"When the Byrds released their debut single for Columbia Records, few could've guessed the scope of history that would follow... Not only did the band score a Hot 100 leader on its first try, but the song's writer, Bob Dylan, landed what stands as his sole No. 1 as a writer."
That is — I think — my favorite new song on the radio. And I mean based on my experience at the time — the amazement and love at first hearing. Here — that will play without an ad. You'll see Jim — it was Jim then — McGuinn with his Jim McGuinn glasses halfway down his nose. It wasn't ridiculous then, I assure you.
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What I am really interested in today is the professor's take on the Burwell decision. Where is the court going? Has Roberts decided to let this rest with the legislature and avoid damage to the court? I don't like the decision, but it certainly saves everyone a lot headaches. We know what the intent was no matter what SCOTUS found. There is so much BS in the national press that I am very interested to hear a constitutionalists take on the decision.
Funny about Tambourine Man. I don't remember it from when I was in the states, but I sure remember it from the RVN.
That is — I think — my favorite new song on the radio. And I mean based on my experience at the time — the amazement and love at first hearing.
There aren't many songs that hit you that way, so you instantly remember it. I felt that way about "When Doves Cry" by Prince.
What was a bit more ridiculous than the glasses was Crosby wearing a raincoat on stage.
I just want someone to tell me what to teach my students this year about the separation of powers. I refuse to lie to them. so at this point I am at a loss...
khesanh0802 said "There is so much BS in the national press that I am very interested to hear a constitutionalists take on the decision."
Well, it's not a constitutional law decision. It's a statutory interpretation case. I wrote about it yesterday, but I guess I could write about what people are saying about it, people who don't like the outcome. I think they are being over-dramatic. It was a good decision, with a very well explained basis for interpretation, basically exactly what I expected after listening to the oral argument.
"That is — I think — my favorite new song on the radio. And I mean based on my experience at the time — the amazement and love at first hearing."
Ann, if you wouldn't mind, could you expand on this a little bit? I'm 40 years old, and while I could do the work of Googling and finding out when it started getting airplay and what was popular in the weeks/months/years prior to this, I am sincerely curious about how the song contrasted with what you'd been hearing before -- how it stood out against the background of popular music in such a way that you describe your reaction as "amazement and love." Just find myself wanting to know more.
i don't like that this thread is trivializing Roger McGuinn's genius with prattle about SCOTUS.
It was a good decision,
Really? Really?
"The law doesn't say what it clearly does say, because if it did then the law wouldn't do what I think the people who wrote it wanted it to do." is a good decision?
What if the penumbra doesn't really mean it is OK to kill your baby?
I'm a sucker for that "sound": the jangley, hyper-compressed Rickenbacker mixed with a rock bottom bass. Mcquinn either by genius or luck or both put together a fundamentally new sound - one that meshed perfectly with the audio environment of the time (transistor radios, AM broadcasts and speakers in dashboards). The sound was so unique though that it endures today. And quite well at that. You can hear strains of it through Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, The Replacements, REM, Wilco . . . . oh dear God, now I'm really dating myself.
I think the sound really shines through best on an original song by McGuinn and Hillman: that is "So You Want To Be a Rock & Roll Star"
The Rickenbacker 12-string is a great instrument. Harrison and the Beatles used it well, but McGuinn was probably the best with it. The only problem with it is that it's a bit too distinctive. Everything you play with it sounds like the Beatles or the Byrds.
It's interesting how McGuinn played with so many great musicians, but none of them for very long: Crosby, Hillman, Clark, Parsons, White. Was he THAT hard to get along with?
I'd put Eight Mile High over Rock & Roll Star as a Rick-12 showpiece.
Leather jacket (raincoat?) and two layers of sweater. Must have been blazing hot under the production lights.
That song was, and remains, way too mellow for my tastes.
And if I get too mellow, I ripen, and then rot.
It wasn't ridiculous then, I assure you.
Of course it was, you just didn't realize how ridiculous you all were. All generations went through this. Boomers are unique only in that they insist their affectations weren't ridiculous whereas everyone else remembers theirs with laughs or bewilderment.
