I think Lady Friend is actually one of his better compositions as a Byrd as it has a really satisfying structure whereas generally I find his song-writing a bit sketchy. I mean, all his Byrd songs (and If I Could Only Remember My Name t00 - can't stand CS&N) sound really interesting and they couldn't have been written by anyone else other than Crosby, but some of theme see kinda, well, rudimentary. Take Why - ripped off from Heat Wave in the first instance, but the chorus is just the word "why" repeated twice. It's effective I guess, but it's the performance of the song that elevates it - the performance of everyone else other than Crosby tbh. Dolphin's Smile - the melody of the verses is just really perfunctory and middle eight would be completely lame without McGuinn's solo. What's Happening?!?! Well it's just a bunch of verses ain't it. I See You - pretty much as above, though I suppose he just about manages to include what I guess is a chorus. Renaissance Fair - it's really pretty, but seems really workmanlike to me. The scenes he's describing have always made me think that music needed to sound more like Everybody's Been Burned or Laughing to convey that atmosphere, but Renaissance Fair just seems like it's in a rush to get from A to B and the sod off home. Mind Gardens - well yeah, we all know about this. I mean, I love it dearly (as a String Band fan how could I not?), but as a piece of song-writing? Hmm... Everybody's Been Burned is really pretty, though again just a bunch of verses. Anyway, sure not everything has to be verse-chorus-verse but when that's the framework Cros was working in at the time then I don't really get the impression he was trying to push boundaries, rather he wasn't actually a great song-writer even if his songs actually *sounded* great. Which I guess is the most important thing. So what am I saying? Hmmm...not really sure I guess, but the idea that Cros considered himself above the Byrds' talents has always made me roll my eyes.
Anyway, something more positive - saw on Twitter earlier today Cros was asked if he liked Gene Clark's post-Byrds' work and Cros responded that he did. Not new news, but still nice to see.
Isn't that version of I Knew I'd Want You the same as the version on the original Preflyte album, which is an acoustic take? If not the same take, it's very similar, so yeah I'd say it was a legit Preflyte song. I actually prefer the acoustic version to the electric version on the debut.
Nice post. I like having a few Crosby songs just kind of thrown in on Byrds albums as they were, but a whole album of them would be.. meh. And despite his confidence in his songwriting, he is miles behind Gene Clark and always was, at least in my eyes. Also, you make a good point. McGuinn's guitar work often lifted Crosby's songs out of the embers, so again, douchey of him to disrespect him later on.
I think Gene & Croz are too contrating to compare, really, songwriting-wise. I thoroughly enjoy the work of both, for the most part, but they took very different paths.
It's also worth noting that by the time Crosby was feeling he was the best songwriter in The Byrds, Gene Clark was long gone. I don't think Crosby thought he was the best songwriter in the band in 1965.
Speaking of which, I have a question for you Byrds Nyrds with a better memory than me. I remember reading once long ago that during the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers, while recording "Tribal Gathering" and "Dolphin's Smile", Croz was REALLY upset about Clarke's playing, and wanted to substitute him with someone else. It wasn't Jim Gordon, it wasn't Hal Blaine, it was some other guy whose name slips my mind. Who was it?
I wasn't aware Michael Clarke had played in Jerry Jeff Walker's band for a bit in the 80s. The more you know I guess...
So in learning this, I learned of Jerry's passing a month ago, which I missed somehow. So this year, I started delving deep into John Prine, Emitt Rhodes, Peter Green and Jerry Jeff Walker. The kicker is that shortly after I started to do so they passed.... Peter Green was literally a day after getting all the early Fleetwood Mac stuff. Should I be concerned about some power? Or is something urging me to look into these artists before they are gone? Weird stuff...
There is a part during the studio argument where Mike says "send me away and get ___________", and indeed he says it twice, but I can't make out what he says. (at 4:55) This is just after Usher expresses annoyance that somebody isn't cuing Michael to the chorus. He says there's somebody who's supposed to be doing it (sounds like "Buckley") but I don't know who he's talking about.
Lol. Lately its been John Hartford and he is gone. I will try to be leary of still living artists in their 70s though.
While I would say that in 1967 Chris Hillman was the best songwriter in the band, it wasn’t delusional of Crosby to think that he was the best.
I don't know Michael Clarke had Captain Soul under his belt and was ready to unleash Artificial Energy....
