Jab Dil Mile Lyrics

[Katariina Washuk]

Eight Miles High" is a song by the American rock band the Byrds, written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn (a.k.a. Roger McGuinn), and David Crosby. It was first released as a single on March 14, 1966. Musically influenced by sitar player Ravi Shankar and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, the song was influential in developing the musical styles of psychedelia and raga rock. Accordingly, critics often cite "Eight Miles High" as being the first bona fide psychedelic rock song, as well as a classic of the counterculture era.

The song was subject to a U.S. radio ban shortly after its release, following allegations published in the broadcasting trade journal the Gavin Report regarding perceived drug connotations in its lyrics. The band strenuously denied these allegations at the time, but in later years both Clark and Crosby admitted that the song was at least partly inspired by their drug use. The failure of "Eight Miles High" to reach the Billboard Top 10 is usually attributed to the broadcasting ban, but some commentators have suggested the song's complexity and uncommercial nature were greater factors.

"Eight Miles High" reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 24 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was also included on the band's third album, Fifth Dimension, which was released on July 18, 1966. "Eight Miles High" became the Byrds' third and final U.S. Top 20 hit, and was their last release before the departure of Clark, who was the band's principal songwriter at the time.

The song's lyrics are, for the most part, about the group's flight to London in August 1965 and their accompanying English tour, as hinted at by the opening couplet: "Eight miles high and when you touch down, you'll find that it's stranger than known."[1] Although commercial airliners fly at an altitude of six to seven miles, it was felt that "eight miles high" sounded more poetic than six and also alluded to the title of the Beatles' song "Eight Days a Week".[1]

Clark began writing the song's lyrics on November 24, 1965, when he scribbled down some rough ideas for later development, after a discussion with guitarist Brian Jones, before the Byrds made a concert appearance supporting the Rolling Stones.[2][11] Over the following days, Clark expanded this fragment into a full poem, eventually setting the words to music and giving them a melody.[2] Clark then showed the song to McGuinn and Crosby. McGuinn suggested that the song be arranged to incorporate Coltrane's influence.[2] Since Clark's death, however, McGuinn has contended it was he who conceived the initial idea of writing a song about an airplane ride and that he and Crosby both contributed lyrics to Clark's unfinished draft.[2] In his book, Mr. Tambourine Man: The Life and Legacy of the Byrds' Gene Clark, author John Einarson disputes this claim and ponders whether McGuinn's story would be the same if Clark was still alive.[2]

"Eight Miles High" also exhibits the influence of sitarist Ravi Shankar, particularly in the droning quality of the song's vocal melody and in McGuinn's guitar playing.[15][16] However, the song does not actually feature the sound of the sitar, despite the Byrds having appeared brandishing the instrument at a contemporary press conference held to promote the single.[9] In a 1966 promotional interview, which was added to the expanded CD reissue of the Fifth Dimension album, Crosby said that the song's ending made him "feel like a plane landing."

An earlier version of "Eight Miles High" was recorded with Al Schmitt at RCA Studios in Los Angeles on December 22, 1965, but Columbia Records refused to release that recording because it had not been produced at a Columbia-owned studio.[9][12][17] McGuinn has since said he believes this original version of the song to be more spontaneous sounding than the better known Columbia release.[9] That opinion was echoed by Crosby, who commented, "It was a stunner, it was better, it was stronger. It had more flow to it. It was the way we wanted it to be."[9] This original version of "Eight Miles High" was eventually released on the 1987 archival album Never Before and was also included as a bonus track on the 1996 Columbia/Legacy CD reissue of Fifth Dimension.[18][19]

"Eight Miles High" was released on March 14, 1966, in the U.S.[20] and May 29, 1966, in the UK, reaching number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and number 24 on the UK Singles Chart.[20][21][22][23] The song was also included on the band's third album, Fifth Dimension, which was released on July 18, 1966.[24]

