Released 1966
5 D (Fifth Dimension)
Wild Mountain Thyme
Mr. Spaceman
I See You
What's Happening?!?!
I Come And Stand At Every Door
Eight Miles High
Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go)
Captain Soul
John Riley
2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song)
When I met Lou Reed in 1969, the only guitarist he would say anything positive about was McGuinn. When "Eight Miles High" had just come out he saw them in a club in the Village. He was thinking along the same lines too. He was listening to Ornette Coleman (Robert Quine)
It's funny, people think this one's a letdown.
Maybe because it breaks the mold of albums one and two so radically. There's a not a Dylan song in sight. And the folk numbers have a certain perfunctory quality to them. Well, some do.
It has been said that FD is the sound of The Byrds, stranded by the departure of main songsmith Gene Clark, short on material and filling the spaces with whatever they could come up with. I say they're wrong. Wrong, do you hear?!
Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! were at times lovely little gems, Beatle-ized sixties folk, heavy on the Dylan, given full breadth by Roger McGuinn's surprising guitar. Fifth Dimension, on the other hand, shows The Byrds simply blowing their "folk rock" limitations right out of the galaxy. It is McGuinn unleashed. In the end, it's a total mindfuck of a record.
It starts off Byrdsy enough. A swaying, sea-chantey melody and a wistful vocal. But listen: McGuinn sings not of social injustice or love lost and found, or even Biblical musings or mystical street musicians. "Oh how is it that I could come out to here," he asks, "and be still floating?" It's a somewhat odd way to kick off an album. But this was the beginning of the age of the album as album, and it is perfect. "All my two dimensional boundaries were gone I had lost to them badly" McGuinn tells us, as he elucidates his journey to the center of the mind. It sets the theme, the tone and the story to come. It articulates what I just said above. McGuinn's been someplace exciting since we last spoke. He wants to tell us about it. He wants to take us there. And we will ride the music.
"Wild Mountain Thyme", then, is closer to familiar territory, a trad arr learnt off the Clancy Brothers, et al, and given Byrds treatment. But it is tossed off with an easy mastery, the same kind of mastery The Beatles, Byrds role models, had shown in their 65-era recordings. It is not a throwaway. In fact, its one of their finest moments; the strings melding with the guitars into a symphonic wave that pulls the whole song to its climax. For my money it may be their most fully-realized expression of space age folk music. "Mr. Spaceman," a light-hearted romp, McGuinn's stab at SETI. Heard today, it makes me think of the opening scenes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wonder if Speilberg is a Byrds fan?
"Spaceman" serves as a nice bridge to the brain-melt that follows. "I See You" is amateurish free-association lyrics (so what?) over thrilling jazz-rock chords. There's a lot of that going around 65/66. The Byrds have it down, but this is only a sketch. "What's Happening?!?!" takes it even farther, parsing jazz moves with sinuous raga-rock, McGuinn playing straight from the opium den. "I Come And Stand At Every Door" ends side one on a mournful psychedelic buzz, an atomic age ghost story I've always found both moving and slightly chilling.
Side two is the A-bomb. Bass lines stalking up on you, not even trying to hide. Bursts of shimmering guitar, explosions of musical color. People didn't think "Eight Miles High" was about drugs because of the lyrics, but because of the lysergic sounds. If this wasn't what a trip felt like, it should have been. I was once working out in a 24 Hour Fitness, late at night. Usually they're blasting hip-hop or top forty in there, but this night, the guy had an oldies station on (cool). And he had it cranked to nightclub level volume. And "Eight Miles High" came on. The music seemed to descend upon me, like a mothership landing, sparkling psychedelic musical rain falling all around me. Make no mistake about it - if The Byrds had never made another good record besides "Eight Miles High", or never made another record period, they would still have earned their place in rock and roll Valhalla with this one. I can't imagine what it sounded like to hear it the first time in `66.
(Note: "Eight Miles High" was recorded January/released March 1966 (16 days before I myself was released, as a matter of fact). Revolver was recorded in April. Was somebody listening?)
Anything would be an anti-climax after "Eight Miles High". Too bad Crosby had to insist on tossing off a totally perfunctory "Hey Joe", apparently to placate the fat(head)(boy). It has nothing on The Leaves, or even Love's version, not to mention Hendrix or Patti's. All great albums have their duds. A shame they didn't bag it in favor of the headlong rush of "You Know My Rider", which say in the can till The Byrds Box Set, and is far superior.
The rest of the album may be minor, but its all pleasurable. And, in a way, it makes sense. "EMH" is a tough, make that impossible, act to follow. So "Captain Soul," an r&b riff, may not be a Byrds classic, but its a nice, even tough-sounding bit of blues (for a band about as blues-less as you can get!). "John Riley" is another trad arr not even close to "Wild Mountain Thyme", but still nicely handled if slightly rushed sounding. And the closing "Lear Jet Song" - 2:12 of cockpit/air traffic controller talk over a vamping instrumental and a chant. Minor, but very nice.
The great rock and roll albums are often more than the sum of their parts. Even in a case like Fifth Dimension, where the essential-ity of the songs clearly drops (after hitting an all-time high), it is the story that is told that matters. As "The Lear Jet Song" eases us back to earth from the heavens, we know we've been told a great one.