Leaving aside questions of 'best', it's interesting to me to consider chart action as a barometer of the pecking order in the band, in terms of writing. So the Byrds released 12 singles while David Crosby was in the band. (13 if you include "Please Let Me Love You" on Elektra, which I don't.) Two were "flipped" by programmers so they effectively had 14 A-sides total during this period. Here are some facts about the 14 A-sides. In the brackets are peak US chart positions. * 3 are by Dylan (1/40/30) * 2 are by other outside writers (1/89) * 2 by Gene Clark solo (79/103) * 1 by Gene Clark with McGuinn and Crosby (14) * 1 by McGuinn-Hillman (29) * 3 by McGuinn solo (1 with an outside cowriter) (63/44/36) * 1 by Hillman solo (74) * 1 by Crosby solo (82) It's an interesting lineup. Even if you credit "Eight Miles High" to Gene, the chart action indicates that McGuinn was far and away the most successful songwriter in the Byrds. The band had just four self-written top 50 hits, and McGuinn has his name on all of them -- and solo credit on half of them. The only person who charted comparably to McGuinn with the Byrds was Bob Dylan. Neither Clark, nor Crosby, nor Hillman even broke the top 70 with a solo composition in the Byrds. Clark obviously wrote the vast majority of the band's best-selling original ever, but certainly neither Crosby nor Hillman had anywhere near that kind of commercial clout. And of course, none of this has any bearing on who was writing the best stuff. But in terms of record company bean-counter confidence, it's clear that McGuinn was the only group member who earned it from his writing. Even after the Crosby era, a McGuinn composition was the closest the b(r)and ever got to a hit again: "Ballad of Easy Rider", #65 in '69. No other writer got anywhere close (not even Dylan).
Altho Dylan is an uncredited co-writer on Ballad of Easy Rider. He started it at least, McGuinn finished it using his lines and sort of repeating the theme through out.
That's sort of a deceptive stat though, in the sense that McGuinn was given more a-sides than any other band member, so he had more chances to have hits than any of the others. From 1965-67, McGuinn got 3.5 a-sides. Clark got 2 (I'm counting 8MH as a Clark song for the purposes of this discussion). Hillman got 1.5, and Crosby got 1. The more times you get up to bat, the greater the likelihood you'll hit a home run. I think a strong argument can be made that if I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better had been released as a designated a-side it would have been a hit, seeing as it managed to make it to #103 solely as a b-side and was a top twenty hit for Tom Petty decades later. Perhaps a more salient fact is that out of the band's five biggest hits, McGuinn was the primary arranger of four of them. I'm skeptical that his songwriting garnered much respect from the "bean counters" but certainly he had a proven track record for arranging the work of others into something commercial.
Oh, no doubt, but it's a double stat when you think about it -- yes, McGuinn got more "at bats" than the others, but that in itself implies record company confidence. Of course, it probably wasn't McGuinn's writing that Columbia was interested in so much as his singing -- he had a solo vocal on "Mr Tambourine Man" and since that had been a hit, they repeatedly returned to the well with McGuinn solo vocals ("5D," "Mr. Spaceman"). And it's also worth remembering that it's not like Columbia put out a bunch of McGuinn A-sides that weren't hits. Of the 14 a-sides released while Crosby was in the band, 8 could reasonably be called hits, and of the 6 that weren't, there is only 1 McGuinn composition ("It Won't Be Wrong"). The rest are by Clark, Crosby, and Hillman, plus "Goin' Back." To put it plainly, when the band put out McGuinn songs as A-sides, most of the time (in all but one case, actually) they ended up with hits. With the other guys in the band, the results were much spottier. If you pull the camera back to include '68 and '69, then McGuinn is a more reliable hitmaker for the band than even Dylan. Even if you credit "Eight Miles High" solely to Clark and (more controversially) "Rock and Roll Star" solely to Hillman, McGuinn is 2-for-3 (to Clark's 1-for-3, Hillman's 1-for-2, and Crosby's 0-for-1). And of course, if you give McGuinn his due for "Rock and Roll Star," his numbers are even more impressive. So while he did get more at bats, his batting average was also better than the others'. The choices made as to what ended up on The Byrds' Greatest Hits are another indication of relative status. There are the eight genuine hits, of course, plus Gene's "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better." That left two empty spots, which very pointedly were not given to "Set You Free This Time," "Have You Seen Her Face," or "Lady Friend" (or, to be fair, "It Won't Be Wrong"), but were instead set aside for a pair of LP tracks that had never even been considered for A-sides. They weren't McGuinn compositions, but they result in an arithmetic where McGuinn still ends up with more writing credits on the album than anyone else except Dylan, even though half of the Mr Tambourine Man album is included and Clark wrote the lion's share of that! Again, I'm not making any statement here about the quality of the guys' compositions. It is obvious that Clark was, and would remain, the most accomplished composer in the whole Byrds story. But it does seem equally clear that, if anybody in band had earned the status of a major songwriter (in industry terms) by the end of '67, it was McGuinn.
