14. The Byrds Eight Miles High
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoSwOrytf_M The Byrds virtually influenced virtually every guitar band that you hold dear. Roger McGuinn was the master of the Rickenbacker 12 string guitar, which gave a cathedral chime to all the songs that they recorded, but they had so much more about them that that. They wrote songs of love and politics with equal aplomb, sometimes combining the two effortlessly. They had a whole heap of songs that are undisputed standards in the classic musical cannon, but 'Eight Miles High' is their masterpiece, stepping into a much darker place than other classics such as 'Feel a whole better' and 'Turn, turn turn', both of which wrote the template for feel-good music of latter decades. 'Eight Miles High' went somewhere that they hadn't visited before and confirms the 60's as a period of construction. They turned their heads away from early Beatles records and looked at freeform music such as that of John Coltrane. This is arguably the first song of the decade that truly embraced eastern influences; Ravi Shankar was an influence on this years before The Beatles decided to go to Marrakesh, with drone and repetition to the fore. What was also incredibly daring was that they eschewed the traditional chorus and initiated an approach to song writing that structured the mood of the tune to match the lyrics, which would be emulated to great effect in songs such as '2,000 light-years from home' by The Rolling Stones and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by The Beatles. But The Byrds did it first, and it's an exceptionally thrilling piece of music, its influence stretched beyond guitar band and dance acts of latter decades got the repetition displayed here and made wonderful careers from it.
Ed Nash
Contributor
What makes music fantastic? Star quality, amazing music, breathtaking lyrics and the ability to bring something new to the table, even if that means a new take on the classics. That's what I love to listen to and write about.
As well as writing for What Culture, I occasionally write a blog http://tedney.blogspot.co.uk and sometimes use Twitter, but sparingly @TedneyNash
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