a large bathtub, flying on acid and playing twelve-string guitars” while listening to Shankar. McGuinn made a tape of Shankar and the Coltrane albums Impressions and Africa/Brass, which the Byrds listened to in their mobile home during the group’s tour. “We played that damn thing 50 or 100 times”, he later recalled.

When first trying to record their composition Eight Miles High, McGuinn said he was particularly inspired by the Coltrane piece India; the four-note introductory riff to the Byrds’ record was McGuinn’s attempt to mimic the saxophonist’s repetitive line in that song. (He also borrowed a version of the organ break from the Zombies’ She's Not There). But it was a tough song to nail in the studio. The band’s first version was recorded on December 22, 1965, at RCA Studios in Hollywood; it was exciting but raw.- A month later they tried again at Columbia Studios, and this one was magic. 

Five weeks into the record’s release as it soared quickly into the Top 20, Bill Gavin’s influential tip sheet for radio programmers alleged that the song had drug references, and this led to the single being banned from stations in Washington, Baltimore, and Houston. But in fact it was written about the group’s 1965 tour of England, and nasty reception by the London press (“rain grey town”). Eight miles, the story goes, is the height at which jets fly. (It’s actually six miles, but “eight” was thought to flow better musically). McGuinn later acknowledged that “the word ‘high’ has a double meaning, and we all knew it. Everyone at that time had experimented with drugs, and there was a tongue-in-cheek thought about the word ‘high’. But it wasn’t the main thrust of the song.”