It Took Me Twenty Years

What better way to make up for my inexcusable omission of the Byrds in this blog than to have two posts in a row?  From their 1968 masterpiece "Notorious Byrd Brothers" here is a lovely tune by bassist Chris Hillman and guitarist Roger McGuinn, written in the odd meter (for pop music) of 5/4.  "Get To You" is chock full of odd Lesley Speaker phased-vocals and a melody that just gets lovelier as it goes.  By this point Mr. Hillman was supplying about a third of the songs on the LP, matching that provided by the recently departed David Crosby.   One of pop music's great "if only" moments would have been to see Crosby stay in the band long enough to produce another LP.   The sheer variety of musical styles on this album is amazing.  But it was not meant to be, as the Byrds went country on the next release and soon thereafter Chris left, along with drummer Michael Clarke and suddenly the original Byrds were no more.