Best Songs On the Album Fifth Dimension by The Byrds
Fifth Dimension was the album were the band went from being a straightforward folk rock band to a psychedelic band. Gene Clark left the band and only contributed to two songs on the album (Eight Miles High and Captain Soul).
The lead single. Although it wasn't as big a hit as Mr Tambourine Man or Turn! Turn! Turn!, it is still one of the most recognized songs of theirs. It's a psychedelic classic.
The album opener. Roger McGuinn said that the words were written about Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but many people interpreted it as an acid trip.
An uptempo song with a lot of jazz influence. They were listening to a lot of Coltrane when they made the album.
This song had lyrics that came from a poem written from the point of view of a young child who was vaporized in the Hiroshima bombing of 1945. It's very sobering.
An uptempo country-style two step about Roger McGuinn's desire to get in contact with extraterrestrial life forms (a theme they would revisit in CTA-102). He believed that playing the song on the radio would reach the aliens (before realizing that AM radio waves dissipate quickly into space).
A Scottish folk song that was covered by Pete Seeger, among others. This song has a string arrangement; unfortunately, this means that the song's mix is unbalanced (they were only able to record it on four track tape).
Like Wild Mountain Thyme, it also has a string section added onto it.
Captain Soul originated from a jam session where the band members were playing Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life, Woman". Gene Clark (who left the band during the sessions for the album) played harmonica on it.
David Crosby sings the vocals on this one. He sang it frequently in 1965 before The Leaves covered it, and he wanted to do a version himself. The other Byrds wouldn't let him until they recorded Fifth Dimension.