eight miles high

woke up this morning (afternoon, actually) with a hankerin' to hear this song. because i was still playing with g.i. joes when it was a hit in 1966, i first experienced it in this versh, in which mcguinn & co. don't even bother to play the actual _song_, as part of a pbs special about the fillmore east that also featured, if my shaky memory serves, van morrison and the elvin bishop group. by this time, the byrds had devolved from the classic tight-harmony and 12-string lineup to something approximating a san fran jam band, with hotshit bluegrass picker clarence white on lead and skip battin, ex-skip and flip of "cherry pie" fame, supplying the jack bruce-isms on bass. (in fairness to skip, at least he keeps the groove happenin'.)



speaking of old sourpusses, here's bob mould covering the song with the huskers at a festival in holland, 1987.



in colorado, winter '79-'80, we usedta play "eight miles high" in a medley with "third stone from the sun." real imaginative, huh?