The Byrds-"Mr. Tambourine Man"-01/16/70

[Celi415]

No way!! This was on my birthday!! The Byrds played on my birthday and boy do I feel special!! Thanks for the early bday present you guys!!:D

[sentimental1friend]

Thanks for reply. It helps me better understand this video. Long live great Byrds music!

[sentimental1friend]

Give me back the 1965 Byrds with Gene Clark, Crosby, Hillman, and Guinn! This is okay but not all that good. You can tell things were changing not for the better in the 70's.

[pdorn777]

@sentimental1friend Actually, this video just looks like an unwanted contractual obligation that they had to lip sync....the music here is NOT representative of this incarnation of the Byrds. The McGuinn, White, Battin, and Gene Parsons line-up did some absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff during their tenure, spearheaded by the brilliance of Clarence White's guitar work. Slightly different line-ups of the Byrds also did "Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde" & "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" just prior to this era.

[bren1231001]

No one stole any songs from Bob Dylan,As far as I know Dylan receives royalties from his songs, Thats what most songwriters do.Some people write the songs,some people sing the songs other people write,and some like Dylan does both.No ones stealing anything.

[haitipi]

@bren1231001

Can anyone really believe that artists were recording songs making money and not passing royalties to the writer? That'll never happen. Look at Neil Sedaka or Neil Diamond, who were originally known (or unknown) for their writing and only started recording after some years of success.

[mitchp2011]

@bren1231001 I agree with bren; besides at this time, Dylan was trying very hard to make his migration to a more electric sound but with little success. It was due to bands such as The Byrds covering his songs, that allowed Dylan to crossover into electric folk territory while still maintaining maintstream, popular appeal in his music (see Covach, 2006).

[GreenhouseEffectGE]

byrds ain't plastic - they rule !!! all 11 of the people who drifted in and out of this amazing band were all geniuses ,..

[Ebeneezerable]

Isn't this how Dylan knew if his heroin dealer was holdin? I heard that somewhere.

[gabrielx2games]

ah fuck the byrds they suck first they steal songs from dylan and plus they sing their songs with no balls and no feeling

they are, as zappa would put it, plastic people

[yooanoozarrmay]

@gabrielx2games the byrds 1965-1967 were ground-breaking, not plastic at all. and i'm a masive zappa fan too.

[vootie99]

lip synching... yaaaawn

[pre9120]

I know that time has a way of making the past better, but other than the war, times really were simpler. I would go back and relive it all, bad times and the good.

[MyDigger12]

nice version of bobby dylans song

[rabbithog]

you have give it all away to the niggers

[ncast54]

The 90's were better then today, its getting worst

[MyDigger12]

@ncast54 sixties best ever in all life

[ncast54]

The 60's was the decade of trends which still has its impact today

[StarWarsChick000]

lol the begining sounds like it was recorded under water

[mac1au]

dylan was/is a fantastic songwriter but unfortunately not a great singer ,if other artists hadnt covered his songs he wouldn`t be as well known as he is today, but then agaim that goes for quite a few artists from the 60's whos work was covered(ressurected) between the 70's and 90's ....even madonna had to have a go at "American pie" which she absolutely murdered but Don Mclean didnt need her to sell his records whereas dylan DIDS need others to sell his

[bren1231001]

I like the original 5 the best.

[erka303]

Super zespół i niezapomniany przebój.

[SteveGaines]

Clarence always had that expression on his face...LOL

[flcn92]

As much as I like Bob Dylan, I wish the Dylan purists would come to the realization that his works wouldn't be near half as famous if other bands didn't cover them. I think Dylan knows and has come to accept that he wasn't always mainstream marketable,but anyone with a lick of sense realized the man was a songwriting genius. And that in itself has kept his bank account and calender full for the last 40+ years, something tells me he's been pretty cool with that.

[macmaghnusa]

@flcn92

I'm not a Dylan purist, a huge fan yes, but not a purist. By the time Like A Rolling Stone hit the charts, he didn't need anyone, not the Byrds, not the Turtles, not Sonny & Cher. Most versions of his songs, with the exception of those of The Byrds, have been totally lame, which is why Columbia mounted their sales campaign 'Nobody Sings Dylan like Dylan in 1965. Bob stands alone, his only company being The Beatles & Elvis.

