Other lines “Round the squares, huddled in storms - Some laughing, some just shapeless forms …” goes on to describes fans waiting for the band outside hotels, while the line ‘Sidewalk scenes and black limousines” refers to the excited crowds that jostled the band as they exited their chauffeur-driven cars. History has it that the song was primarily composed on a flight home from the UK, with the lines “Rain grey town, know for its sound …” referencing London. The Byrds found themselves standing at a crossroads here, as their glorious single was stopped dead in its track, banned from radio airplay due to the suggested drug references, which simply couldn’t have been further from the truth. The cluttered, borderline dissonant instrumental sections were unprecedented in rock n’ roll at the time, but not in jazz, where artists such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman shunned traditional harmonic structure in favor of free-form heroics, which the Byrds totally embraced, creating a shadow play of harmonic unresolved melodic drama. Musically it’s been contended that “Eight Miles High” was influenced by both John Coltrane ( Impressions and Africa/Brass) along with Ravi Shankar, where according to most critics, the number was the first bona fide psychedelic song ever, though the Beatles’ Revolver was released in August of that year. The song seemed to come out of nowhere, as equally magical as “Mr. Without a doubt, the jangling single “Eight Miles High” was as influential to the counterculture movement of the 60’s as was “White Rabbit” by The Jefferson Airplane, both amazing anthems that rose out of rather softer folk-rock albums.
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