I'm not sure if it's indicative of record company confidence so much as band politics. The sense I've gotten is that the band selected their singles, or had a lot of input into it. I recall Gene saying he needed to share the songwriting credit on 8MH in order to get it released as an a-side. McGuinn also had the best/closest relationship with Melcher, which gave him something of an "in" politically. Wouldn't Clark be 1 for 2? He only had two designated a-sides, didn't he? At any rate, the distinction between the "hits" and non-hits is kind of one of splitting hairs in some cases. A single that hits #36 or #44 (Mr. Spaceman or 5D) isn't exceptionally impressive. Yes, it's a higher chart showing than #73 or #79 (Set You Free or Have You Seen Her Face) but all four could fairly be described as charting singles that were not big hits. I don't recall ever hearing any of these tracks on oldies radio when I was listening to it heavily in the early 80s. Yeah, I would argue that none of them had earned the status of "major songwriter" in terms of hitmaking ability. Three top 20 singles, only one of them self-penned, seems pretty paltry when you compare them to peers like The Lovin' Spoonful and The Mamas and the Papas. McGuinn was arguably the most commercial Byrds writer at that point, but he wasn't what anyone would call a notable success as a hit-writer. Despite what I've said above, an interesting addendum to your original point about McGuinn though is that another of his commercial accomplishments is writing the only hit single from McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman.
This is a great post, Czeskleba, and I don't disagree with what you've said -- although I would disagree that charting in the thirties is comparable to charting in the seventies -- there was a substantial sales and airplay difference, as evidenced by the fact that McGuinn continued to play "Mr Spaceman" (often as an encore) for the life of the band, which he didn't do for "It Won't Be Wrong," for example. And of course he still plays it today. Regarding Gene's 1-for-3, I was counting "Feel a Whole Lot Better," which was flipped by programmers but bubbled under the top 100. It was perfectly possible at the time for a "flipped" b-side to become a top 40 hit -- the Beach Boys did it something like 5 times. In fact, their chart action for b-sides rivals that of the Byrds' for A-sides. The comparison to the Lovin' Spoonful and M&P is instructive too. I'm not a Mamas scholar, but the Spoonful had nine top 20 hits, plus a top 30 hit ("She's Still a Mystery"). That's twice as many as the Byrds, and it's being generous to the Byrds since their chart placements were usually in the much lower reaches (#29, #30). The Byrds had just three top 20 hits. And they were on a MUCH bigger label. The Byrds' Greatest Hits album makes things pretty stark. After 1965, the Byrds' music just didn't have what passed for mass appeal during that period.
Excellent, interesting and important posts by you guys, but I’d just add that, compared to The Mama’s and Papa’s and Lovin Spoonful, The Byrds were not measured by singles, so much as they were more of an albums band and possessed a ”hipper” image. I loved M+P and Spoonful, but they were more poppy, good times and closer to the mainstream. The Byrds had a more mysterious, moodier, ‘underground ‘ vibe, Dylan connected, respected by peers like The Beatles and more popular on the burgeoning free-form FM radio play. They were more of an Eclectic, innovative, progressive Band. All those legendary live club sets on The Sunset Strip was also a strong connection with fans that built loyalty and fan worship. Speaking of singles, Byrds and songwriting - how about that song written by Gene Clark and Jim McGuinn wrote very early when they were just getting together? That song that got to top #5 on the charts, several years later when recorded by The Turtles? Yes, “You Showed Me” was another great Byrds penned single.
On the subject of Byrds' "hit" singles, it's perhaps worth pointing out that Chestnut Mare was a top twenty hit in the UK.
I wasn't there, but I feel LS should have been regarded as a step above the other AM pop radio acts of the time. They had some legit Greenwich folkies involved, like the Byrds, the Beatles praised them and they made consistently good albums, not just singles. I find them underrated despite their success.
