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We're Not Who You Think We Are

Certain Songs #162: The Byrds – “Why”

April 14, 2015 by Jim Connelly

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Album: Younger Than Yesterday.

Year: 1967.

With a beat that would sound like classic Motown if only Chris Hillman & Michael Clarke had even the tiniest bit of swing (The Byrds could pull off a lot of things, but R&B was beyond their ken)  and featuring two of McGuinn’s greatest guitar solos, “Why” closed the stellar Younger Than Yesterday with perhaps their hardest-rocking song.

Lyrically, it’s a trifle:

You keep sayin’ no to her
Since she was a baby
You keep sayin’ no to her
Not even maybe


Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

But this isn’t one of those songs I love for the words, I love it for the guitars – especially the raga-ish guitar solos, far more controlled than “Eight Miles High,” of course, but completely compelling – and (broken record) the way their voices go up when asking “whyyyyyyyyyyyy”?

And because of the straight-forward beat, tough(ish) guitars, and simple verse-chorus-verse structure, out of all of the Byrds songs, this feels like the one that set the template for all of the power pop to follow – it’s hard for me to imagine songs like “A Million Miles Away” or “Tomorrow Night” existing without it.

“Why”

Filed Under: Certain Songs, Hot Topics, Music Tagged With: The Byrds, Why, Younger Than Yesterday

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2542: Sugar – “The Act We Act”
  • Certain Songs #2541: Sufjan Stevens – “Too Much”
  • Certain Songs #2540: Sufjan Stevens – “Djohariah”
  • Certain Songs #2539: Sufjan Stevens – “Heirloom”
  • Certain Songs #2538: Sufjan Stevens – “Casimir Pulaski Day”

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