The Byrds, "Eight Miles High"

Here's a metaphor being thrown down the middle of the plate: No matter how talented or gifted you are, there are some moments where you must be in harmony with others to reach your potential.

L&Gs, I present a 1973(? - commenters suggest it may be '74-'75) performance of "Eight Miles High," a 1966 Byrds hit that genuinely spooked me when I first heard it as a kid - the vocals, as heard on oldies radio, seemed oddly layered and futuristic (it preceded the Airplane in my grasp of psychedelia). Here, in this performance with Roger McGuinn singing it all by his lonesome, it is brittle, hollow like decaying bone - in the words of Rolling Stone's McGuinn bio, that "pinched, adenoidal quality" ruins it for me. Whoever he was paying to be his Byrds at this point obviously weren't being paid enough - they couln't be less interested to be onstage, much less engaged enough to be singing along.

I offer the original for contrast.