In The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited, McGuinn attributed the idea to drummer Michael Clarke. 'I thought that the song being played on the air might be a way of getting through to them.'Ĭaptain Soul was a rare instrumental by the Byrds, the result of an in-studio jam between sessions. 'I'm interested in astronomy and the possibility of connecting with extraterrestrial life and I thought it might work the other way round, if we tried to contact them,' McGuinn told ZigZag. Spaceman,' the album's last single, was written by McGuinn as a tongue-in-cheek attempt to contact any extraterrestrials who might be in the neighborhood. A lot of our world is very materialistic and scientific. See, there are people walking around practicing fifth-dimensional ways of life and the scientists are still on two- or three-dimensional levels. 'The fifth dimension is the threshold of scientific knowledge. 'What I'm talking about is the whole universe, the fifth dimension, which is height, width, depth, time and something else,' McGuinn told Hit Parader. McGuinn's mystical lyrics on '5D (Fifth Dimension),' the LP's second single, signaled to some that it was also a drug song. It does refer to the altitude of that flight, but it was a deliberate double entendre.' 'It’s true we’d been experimenting with LSD, and the title does contain the word 'high,' so if people want to say that, that’s great.' Crosby, meanwhile, said 'of course 'Eight Miles High' was a drug song. ''Eight Miles High' has been called the first psychedelic record,' McGuinn said. The belief that 'Eight Miles High' was about drug use had it banned by some radio stations. Gene asked: 'How high do you think that plane was flying?' I thought about seven miles, but the Beatles had a song called 'Eight Days a Week,' so we changed it to 'Eight Miles High' because we thought that would be cooler.' 'Eight Miles High' featured guitar work inspired by sitarist Ravi Shankar. 'It was our first time on a plane, and I had the idea of writing a song about it.

'The previous year, 1965, we’d been on a trip to England,' McGuinn told The Guardian. Critical reviews were mixed but the album demonstrated the Byrds' evolution from folk-rock to a more experimental style.Įight Miles High was the album's first single, a collaborative effort between Clark, David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, then known as Jim. Released July 18, 1966, Fifth Dimension helped introduce fans to psychedelic rock. Much of Fifth Dimension, the Byrds' third album, was recorded after singer-songwriter Gene Clark left the band.

Fifth dimension the byrds