A lot happened between Turn! Turn! Turn! and Fifth Dimension. The primary songwriter left, Bob Dylan betrayed folk music, and the Beatles released Rain, which some argue was the first proper psychedelic song. The Byrds must have heard that single (and famously, John Coltrane’s India) and perked up, because on their third album (which was released before Revolver), the group adapts their California folk rock to accommodate seemingly unnatural source material (Mr. Spaceman, Eight Miles High), untraditional chord changes (What’s Happening?!?!), and what would later be referred to by music critics with the term “guitar freakouts” (I See You).

As a fan of psychedelic music, I can’t believe that I didn’t become aware of this album around the same time that I became aware of Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn or the Doors’ Strange Days or the Who Sell Out or Cream’s Disreali Gears–especially considering that it predated all of them. But where much of psychedelic music made heavy use of studio manipulation, the Byrds weirdness was all in their composition, which as a musician, strikes me as more authentic (anyone can run I Wanna Hold Your Hand through a flanger). But it’s a surprising album for a person who always believed the psychedelic movement started in Liverpool in late 1966 and came to fullness in Syd Barrett’s house sometime during 1967. Perhaps 1960s American music wasn’t playing catchup to the Brits as much as I had thought.