EIGHT MILES HIGH
THE BYRDS (1966)

The Beatles generally get the credit for inventing just about every subgenre of rock going but California's Byrds can lay claim to creating jangle pop, folk rock, country rock and, with 'Eight Miles High,' psychedelia. For all 'Happening Ten Years Time Ago's weirdness it is still more quirky than mind-blowing; 'Eight Miles High' is pretty much the distance skywards the record sends your head.
Taken at face value the song merely recounts a plane journey the band took at the start of their UK tour, but the spindly, raga-tinged opening chords tell an altogether more mystical tale. McGuinn's guitar intro was based upon the work of legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, specifically his 1961 recording of 'India,' and that freeform jazz style is the blueprint for this otherworldly, lysergically spiritual music.
Throughout the psychedelic movement it's US variant would retain the explosive and chaotic soundscapes forged by 'Eight Miles High.' Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver Messenger Service are unthinkable without it and the burgeoning moral uncertainty of American life found it's aural equivalent in the dark, unpredictable licks that the Byrds pioneered.