[jstarks123]

@macmaghnusa ...100% agree

[psychoharrison]

please learn people!!

this is a bob dylan song that the byrds really fucked up

[Nigelxman1]

@psychoharrison Wow. Just wow! Would hate to be you lol

[colderbeer]

@psychoharrison You are all ALONE on this.....and I love Bob Dylan too. The Byrds made this song come alive.....and the soaring vocals were amazing. The entire world loves the Byrds and their version of this song.

[cooltooth112]

"Jesus is just Alright" is NOT a Bob Dylan song, it was written by Allen Toussaint a New Orleans musician.

[flashthunder6]

yea good ole rock and roll man its all great from the 50s 60s 70s SKIP THE 80s decade the 90s where great and the music aint tooo tooo bad now some of it

[metramil]

me flipan

[clickswitchh]

playback

[MrBruceBarham]

I had taken them to do this a WHBQ, and booked a local band Country Funk to open the show at midsouth coliseum,,,the promoter got pissed at me cause country funk  kicked ass and was way good live, and i lost my connection with them because of it..Klein always had things lipsynched , made for a more timely esy show..we all hated to lip synch but everyone did it.t his group with clarence and skip and gene was rogers best live performing group..Clarence worked with byrds since younger than yestedy

[ming746]

clearence looks like hes is thinking "let me get this hippie shit over with so I can play some twang"

[austing12]

i was just wondering is this a cover or is Bob Dylan's a cover?

[pinatafication]

@austing12 this was the cover, although this was released before bobs and was more famous

[kickassfan]

kickass group

[moodyh750]

AWSOME!

[fpetrozz]

How fake is this, the music thats playing is the original version.

[matgrin]

aguante la flooorrr la flooorrrr....

gracias a todos por sus coments

[clickswitchh]

Byrds where never the same after Crosby left ...

[derfsnilloc]

@clickswitchh  yeah your right, they were so much better

[tommylord]

mcd220, you should change the title to include 'Jesus is Just Alright' as more folks will know it follows after Tamborine Man.

Even though lipsynced, it is a real treat to watch Clarence White 'performing' that song which is a great example of his B-Bender guitar work.

[eye777eye]

if this is lip sinking....sign me up eye am hooked

[eye777eye]

EYE stand correctly by saying best "PERFORMANCE"...eye did not say singing eye said performance.... now if you dont know the difference bass0111 and the meaning behind this song that is too bad for you!!!!

[bass0111]

Actually, kudos to the poster's honesty and sense of humour! Good one ...

[bass0111]

Hello? "01/16/70" my ass. This is Jim/Roger McGuinn and some generic sidemen miming to the original 1965 hit.

This post is worthless.

[eye777eye]

the absolute best performance the ever gave....do you lambs even know what they are singing about?....nothing to do with drugs.....wake up people

[bass0111]

@eye777eye: This is not a "performance". The audio is the 1965 hit, played by L.A. studio musicians ("The Wrecking Crew") with McGuinn, Crosby and (Gene) Clark on vocals. McGuinn did actually play 12-string electric on the cut, but he was the only member of the 1965 Byrds competent enough to do so. Your "best performance" is fake.

[999aas]

@bass0111 your not wrong

[fatcatbuzz]

@eye777eye In a way, it is The Byrds covering The Byrds covering Bob Dylan for "Mr. Tambourine Man" . This is a completely different line up from 1965. For starters, they have the late great Clarence White on guitar. Two of the best guitarist in one band? Will music ever be this good again?

[hodadsmusic]

How pathetic is this show that a dismantled goup from many years before is miming a song from their debut LP of '65? Or maybe it was a statment about the band as well?

[Tomcaatt]

This is the original ?

[nonewmccarthyism]

I'm not sure I'd say this song is "better" than the original, but I do like a lot what they did with it -- although they had to cut out a few of the verses, and the verses are really what mattered when it was originally written. Still, it's a nice vocal and harmonic arrangement. The only reason we're even discussing it is because The Byrds made it "radio friendly" as a good bunch of Bob's stuff of course, was not.

[consequenceable]

what drug is that song about? heroin?

[royallthefourth]

"Take me for a trip"

Acid, probably

[meltogue]

Ya sure must have been, like most at the time.. yellow submarine comes to mind

[brism32]

Pretty good miming...well done lads!

[AWS303]

this band is a fucking rip of everything.

horrid.

