The first Byrds album was one of the greatest things ever. But this song always seemed to me to be the best of the best, an all-time top ten, everything a pop song is supposed to be — beautiful, simple, classically structured, sad but shining through the sadness. It has been part of the fundamental architecture of my brain for a really long time. God knows when I first heard it, probably on the radio as a really little kid. But as I think about it, my first conscious recollection of hearing this song is on a dusty big-hole 45 that belonged to the big sister of my friend across the street — I’d guess age 11 or 12 (circa 1975). The musical legacy of the period 1965-67 (pre-hippie era) was the peak of American Rock and Pop Music, both famous and obscure. So today I was pleased to run across this video here of “Feel a Whole Lot Better”. The video, for all its poor quality, is an artifact which capture that mid-60s youthfulness and energy and innocence and cool — featuring a tall, dashing young Gene Clarke on vocals, with tambourine, of course.
2 thoughts on “I’ll Probably Feel A Whole Lot Better When You’re Gone”
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Awesome find; enough to make me break an unintentionally imposed blog silence; ironically enough, one of first CDs I threw in machine (after, I must admit, my re-discovery of a lost Motorhead tape) was best of the Byrds, and the first tune cued up was the above. It seemed fitting to listen to “feel a whole lot better” after my fun five day experience with U-Haul and leaving my wife behind once again that having made it home alive, I should listen to that song. You are right, it is pure pop genius. It is what links good blues, good country and western and good rock.
Now find the feed for “eight miles high” — beyond beat generation doesn’t have it.