. . . . Bob R said...I'd put Eight Mile High over Rock & Roll Star as a Rick-12 showpiece.
Arguable assertion.
But mine was a bit different: that is the combo of the Rick and the Bass line. Your argument would be good in that as well though.
@bearing
I was 14, and my previous great love was for The 4 Seasons. The only competition I think of for the feeling I'm describing is "Sherry." To me, the voice of Frankie Valli was so distinctly different, so soaringly beautiful, that I was completely in love with him as an adolescent. I was a Four Seasons holdout when Beatlemania hit in 1964. I didn't see why less excitingly great singing was getting so much praise. I was anti-Beatle. Then, in 1965, The Byrds come out, and the singing is so beautiful. I loved the high soaring voices. Those voices, combined with those words were really different and special. This was before I started listening to Bob Dylan. I came to Bob Dylan only through The Byrds. So those voices and those words suddenly flowing in. Beautiful!
The Beatles had only reached the "Beatles VI" stage, pre-"Rubber Soul," pre-"Revolver" (which is where I got genuinely interested in them). The Beatles were singing simple love songs like "8 Days a Week" and rock-and-roll throwbacks l like "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy." I thought they were sliding out of significance and running out of material! "Ooh, I need your love babe/Yes, you know it's true" is pretty weak compared to "My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet/I have no one to meet/And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming."
From the summer of '64 (I graduated high school that June) to just prior to the release of Mr Tambourine Man, David Crosby played a little coffee house in Santa Monica - The New Balladeer - he played acoustic 12-string guitar and mesmerized us with his vocals. He was almost what would be called the "house band" today - other regulars were John Kay (Steppenwolf) and Taj Mahal.
When the Byrds started playing Ciro's on the Sunset Strip - this was before the release of Mr Tambourine Man - we started hanging out there - we were even let in for free because we had the "look" (Ciro's was still a pretty swanky place then - think Mad Men). Good times...
Roger McGuinn said that he didn't record with the 12 string. It was an overdubbed 6 string.
Maybe he was just joking.
He also said that Patti Smith's version of "Rock and Roll Star" was the way it was supposed to have been done, but the studio wouldn't allow it.
Maybe he was just being nice.
McGuinn had his glasses and Crosby had a big suede poncho that he always wore.
And by the way, all The Byrds were interesting to us as individuals. Some of us girls were fixated on Chris Hillman. I thought Mike Clarke was my special boyfriend.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" sung by a guy with a guitar: twee.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" sung by an electric band: insufferably twee.
I am Laslo.
Thanks!
Revolver is my favorite Beatles album.
When *I* was fourteen in 1988 my cluster of junior-high friends and I were snobbishly (but in my opinion, justifiably) rejecting current popular music in favor of what they played on the oldies station, decorating the brown paper covers of our textbooks mostly with Beatles lyrics.
I was impressed by the LP Julian Bream Plays Dowland as a kid, enough to take up the lute.
My lute had 13 strings. It's really a guitar with the G string tuned down to F# plus an extra bass course tuned optionally.
(And so I really love this stuff too, and oddly enough it also takes me back to being 14. But when I was 14, it was all mixed up and out of its context -- all the music stretching from Buddy Holly to Lynyrd Skynyrd in random shuffle order on the radio.)
Surfed Musical Maxim #1 - ALL the best songs have Rickenbacker's in them.
. . . .Blogger Eric the Fruit Bat said. ."He also said that Patti Smith's version of "Rock and Roll Star" was the way it was supposed to have been done, but the studio wouldn't allow it."
Love her cover of the song. Tom Petty's too for different reasons - mostly Mike Campbell.
@Charlie Currie
Beautiful!
Lucky you!
When *I* was fourteen in 1988 my cluster of junior-high friends and I were snobbishly (but in my opinion, justifiably) rejecting current popular music
Music nearly died in the late 80s, after the failed experiment of turning all decent rock into pop or hair metal (Van Halen, Motley Crue) and eliminating pop-rock for bubble gum (trading Billy Idol, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks for Paula Abdul, Rick Astley, and the New Kids on the Block). Even Michael Jackson went from Billy Jean to Man in the Mirror.