[triwiring]

this version is better than the original from bob dylan. however great dylan ;)

[ClubViking63]

@triwiring yes better but so bad sound from this

[demonhoopa]

@triwiring Oooh I don't know about that. I'd have to call that one a draw.

[TheKenfig]

@triwiring Not to me ; the two are imcomparable, like Hendrix's Watchtower. They are as good as each other. Tambourine Man by Dylan is superb with all it's lyrics, dreamy sound and second guitar picking

[Tsugaheterophylla]

Can anyone tell what Clarence White is playing? Is it any fragment of the song or is he just making up stuff?

[MarceloVulgo73]

GOD SAVE ROGER McGUINN.

THE BYRDS IS GREAT. LOVE AND PEACE. EU ADORO ESSA BAND!!!!

[Simondede]

Damn i want back to the 60´s time was better than today i think well it was better by the music

[pivot1022]

ture

[NewWaveFan1]

@Simondede It's better now no draft, race riots, equal rights exist back then they didn't. yeah the music is good that's about it.

[slimshine953]

@NewWaveFan1 You're way off base. There was a lot more than the music that was good about the 60s. Draft, riots, and equal rights aside, we had much more personal freedom and far fewer restrictions. We weren't being watched by cameras everywhere we went. Gas and electricity were affordable... as well as food, products and other commodities. Television programs were certainly better... no mindless reality shows! Washington was corrupt, but not as corrupt as now lol. The list is nearly endless.

[MBOYA22]

God I love this

[mc2NY]

Man, the other three MUST have been pissed to be syncing to the original Byrds track from 1965, I saw this "Chestnu Mare" line-up in '71 with Clarence White and they were really good in theri own right.

[bobshark123]

these guys were ballroots

[dullsvillain]

Angels sent to earth to pick up Dylans' refrain.....

[edisonsunrise]

this song came out after the british invasion of the beatles, when the folk boom started to fall of the charts, this was one of the first songs to give birth to folk rock... now how many bands today say that they play folk rock? dig it

[Paul0169]

Rare footage of Clarence White. Enough said.

[jerseycityjoe]

Can everyone cut them a break! Apparently they did something right its 39 years later and we are watching. Some of the folks watching this was not not even born...Peace from NYC NY

[LBrilliante]

Fake.. but the problem of recording a useable performance of a song in front of an entire tv camera crew at the moment it is scheduled to be done for a tv show that has to be edited and ready by a certain date made live performances inconvenient for the God of TV. It wouldn't be until Saturday Night Live 5 years later where such things were part of a variety broadcast.. and consider how crazy Lorne went when Elvis Costello went off message in 1979!

[cetialpha10]

great song

[vividwatch47]

...not to mention misleading!

[LBrilliante]

not really misleading per se.. by early 1970 .. Crosby Still and Nash, Gram Parsons, Gene Clark and the rest were all off into other things... and in the era post Woodstock.. lip syncing on television certainly gave most rock musicians discomfort as their live concerts were such electrifying experiences. Considering how good the Byrds sounded doing this song live it's almost a crime that they did have to lipsync it for the purposes of doing a tv show!

[greeneyefull]

The Byrds are one of my alltime favorite bands ,but this is a second lineup,Chris Hillman hit the road with Gram Parsons and the original members had all left by then but they still were making good music but this is a strange clip with the lip sink ,Roger seems to be having fun with it though

[LeathalWorksInc]

0:05 aaaahhhh its john lennon haha rip.

great song...

[KidBlastofNewYork]

how sad very sad to bad

[raunchboy]

Even for lip-syncing, that's one no-budget stage set. The drummer doesn't even get a hihat lol

[skydogz1]

Love the Byrds!

[vemkanmanlitapa]

i hate this version, it's disgusting

[Reint25]

I think it is pretty 'sad', that such a famous band still had to lip-synch their first hit, 5 years later. Like they hadn't any other hits.

[RockMusicLover73]

Yeah, they're not too happy about lip-syncing a hit they had 5 years prior.

To top it off, besides Roger, no one from the "Mr. Tambourine" period even was in the band at this point.

Guess that's why Roger looks bored.

[soepil]

Not even "the original 5" played on Mr. Tambourine Man, except Roger.

[slimshine953]

And it's amusing that McGuinn is the only original Byrd in this performance...of a song that was about 5 years old.

[altosame]

@soepil "Not even "the original 5" played on Mr. Tambourine Man, except Roger."

