The Byrds liked the first version better.ĭon McLean referred to this in his song “American Pie,” which chronicles the change in musical style from the ’50s to the ’60s. The band recorded this on their own, but Columbia Records made them re-record it before they would put it on the album, partly because they had contracts with unions. At the end of the ’60s, the term petered out, as rock critics moved on to other topics for their think pieces. “Acid Rock” was hailed as a pathway to higher consciousness and derided as senseless drug music. The genre covers a kind of psychedelic music that became popular at the time, and also the look and lifestyle that went with it. This song is often cited in discussions of “Acid Rock,” a term that got bandied about in 1966 with the release of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album. And what would the song be without the Rickenbacker 12-string breaks?”
I came up with the line, ‘Six miles high and when you touch down.’ We later changed that to Eight because of the Beatles song ‘Eight Days a Week.’ I came up with several other lines as well. In the Forgotten Hits newsletter, McGuinn replied: “Not true! The whole theme was my idea… Gene would never have written a song about flying. In his book Echoes, Gene Clark said that he wrote the song on his own with David Crosby coming up with one key line (“Rain gray town, known for its sound”), and Roger McGuinn arranging the song with help from Crosby. I’m not denying that the Byrds did drugs at that point – we smoked marijuana – but it wasn’t really about that.” When we asked McGuinn in 2016 if the song was really about drugs, he replied: “Well, it was done on an airplane ride to England and back. As soon as one station dropped it, others followed and it quickly sank off the charts. If the band owned up to the drug references, they knew it would get banned by some radio stations, and that’s exactly what happened when a radio industry publication reported that the song was about drugs and that stations should be careful about playing it. The band had been doing a lot of drugs at the time, including LSD, which is the likely inspiration. This story was likely a smokescreen to keep the song in the good graces of sensitive listeners. But Eight Miles High actually came about as a tribute to John Coltrane. It’s true we’d been experimenting with LSD, and the title does contain the word “high”, so if people want to say that, that’s great. McGuinn told him six miles, but for the song, they changed it to eight.Įight Miles High has been called the first psychedelic record. Many people…including me believe this song is about drugs, but the band claimed it was inspired by a flight where singer Gene Clark asked guitarist Roger McGuinn how high they were in the sky. The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100 and #24 in the UK in 1966 Roger has said he was influenced by John Coltrane when arranging the song. One of the reasons that Roger McGuinn is one of my favorite guitarists is because of this song.
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