byrdsongs, lxxv

Boy, the layers of tin foil you have to peel away in order to get to tonight’s song are really quite obtrusive. There’s a very good tune underneath it all but the mix is completely swampy and claustrophobic. Sometimes it seems like 80s production was designed to make it almost impossible to hear music as anything more than muddled mush. But I give Gene Clark credit. He recorded Firebyrd­ after spending some time with Jesse Ed Davis in Hawaii trying to rehab off drugs. That he was able to be productive at all at this point is pretty remarkable. Rain Song is the best tune on Firebyrd, the appearance of which loosely coincided with the brief revivalist excitement of the Paisley Underground in Los Angeles. Clark became hip again for awhile as not only the Paisley Underground bands, but also REM, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tommy Keene, and the dbs, to name just a few, referenced the Byrds with a new explicitness. Unfortunately, Clark was not able to parlay his newfound cache into something more enduring and he eventually slid back into drugs, drink and inner torment. The guy had so much talent but couldn’t get past his demons. It’s very sad, but he continued to make music through these struggles and its from this that we can draw a small measure of inspiration...