Too much is said about this. On their first album, the "original 5" played on everything BUT Mr. Tambourine Man. Just like Ringo originally wasn't allowed to play on the first take of Love Me Do. It's called producer jitters. Judging by the rest of the LP, the band could've played it just as well. The arrangement was McGuinn's brain child,, anyway. He came up with the distinctive intro and fade.

[ogeskimo]

The Byrds w/ Clarence White was the best one. Anything w/out David Crosby is fine. This last band w/ Gene Clark would have been monstrous.

[clickswitchh]

this aint the byrds .. McGuinn should have broken the band up ... none of the original members are present

[thereallouminatti]

YouTube is yanking a lot of these Byrds videos. WTF?

[greeneyefull]

overdubb fake playing

[sup3rh1k]

Fantastic lyrics, and tune.

[ucaradios]

Pude haberla conocido,pero como no sé inglés...

[Pinch0fSalt]

Ignorance ftw

[knovinski]

Learn Spanish, retard.

[Abrohill]

muy hippies, que maravilla

[montelatici]

No acoustic 12 string ?

[ucaradios]

De aquel año de 1970 recuerdo perfectamente a los diablos cantando por radio y televisión¨Un rayo de sol¨No creo que se hubiera difundido por España a estos Byrds,porque canciones así se me quedaban por siempre en la memoria.Pero ni rastro.

[babababakk]

hes playing a 12 string, he always had the coolest glasses even when we were in high school, peace!!!

[WRannet]

you know him ?!?!

[babababakk]

i was at a party in Cali......with a mutual friend,at the time their popularity was just getting going, then they shot back to new york...got huge!!! so yes in a sort-a kind-a way, but not close to be honest!!

[im202020]

Must have been around the time McGuinn went through the religous phase-thing.I believe The Doobie Bros had a hit with "Jesus Is Just Alright' later...

[disciple43]

This is a great classic video and song, but I am positive that they are lip syncing. This is more like a promotional music video. But still, awesome videos, the Byrds rock.

[jerseycityjoe]

This was before my time but boy did they make Kick Azz music back then.......... What legends!

[auldmucker]

This was taped Jan. 16 ,1970 ,same date as Byrds /Steppenwolf at Memphis Mid-South coliseum. This tour was to exploit the "Easy Rider " connection.

[mcd220]

Cool, thanks for letting me know!

I'll fix it.

Christian

[lukealpha]

what a great performance this is, absolutely incredible! it sounds just like the album version.

[manfred62493]

it is silly

[LeoLovesNature]

Thats because its a play back.

[bookumdannofive0]

Dear Viewer: Amen! The Byrds after 1968 are still groovy. Dan K., Grafton, Mass.

[JackthecatV424]

You tell 'em like it is neighbor! Auburn, Mass.

[ohSnash]

hermosa

[riotiticaca]

I like the way how the singer jokes about the fact that they are doing lip sync.

Check how he removes his sunglasses and the guitar plays by its own !

[brilliantcolors7]

i always found this clip to very bizarre. The set design itself is pretty goofy.

[johnriley68]

Precioso vídeo, increíble la mezcla entre Tambourine Man y Jesus... Qué forma de cortarles las alas a Clarence White y Skip Battin, pero mola!!

[wilkes85]

oh it does say it's lyp-synched in the description. OK LOL... i was just gonna point out how obvuous it was LOL

[Byrds1967]

This is a weird combination. It's the original single with the later line up of the band.

[eugeneBo]

Amazing indeed! Thanks for sharing this gem.

[wildbluefrontier]

Wow! What an interesting curio. Roger Mcguinn seems to be enjoying himself, but Clarence White and Skip Battin look both bored and/or uncomfortable on this appearance.

[bobbilse]

Your comment really caught my eye!

It so happens that I saw this configuration several times, and those two always showed about as much animation as guys waiting for a bus.

On the occasions I saw them, Clarence White rarely looked up except to sing into his mike, and Skip Battin appeared totally uninspired by the music they were making.

Gene Parsons and McGuinn usually looked like they were into it, however.

[acardozo]

i've seen other videos and white really does not get pumped up during gigs.. but this is different.. the guy looks like bill "stone face" wyman.. hahaha ... mcguinn probably had some dust before going on stage.. seems either "too happy" or purposely making fun of himself.

[plantingseedsrecords]

amazing video - cool...you gotta love TV from 1970....