The Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday [★★★★★]

The cover of the Byrds’ fourth LP, released in February 1967, features the four band members, backlit and double-exposed to look like each of them is leaving his body. This visual certainly adheres to the trippy mood of the period’s album art, but also eerily mirrors the fragmentation going on within the band. Always a heated kitchen with battling cooks, the Byrds had already shed one member, moody poet of heartache Gene Clark, and were soon to send David Crosby on his way. But amid all the pressure were born quite a few diamonds, and this album is among the very best Byrds albums as well as one of the great records of 1967.

In just a few years, the Byrds had more or less invented folk rock, helped turn Bob Dylan from a minor folkie into a major voice, and sold a pile of records; their status as America’s answer to the Beatles was more or less assured. But instead of repeating their jangly hit sound, they continued to innovate (not to mention keep up with the Beatles), moving into dark, rumbling psychedelia (1966’s amazing “Eight Miles High”, “I See You”) and space rock (“5D”, “Mr. Spaceman”). Echoing the wild stylistic offerings of Revolver, the Byrds branch out here into countryish pop with the newly-prolific Chris Hillman’s "Have You Seen Her Face", "Time Between", and "The Girl with No Name" (anticipating the full-on country move they would make with 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo). The bright, wry pop of “Paperback Writer” is answered with "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star", a track which pokes fun of the instant success of the Prefab Four, the Monkees, but which is also aimed at themselves, as their own arc of success came after hiding their folk and bluegrass backgrounds under Beatles haircuts and electric guitars. David Crosby’s efforts are the first flowering of his unconventional songwriting genius, from the baroque miniature of "Renaissance Fair" to the lovely, atonal "Mind Gardens" (as out-there as George Harrison’s “Love You To”, if not more so) to the moody, crystalline beauty of "Everybody's Been Burned". This being a Byrds album, there is of course a Dylan cover, “My Back Pages”, probably their greatest translation of a wordy and introspective Dylan track into triumphant pop poetry.

Most Byrds albums have some filler (“fyller”), and this album is no exception; but here, the less successful experiments all have small sonic bonuses. The countryish space rodeo "C.T.A.-102" has some wild sound effects and a visit from some alien Ewoks, while the sweet-and-sour "Thoughts and Words" features some of Roger McGuinn’s wilder backwards guitar effects. And if “Why” is a somewhat flat conclusion (and the dullest of the three versions of that track they would cut), the 1996 CD reissue more than makes up for it, including excellent outtakes (the hypnotic “It Happens Each Day”, a tamer and, in my opinion, better take of “Mind Gardens”) and the exuberant, cascading single “Lady Friend”. This might not be the best Byrds album—I give the nod to the seamless suite of 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers—but it neatly encapsulates all their strengths, from folk to country to pop to space rock and beyond.

MP3: "Everybody's Been Burned"

The Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday (Columbia, February 1967)

Side One

1. "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (Chris Hillman, Jim McGuinn) – 2:05
2. "Have You Seen Her Face" (Chris Hillman) – 2:25
3. "C.T.A.-102" (Jim McGuinn, Robert J. Hippard) – 2:28
4. "Renaissance Fair" (David Crosby, Jim McGuinn) – 1:51
5. "Time Between" (Chris Hillman) – 1:53
6. "Everybody's Been Burned" (David Crosby) – 3:05

Side Two

7. "Thoughts and Words" (Chris Hillman) – 2:56
8. "Mind Gardens" (David Crosby) – 3:28
9. "My Back Pages" (Bob Dylan) – 3:08
10. "The Girl with No Name" (Chris Hillman) – 1:50
11. "Why" (Jim McGuinn, David Crosby) – 2:45

Similar Recordings

Besides all the Byrds’ 60s albums, most of which should be required listening for anyone with even a passing interest in 1967 music, fans of this record will enjoy much of the folk rock that was coming out of the Los Angeles and San Francisco scenes at the time. Buffalo Springfield’s masterpiece Buffalo Springfield Again, Love’s Da Capo, Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, and Moby Grape’s self-titled debut all offer tight, varied songwriting. Lesser lights such as the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and the Beau Brummels also came up with Byrdsy folk-rock; see the former’s Part One and the latter’s Triangle. In addition, ex-Byrd Gene Clark released a solo album (Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers) just weeks before Younger Than Yesterday, and it remains a minor classic unfortunately overshadowed by his former band’s better-promoted LP.