The sixties in a song

Here are The Byrds on The Ed Sullivan Show, December 12, 1965, playing “Mr. Tambourine Man” in front of a spinning op-art backdrop — Dylan’s words, McGuinn’s chiming twelve-string Rickenbacker, and those stacked harmonies that invented folk rock more or less on the spot. The single had gone to number one in both America and Britain that summer.

There’s a small irony in watching them play it: on the studio recording, producer Terry Melcher didn’t trust the band yet, so Roger McGuinn was the only Byrd holding an instrument — Hal Blaine, Leon Russell and Larry Knechtel of the Wrecking Crew did the rest. On Sullivan’s stage, it’s finally all five of them.

Enjoy it as a one-off, because it was. David Crosby got into a backstage row with the show’s director — who happened to be Ed Sullivan’s son-in-law — and The Byrds were never invited back.