I had an urge to hear the music of The Byrds this week, the mid 60s, jingle-jangle, folk-psyche Byrds. It was the result of listening to Michael Head's Adios Senor Amigo in the car going to and from work this week. There's a Byrdsian influence on Adios Senor Pussycat, in the playing, the chords and the harmonies.
A long time ago I posted Feel A Whole Lot Better, my favourite Byrds song, with its chiming Rickenbacker guitar riff. But I also found a lot to re-love in this one, a minor key Gene Clark masterpiece, written when The Byrds were still The Jet Set. It's shot through with melancholy and loneliness as he describes being in the big city Los Angeles, without her. The opening guitar riff seems to hint at what would happen in 1966 with Eight Miles High.
Here Without You
A great Gene Clark song. One of many.
ReplyDeleteOne of the great things about Michael Head, and it's especially true on Adios Senior Pussycat, is that he lets you know, through his own music, what he finds important when it comes to appreciating Rock and Roll from the past. I sometimes think if Head was born in a different era and had made his way to LA in the middle 60s, we would all have Michael Head albums in our collections and discuss him the same way we discuss The Byrds, Love, or Buffalo Springfield.
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