(1)C.T.A. - 102 (2)Renaissance Fair (Mono Version) (3)Everybody's Been Burned (Mono Version) are standout tracks found on 1967 Columbia THE BYRDS Younger Than Yesterday .Renaissance Fair and Everybody's Been Burned should be stereo versions,too.
Chris Hillman provides a taste of the country-rock the Byrds would be doing a few years later on some pretty tunes, but it's not quite enough to fill Gene Clark's songwriting shoes. What's left is a couple of big hits and a few gorgeous samples of the sound they'd already realized perfectly on "Eight Miles High": jangle of McGuinn's 12-string leads against Crosby's thunderous rhythm, all with perfect condensations of Dylan tunes and sweet California harmonies--Crosby again. And speaking of Crosby, "Renaissance Fair," "Everybody's Been Burned," and the not-on-the-original "Lady Friend" are three of his very best (though even one version of "Mind Gardens" is one version too many).
Still smellin' the incense.
If you download one song today, make it Lady Friend, a David Crosby classic that should have been a radio hit. The song was buried as a b-side or something. Thank God it's here. The rest of the album is up to the Byrds' usual standards.
C'mon admit it... These guys were IT. Starting with McGuinn's 12 string, their popularization of Dylan, those harmonies, country rock, spaceman songs, the Coltrane psych guitar starting on "Eight Miles High", whew, it's all there. The impact has been felt daily ever since. The only problem is that they produced only two consistently great albums from beginning to end, "Notorious" and this one. (Also note: The titles of the bonus tracks 12-18 are mostly wrong, most notably the 5 minute version of "Mind Gardens" which has "Old John Robertson" grafted on the front of the fantastic original non-backwards "Mind Gardens" backing tracks without Crosby's pretentious but still great vocals. Download them all and edit the titles yourself.)
