"Mr. Spaceman," the Byrds
With the Artemis rocket ship preparing to circle the earth, I thought I'd revisit one of my favorite Byrds songs.
"Mr. Spaceman" is a quirky song about extraterrestrials written by Roger McGuinn and included in the Byrds' Fifth Dimension album. McGuinn wrote is a parody of stories about space aliens making contact with earthlings, but he and fellow band member David Crosby were serious about about communicating with alien life forms through the medium of the AM radio broadcast. In a later interview with Pete Frame for ZigZag magazine, McGuinn explained how he believed that this would have been possible: "I was interested in astronomy and the possibility of connecting with extraterrestrial life and I thought that it might work the other way round, if we tried to contact them. I thought that the song being played on the air might be a way of getting through to them. But even if there had been anybody up there listening, they wouldn't have heard because I found out later that AM airwaves diffuse in space too rapidly."
"Mr. Spaceman" likely didn't get much AM airplay, as it only got up to number thirty-six on the Billboard singles chart after its release as a single in September 1966. This clip, my Music Video Of the Week, is the Byrds' performance of "Mr. Spaceman" on a 1967 episode of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," which also featured Eddie Albert. David Crosby had just been fired from the Byrds, and Gene Clark, who had left the band without being replaced, had to return temporarily. Enjoy.
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