The Byrds - Song of the Day

As it seems to be Byrds day on here today I'll re-post this from almost two years ago when The Byrds were one of my early Songs of the Day.

'The Byrds had the song titles. They also had the songs. This was the B Side to Turn, Turn, Turn another beautifully simple mesmeric drone (meant in a good way). As a band they had a thing about time which is also an interesting concept. There's the bad grammar of the song title too which works. She don't care about time. They doesn't care about grammar. Rock like football invented its own grammar. There's a spindly fragile beauty to The Byrds music which is their greatest strength but also their weakness. Somehow I don't imagine they were good live and on the television clips I've seen of them their studied cool engages the mind more than the gut. But they had a great look. Great hair. Great clothes. Great expressions. Great sneers. That run of three albums, Younger Than Yesterday, Flying Byrds Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo are pretty tough to beat. Here they also meld in some Bach very skilfully. The basis of the song is so simple. So typically Byrds. And so influential. I'm not sure it makes sense but they seem more influential in terms of their sound than Dylan was to me. For example this record sounds like almost the entire  basis for this great track from the early eighties American guitar wave. Any song that goes on about bells may well have The Byrds as its template.'