The Byrds - Byrds '66

Self made compilation 

01 5D (Fifth Dimension)

02 I See You

03 Wild Mountain Thyme

04 Mr. Spaceman 

05 I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider)

06 Captain Soul

07 Eight Miles High

08 John Riley

09 The Day Walk (Never Before)

10 What's Happening?!?!

11 Why

The re-imagining of The Byrds albums continues.

In late 1965, The Byrds had released their second album 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' and ended the year recording a new single that was pretty far out; 'Eight Miles High' b/w 'Why'.

These new songs saw The Byrds at their height; experimentation, jazz and drone influences and sound now uniquely their own. 

The new single (although not the original recordings) was released and Gene Clark promptly left.

The resulting album, 'Fifth Dimension', was a frustrating mix of a band burning on new ideas and struggling without their chief songwriter. At this point McGuinn's guitar and compositional ideas, Crosby's vocal and unique rhythms, Hillman's stunningly inventive bass playing and even Clarke's drumming were all starting to fire. Without Gene Clark however, some of these ideas fell flat, or didn't have the required structure to hang on.

That said there are flourishes of absolute genius in the recordings of 1966.

5D (Fifth Dimension), I See You, Wild Mountain Thyme, Mr. Spaceman, What's Happening?!?! and John Riley are included in their original forms from 'Fifth Dimension'. Eight Miles High and Captain Soul are of also retained, but the inclusion of  'The Day Walk (Never Before)' ups the Gene Clark quota. 

'The Day Walk (Never Before)' was recorded during the sessions for 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' and was marked as 'keep' for the next Byrds album.

The version of 'Why' included here is from the b-side of 'Eight Miles High'. Spiky and more energetic than the version released on the following album 'Younger Than Yesterday', yet more developed from the RCA recording from '65.

'I Know My Rider (I Know You Rider)' was recorded as a potential single. It went unreleased as the band felt it shared too much with The Beatles 'Paperback Writer'.

Nonsense, it would of been a brilliant single and is one of the best Byrds unreleased songs.

There you go; what The Byrds may have done in 1966.