Chestnut Mare
Encyclopedia
"Chestnut Mare" is a song by the American rock
band
The Byrds
, written by Roger McGuinn
and Jacques Levy
during 1969 for a planned country rock
musical
named Gene Tryp. The musical was never staged and the song was instead released in September 1970 as part of The Byrds' (Untitled) album. It was later issued as a single
on October 23, 1970, with "Just a Season", another McGuinn and Levy song left over from the Gene Tryp project, on the B-side
. The single stalled at #121 on the Billboard
singles chart but nonetheless, "Chestnut Mare" went on to become a staple of FM radio
programming in America during the 1970s. The song did much better, however, when it was released as a single in the United Kingdom on January 1, 1971, reaching #19 on the UK Singles Chart
, during a chart stay of eight weeks. "Chestnut Mare" was the first UK Top 20 hit
that The Byrds had achieved since their cover
of Bob Dylan
's "All I Really Want to Do" had peaked at #4 in September 1965. Although the U.S. single release featured the full-length album version of "Chestnut Mare", in the UK and Europe a severely edited version of the song was issued instead. The running time of the album version is 5:08, while the single edit
is noticeably shorter at 2:58, due to the removal of the song's second verse and middle section.
Throughout most of 1969, The Byrds' leader and guitarist
Roger McGuinn had been writing songs with psychologist
and Broadway
impresario
Jacques Levy for a country rock stage production of Henrik Ibsen
's Peer Gynt
that the pair were developing. The intended title for the musical was Gene Tryp, an anagram of the title of Ibsen's play
. McGuinn and Levy's production was to loosely follow the storyline of Peer Gynt, albeit with some modifications to transpose the story from Norway to south-west America during the mid-19th century. Ultimately, the Gene Tryp stage production was abandoned and among the twenty-six songs that McGuinn and Levy had written for the project, six (including "Chestnut Mare") would end up being released on The Byrds' (Untitled) and Byrdmaniax
albums.
"Chestnut Mare" was intended to be used during a scene in which the play's eponymous hero attempts to catch and tame a wild horse, a scene that had featured a deer in Ibsen's original. While the majority of "Chestnut Mare" had been written specifically for Gene Tryp, the musical accompaniment to the song's Bach
-like middle section had actually been written by McGuinn back in the early 1960s, while on tour in South America with the Chad Mitchell Trio
. Musically, "Chestnut Mare" echoes the sound of The Byrds' mid-1960s recordings, with McGuinn's chiming 12-string Rickenbacker
guitar
sitting alongside guitarist Clarence White
's country
-style acoustic
and electric guitar
picking
. Lyrically
, the song's spoken verses recount the story of one man's quest to tame a wild horse and echo the familiar Byrds' themes of nature and freedom. The song's narrative also deals in mythic archetype
s, with the wild mare being the embodiment of untamed nature
, which the narrator wants to control, and as such, the song can be seen as an analogy of mankind
's attempts to dominate and subjugate the natural environment
.
Following its appearance on the (Untitled) album, the song would go on to become a staple of The Byrds' live concert
repertoire, until their final disbandment in 1973. The band also performed the song in 1971 and 1972 on the German music television program
, Beat-Club
. In addition to its appearance on the (Untitled) album, "Chestnut Mare" also appears on several Byrds' compilations
, including The Best of The Byrds: Greatest Hits, Volume II
, History of The Byrds
, The Byrds, The Very Best of The Byrds
, The Essential Byrds
and There Is a Season
. A live performance of the song is also included on The Byrds' Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971
album.
