The Byrds is for the birds. I do not get it. Mr. Tambourine Man was murdered by them, but not in a good way. They are so boring. I did not like one song. I will not waste your time talking about them. I will say they are better than Joan Baez. I would rather talk about a duo who came out the same year of 1965. This duo was one of the greatest duos ever. Sonny & Cher.
“All I Really Want to Do” is a Bob Dylan tune, but the Byrds covered a few of his songs on this album, which made me think of Sonny & Cher. Either they are big fans or they thought they could do it better. Unfortunately for them, they cannot do it better than Dylan or even Cher who covered it and took it to #15 on the Top 40 charts.
In fact, Sonny & Cher was one of those artist that I heard my mother listen to often when I was young. She was not a loving person, but she loved some great music.
Sonny & Cher are not listed in the 1001 Albums list and maybe rightly so, but they have some great songs thanks to Sonny Bono. The songs that really shine for them are the ones he wrote. “I Got You Babe“, “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go” were some of their greatest songs. Cher has even stated that she needed Sonny to go on stage because she was so shy in the early days.
Sonny was not a great singer, but they were great together. You can watch their old series on the telly or see some clips on YouTube. They had a really funny comedic routine. Unfortunately, people today would not laugh since they hate rude or mean-spirited comedy.
Thanks to Sonny we have Cher who made us “Believe” in life after love, tell Nicholas Cage to snap out of it (wouldn’t we all love to slap him for all those bad films), and maybe the only other person to equal the President of the USA in writing crap on Twitter. I do not follow either of them.
Sonny & Cher taught me what divorce meant and I prayed for it for my mother. She took many years to finally do it, but it was too late. I hated her by the time she finally did it.
As for the album from The Byrds, they sound like everyone else, even Tom Petty. I think it is bad because it is forgettable. I do think they can sing and play instruments, but they are not worth the time. 4/10.
P.S. Sonny & Cher get a 10/10 for making me laugh during a painful time in life until they stopped.
an ocean roars 