When Roger (then still Jim) McGuinn explained in a 1965 interview that the Byrds were modifying folk music to “meet the nuclear
expansion and jet age,” it sounded like a brilliant summation of the Zeitgeist.
It turned out he just wanted to sing songs about airplanes; “2-4-2 Fox Trot
(The Lear Jet Song)” here is just the first of many to follow. In its limp lethargy, it’s
far from alone; I wouldn’t be the first to call Fifth Dimension a killer single with ten b-sides. If “Eight Miles
High” was a departing gift from Gene Clark, his generosity was somewhat wasted.
As the most heavily McGuinn-composed Byrds album to date, this reflected the
hole at the center of the group. McGuinn has perilously little to say, and even
padded out with covers and traditionals from “Hey Joe” to “John Riley,” the
strain shows (his opening “5D (Fifth Dimension)” sounds like a Dylan cover, except with mushy roundabout lyrics). It
could be worse, though—David Crosby’s debut solo songwriting credit “What’s
Happening?!?!” anticipates decades of blathering pseudo-profundity from the
insufferable Beat-aping man of boundless ego, but at least someone was smart
enough to leave his equally tuneless “Psychodrama City” an outtake.
Credit where credit is due, though: McGuinn the songwriter
ain’t much to marvel at, but his Coltrane-influenced guitar work,
tested out a bit on “I See You” and then given full airing on “Eight Miles,”
remains mindblowing. If only he had gone into some jazz-wonk underground
instead of the bland rock that rendered him inert after this, unto eternity…
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