Younger Than Yesterday is the fourth studio album by the American rock band the Byrds, released on February 6, 1967, by Columbia Records. It saw the band continuing to integrate elements of psychedelia and jazz into their music, a process they had begun on their previous album, Fifth Dimension. In addition, the album captured the band and record producer Gary Usher experimenting with new musical textures, including brass instruments, reverse tape effects and an electronic oscillator.
The album also marked the emergence of the band's bass player Chris Hillman as a talented songwriter and vocalist. Prior to Younger Than Yesterday, Hillman had only received one shared writing credit with the Byrds, but this album saw him credited as the sole composer of four songs and a co-writer of "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star". It was preceded by the "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" single in January 1967, which reached the Top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100. Two additional singles taken from the album, "My Back Pages" and "Have You Seen Her Face", were also moderately successful on the Billboard singles chart. The title of Younger Than Yesterday is derived from the lyrics of "My Back Pages", a song written by Bob Dylan, which was covered on the album.
Background
The Byrds had initially come to international prominence in mid-1965, when their folk rock interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number 1 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart. Further commercial successes followed, with the band releasing two hit albums and reaching number 1 for a second time in the U.S., with a cover version of Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season)". In early 1966, the Byrds' principal songwriter, Gene Clark, departed the band, leaving Jim McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke to complete the band's third album, Fifth Dimension, without him. As a result, the Byrds' popularity began to wane and by late 1966, they had been all but forgotten by mainstream pop audiences.
Shortly after the release of Fifth Dimension, the Byrds found themselves without a record producer, when Allen Stanton, who had worked with them on that album, left Columbia Records to work for A&M. The band chose to replace Stanton with Gary Usher, a former songwriting partner of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who had recently co-produced Clark's debut solo album, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers. In addition to producing the recording sessions for Younger Than Yesterday, Usher would produce the band's next two albums. The Byrds' biographer Johnny Rogan states that Usher's wealth of production experience and love of innovative studio experimentation would prove invaluable as the group entered their most creatively adventurous phase. the Byrds completed the entire Younger Than Yesterday album at Columbia Studios, Hollywood, during a work-intensive, eleven-day period, starting on November 28 and finishing on December 8, 1966.
Although Clark had left the Byrds prior to completion of the Fifth Dimension album, he did participate in the recording of the songs "Eight Miles High" and "Captain Soul" from that record. As a result, Younger Than Yesterday was the first album to be entirely recorded by the Byrds without Clark's participation. As on Fifth Dimension, guitarists McGuinn and Crosby continued to hone their songwriting skills in an attempt to fill the void left by Clark's departure.
However, the most surprising development within the Byrds at this time was the emergence of bass player Chris Hillman as both a lead vocalist and the band's third songwriter. Chris Hillman contributed two country rock-flavored songs with "Time Between" and "The Girl with No Name", the latter of which was inspired by a young lady with the unusual moniker of Girl Freiberg.