Younger than Yesterday, recorded in late ’66 and released in early ’67, was the Byrds’ most eclectic record to date and, perhaps for this reason, it marks the point at which the band’s commercial success began to ebb. The overall effort is at once euphoric and reflective, combining pop gems like So You Wanna Be a Rock ‘n Roll Star and Have You Seen Her Face with the ethereal beauty of Renaissance Fair and Everybody’s Been Burned. The album also offers what up to that time was the Byrds’ most definitive move in the direction of country flavored pop with Time Between and The Girl Who Had No Name, both of which feature Clarence White playing with the band for the first time, though still only as a session player. The distinctive bendy twang of his Tellie makes both those songs radiate with folksy charm…
PS - Friends - Girl With No Name has been pulled from YT. It will reappear eventually, and I will re-post it when it does. Sorry.
Younger than Yesterday is, in other words, a perfect encapsulation of its time and place. The album is scattered and even a bit schizophrenic, yet it coheres and is lucid at the same time. More than any other band with the exception of the Beatles, the Byrds were a cultural mirror. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that they were a crystal ball and a leading edge. If you wanted to know what things would be like six months hence – and remember that six months in the 60s was an eternity, or at least it seems that way in hindsight – you could listen to the most recent Byrds album and you’d know…
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