The Byrds continued their turn away from pop music with the adventurous psychedelic romanticism of this diverse and transitional countrified folk rock jewel. The band had blossomed with three songwriters Jim McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman hitting their stride, although not without contention. 'Younger Than Yesterday' was recorded in little over a week at Columbia Studios in Hollywood. Since their previous producer Allen Stanton had left the label, they went with Gary Usher, who had done work with the Beach Boys.
Hillman:
"That was my album in that sense that I started to come out of my shyness and contribute more. And I think we did some of the very first country-rock on 'Younger Than Yesterday'. I think with Clarence, 'Girl with No Name', 'Time Between', stuff like that, that was our country-rock statement of the time... And there was Roger and I in the breach, having had our fallout with David in finishing this record with Gary Usher. Gary Usher was very good at the time, a very good producer to work with, and opened all kinds of ideas."
McGuinn:
"I enjoyed working with Usher and it was great fun in the studio. We were kind of Beatles-influenced, I don't know if it was 'Revolver' or 'Rubber Soul', but we were influenced by one of those. I think they'd released something that didn't have separations between the tracks, so I think that was the inspiration for that. It was just a real artistic expression, freedom of expression. It was a lot of fun to be able to do things that were off the wall like that."
Crosby:
"Well we knew what we wanted to do and by that time, we'd gotten pretty good at it. I didn't know we did it that fast. That's probably the best record. I remember sitting up at Hillman's house looking out over Los Angeles...um...chemically enhanced and listening to the thing and thinking 'goddamn' you know? I was really knocked out by that. I thought it was an excellent piece of work."
'Younger Than Yesterday' only went to number twenty-four in the US and number thirty-seven in the UK; but has proven very influential in the ensuing years.
http://www.thebyrds.com/
http://www.thebyrds.com/
The single for 'So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star' (Chris Hillman, Jim McGuinn) peaked at number twenty-nine in the US. Hillman remembers: "David Crosby and I had done these sessions for Hugh Masekela. We had the same manager, and we worked with all these South African musicians. I don't know why Hugh even called us in. David played guitar and I played bass, but the rest of them were real good players, jazz players. We couldn't even read a note of music, but we were working for this lady Letta Mbulu a jazz singer. It was an epiphany in my life. I went home after these sessions and started writing songs. Didn't have anything to do with what I'd been doing in the sessions, but on the second or third day I wrote Rock'n'Roll Star, and had Roger (McGuinn) come over and help me write it. Roger put in the bridge. The first part is something I absorbed from that session. Roger probably won't back me up on my version of this, but that song was just a slight jab at the Monkees. Not at the people, but at the process of taking a contrived thing and making a watered-down version of A Hard Day's Night on a weekly sitcom. It cheapened the music. It was never a jab at the four guys, in fact Mike Nesmith was a great songwriter and singer."
'Have You Seen Her Face' (Chris Hillman)
'Renaissance Fair' (David Crosby, Jim McGuinn)
'Time Between' (Chris Hillman)
'Everybody's Been Burned' (David Crosby) Crosby says: "I don't think I wrote anything that was worth a damn until I was in the Byrds. I think the first actually passable song that I wrote was 'Everybody's Been Burned.' It's certainly one of the places I'm most comfortable in (the modal feeling), no question about it. The lyric ballad, odd-changes feel."
'Thoughts and Words' (Chris Hillman) – 2:56
'My Back Pages' (Bob Dylan) – 3:08
McGuinn recalls: "I was driving my Porsche up La Ciniega, and Jim Dickson, our former producer and manager, pulled up in his Porsche, and signaled for me to roll my window down. -Hey. You ought to record Dylan's 'My Back Pages'. I said, OK. Thanks. It's a very insightful song about that thing when you think you're so knowledgeable when you're young. And then when you get a little older you realise what you didn't know."
'Why' (Jim McGuinn, David Crosby) – 2:45
'It Happens Each Day' (David Crosby) was left off of the album; but included in the re-release.
'Younger Than Yesterday'
full album:
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