Only REM and U2 were worth listening to. That's why Nirvana was so important, it opened a fresh genre.
I remember where I was and who was there the first time I heard "I Want To Hold Your Hand " on the radio. it stopped me in my tracks because I'd never heard anything like it. I was twelve. I'm not sure if that is what Althouse means by " favorite new song on the radio", but it will always be mine.i
Ann, I have read Robert's decision and, not being a lawyer, still feel like it's a stretch. It seems that the most important point is that since the Congress did a terrible job of drafting the law that it is SCOTUS job to straighten it out. I thought that SCOTUS job was to interpret laws as written, but there seem to be enough cites that make this view mistaken.
Great cover. The Beatles inspired opening riff sets the tone.
Definitely in the top ten Dylan covers in my book. Perhaps only behind Jimi's "All along the Watchtower" and the Band's "When I paint my Masterpiece".
Two WLS radio memories:
The first time I heard "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" - it knocked me out. I'd never heard anything like that on the radio. Just a completely different sound and style of music.
The way Allan Clarke's voice (lead singer for The Hollies) would leap out of the radio like no one I'd ever heard. I still enjoy their music, especially "Carrie Anne", a silly little song.
Definitely in the top ten Dylan covers in my book
Better than Joan Baez's cover of Simple Twist of Fate?
Huh. I barely recognize "Mr. Tambourine Man". "Turn! Turn! Turn!", though, is freakin' perfect. And I'm now checking out his Folk Den website, almost as impressive as Jon Boden's insane "folk song a day" project.
Huh- Wikipedia says that the single of Mr. Tambourine Man was recorded with session musicians, with only McGuin playing. The session guys included Leon Russell on electric piano.
Better than Joan Baez's cover of Simple Twist of Fate?
Not even close.
But, I'm not a big Baez fan. Although I do like her version of "Love is a just four letter word". And "Diamonds and Rust", which while not a cover is definitely Dylanesque.
The documentary "The Wrecking Crew" is about the studio musicians who did most of the recording for pop rock in the early to mid 60's, people like Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, and Carole Kay on bass.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" was one of the songs mentioned, with one of The Byrds' guitarists commenting on how surprised he was at how little he would be contributing.
Would the singing be as wonderful without the studio musicians? Probably, but I suspect the songs would not grab you. And if the songs did not grab you, would you have noticed them and become interested in the band members as individuals?
If I remember right, the rumor was that Mr. Tambourine Man was the street dealer with psychedelic drugs. In later life, Tam Man has taken on the aspect of the Grim Reaper who stalks the knight in that Bergman film. The Byrds version is more suited to the psychedelic candy man, but Dylan's voice is more suitable if you wish to ponder the implacability of death.
Patti Smith's Changing of the guards is a great Dylan cover.
Brian Jones's 12 string on the Stones' Its All Over Now.
It's got that jangly sound.
Not jiggery-pokery, but jangly.
I felt that way about "When Doves Cry" by Prince.
That made me laugh.
In June 1965, 50 years earlier the song "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" by John McCormack was just finishing a 13 week long run as #1 on some of the extant charts, along with "Carry Me Back to Old Virginney" by Alma Gluck, which had a #1 run of 14 weeks.
Take that, hipsters.
@Ann Althouse
Updated profile pic to May 1965...the "look" that got me into Ciro's for free...
"Ooh, I need your love babe/Yes, you know it's true" is pretty weak compared to "My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet/I have no one to meet/And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming."
But the tune of the former kicks the tune of the latters butt so hard it had to say indoors for a month.
I really don't like Dave Crosby, but I think what I most dug about the Byrds was Dave Crosby's voice. All that high harmony was him. He really elevated the songs. Other good bits. Mcguinn's 12 string was really impressive. And Gene Clark did some really good Beatlesque songs on the first album or two. Thinking of Here without You or You Showed Me(was outtake that showed up on pre byrds album) which later got into the Turtles hands. Very melancholic but pretty.
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