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The Byrds - Eight Miles High

The Byrds - Eight Miles High Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Fifth Dimension
Released: 1966

Eight Miles High Lyrics

Eight Miles High and when you touch down
You'll find that it's stranger than known
Signs in the street that say where you're going
Are somewhere just being their own

Nowhere is there warmth to be found
Among those afraid of losing their ground
Rain gray town known for its sound
In places small faces unbound

Round the squares huddled in storms
Some laughing some just shapeless forms
Sidewalk scenes and black limousines
Some living some standing alone

Writer/s: GENE CLARK, DAVID CROSBY, ROGER MC GUINN
Publisher: BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC, HORI PRO ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, Reservoir One Music, RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Eight Miles High

Many people 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. McGuinn told him six miles, but for the song they changed it to eight.

This story was likely a smokescreen to keep the song in the good graces of sensitive listeners. The band had been doing a lot of drugs at the time, including LSD, which is the likely inspiration. 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. As soon as one station dropped it, others followed and it quickly sank off the charts.

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.

In the Forgotten Hits newsletter, McGuinn replied: "Not true! The whole theme was my idea... Gene would never have written a song about flying. 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. And what would the song be without the Rickenbacker 12-string breaks?"

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. The genre covers a kind of psychedelic music that became popular at the time, and also the look and lifestyle that went with it. "Acid Rock" was hailed as a pathway to higher consciousness and derided as senseless drug music. At the end of the '60s, the term petered out, as rock critics moved on to other topics for their think pieces.

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. The Byrds liked the first version better.

Don McLean referred to this in his song "American Pie," which chronicles the change in musical style from the '50s to the '60s. The line is "Eight miles high and falling fast- landed foul out on the grass." McLean could be sardonically implying that the song is about drugs, since "foul grass" was slang for marijuana. (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada)

Husker Du recorded a noise-pop version in 1985. (thanks, Paul - Glasgow, Scotland)