Following its release, the band faced allegations of advocating the use of recreational drugs in Bill Gavin's Record Report, a weekly newsletter circulated to U.S. radio stations.[2][1] This resulted in "Eight Miles High" being banned in a number of states within a week of the report being published, a factor which contributed to the single's failure to break into the Billboard Top 10.[1] The Byrds and their publicist, Derek Taylor, countered by strenuously denying that the song was drug-related. Taylor issued an indignant press release stating unequivocally that the song was about the band's trip to England and not drug use.[9] However, by the early 1980s, both Crosby and Clark were prepared to admit the song was not entirely as innocent as they had originally declared. Crosby said: "Of course it was a drug song! We were stoned when we wrote it."[9] Clark was less blunt, explaining in an interview that "it was about a lot of things. It was about the airplane trip to England, it was about drugs, it was about all that. A piece of poetry of that nature is not limited to having it have to be just about airplanes or having it have to be just about drugs. It was inclusive because during those days the new experimenting with all the drugs was a very vogue thing to do."[2][9]

The song's use of Indian and free-form jazz influences, along with its impressionistic lyrics, were immediately influential on the emerging genre of psychedelic rock.[23][27] Accordingly, some authors and music historians, including Eric V. D. Luft, Domenic Priore, and Dwight Rounds, have described "Eight Miles High" as being the first bona fide psychedelic rock song.[28][29][30] In his book Riot On Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood, Priore cites the song as the one that kicked off the psychedelic craze, explaining "prior to 'Eight Miles High,' there were no pop records with incessant, hypnotic basslines juxtaposed by droning, trance-induced improvisational guitar."[13]

The song was responsible for the naming of the musical subgenre raga rock, when journalist Sally Kempton, in her review of the single for The Village Voice, used the term to describe the record's experimental fusion of eastern and western music.[31] However, although Kempton was the first person to use the term raga rock in print, she actually borrowed the phrase from the promotional material the Byrds' press office had supplied to accompany the "Eight Miles High" single release.[10] In a 1968 interview for the Pop Chronicles radio documentary, McGuinn denied that the song was an example of raga rock,[8] while Crosby, speaking in 1998, dismissed the term entirely, saying "they kept trying to label us; every time we turned around, they came up with a new one ... it's a bunch of bullshit."[32] Nonetheless, the experimental nature of the song placed the Byrds firmly at the forefront of the burgeoning psychedelic movement, along with the Yardbirds, the Beatles, Donovan and the Rolling Stones, who were all exploring similar musical territory concurrently.[27]

In 1999, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, an honor reserved for "recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old."[36] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Eight Miles High" at number 151 on their list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time[37] and in March 2005, Q magazine placed the song at number 50 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.[38]

During the same month that "Eight Miles High" was released as a single, the Byrds' primary songwriter, Gene Clark, left the band.[23] His fear of flying was given as the official reason for his departure, but other factors, including his tendency toward anxiety and paranoia, as well as his increasing isolation within the group, were also at work.[23][39] Following the release of "Eight Miles High" and Clark's departure, the Byrds never again managed to place a single in the Billboard Top 20.[21]

The Byrds performed "Eight Miles High" on a number of television programs during the 1960s and 1970s, including Popside, Drop In, Midweek, and Beat-Club.[40] The song became a staple of the band's live concert repertoire until their final disbandment in 1973.[40] A sixteen-minute live version of "Eight Miles High" was included on the Byrds' (Untitled) album in 1970,[41] and another live version was released as part of the 2008 album, Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971.[42] The song was performed by a reformed lineup of the Byrds featuring Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman in January 1989.[40]

The song remained a favorite of Clark's during his post-Byrds solo career and he often performed it at his concert appearances until his death, in 1991.[2] McGuinn also continues to perform an intricate acoustic guitar rendition of the song at his concerts.[43] Crosby has revisited "Eight Miles High" infrequently during his post-Byrds career, but it was performed during Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's reunion tour of 2000, with Neil Young handling McGuinn's guitar solo, while the other three members sang the song's three-part harmonies.[15] The Byrds' bass player, Chris Hillman, also recorded an acoustic version of "Eight Miles High" as part of his 2005 album, The Other Side.[44]

3a8082e126