The Icicle Works covered
"Chestnut Mare" as a medley
with another Byrds' song, "Triad
", on the 1989 Byrds' tribute album
, Time Between – A Tribute to The Byrds.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
, written by Roger McGuinn
Roger McGuinn
James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
and Jacques Levy
Jacques Levy
Jacques Levy was an American songwriter, theatre director, and clinical psychologist.Levy was born in New York City in 1935, and attended its City College. He received a doctorate in psychology from Michigan State University. Levy was a trained psychoanalyst, certified by the Menninger Institute...
during 1969 for a planned country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
named Gene Tryp. The musical was never staged and the song was instead released in September 1970 as part of The Byrds' (Untitled) album. It was later issued as a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
on October 23, 1970, with "Just a Season", another McGuinn and Levy song left over from the Gene Tryp project, on the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
. The single stalled at #121 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
singles chart but nonetheless, "Chestnut Mare" went on to become a staple of FM radio
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
programming in America during the 1970s. The song did much better, however, when it was released as a single in the United Kingdom on January 1, 1971, reaching #19 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, during a chart stay of eight weeks. "Chestnut Mare" was the first UK Top 20 hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
that The Byrds had achieved since their cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's "All I Really Want to Do" had peaked at #4 in September 1965. Although the U.S. single release featured the full-length album version of "Chestnut Mare", in the UK and Europe a severely edited version of the song was issued instead. The running time of the album version is 5:08, while the single edit
Radio edit
In music, a radio edit is a modification to make a song more suitable for airplay, whether it be adjusted for length, profanity, subject matter, instrumentation, or form...
is noticeably shorter at 2:58, due to the removal of the song's second verse and middle section.
Throughout most of 1969, The Byrds' leader and guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
Roger McGuinn had been writing songs with psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
Jacques Levy for a country rock stage production of Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
that the pair were developing. The intended title for the musical was Gene Tryp, an anagram of the title of Ibsen's play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
. McGuinn and Levy's production was to loosely follow the storyline of Peer Gynt, albeit with some modifications to transpose the story from Norway to south-west America during the mid-19th century. Ultimately, the Gene Tryp stage production was abandoned and among the twenty-six songs that McGuinn and Levy had written for the project, six (including "Chestnut Mare") would end up being released on The Byrds' (Untitled) and Byrdmaniax
Byrdmaniax
Byrdmaniax is the tenth album by the American rock band The Byrds. It was released in June 1971 on Columbia Records at a time of renewed commercial and critical success for the band, due to the positive reception that their two previous albums, Ballad of Easy Rider and , had received...
albums.
"Chestnut Mare" was intended to be used during a scene in which the play's eponymous hero attempts to catch and tame a wild horse, a scene that had featured a deer in Ibsen's original. While the majority of "Chestnut Mare" had been written specifically for Gene Tryp, the musical accompaniment to the song's Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
-like middle section had actually been written by McGuinn back in the early 1960s, while on tour in South America with the Chad Mitchell Trio
Chad Mitchell Trio
The Chad Mitchell Trio were a North American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed folk songs, some of which were traditionally passed down and some of their own compositions. Unlike many fellow folk music groups, none of the trio played instruments...
. Musically, "Chestnut Mare" echoes the sound of The Byrds' mid-1960s recordings, with McGuinn's chiming 12-string Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
sitting alongside guitarist Clarence White
Clarence White
Clarence White was a guitar player for Nashville West, The Byrds, Muleskinner, and the Kentucky Colonels. His parents were Acadians from New Brunswick, Canada...
's country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
-style acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
and electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
picking
Guitar picking
Guitar picking is a collection of techniques for setting a string into motion to produce an audible note; that is, plucking or strumming the strings on a guitar. Picking can be done:-* With a plectrum held in the hand...
. Lyrically
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
, the song's spoken verses recount the story of one man's quest to tame a wild horse and echo the familiar Byrds' themes of nature and freedom. The song's narrative also deals in mythic archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
s, with the wild mare being the embodiment of untamed nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, which the narrator wants to control, and as such, the song can be seen as an analogy of mankind
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
's attempts to dominate and subjugate the natural environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
.
Following its appearance on the (Untitled) album, the song would go on to become a staple of The Byrds' live concert
Rock concert
The term rock concert refers to a musical performance in the style of any one of many genres inspired by "rock and roll" music. While a variety of vocal and instrumental styles can constitute a rock concert, this phenomenon is typically characterized by bands playing at least one electric guitar,...
repertoire, until their final disbandment in 1973. The band also performed the song in 1971 and 1972 on the German music television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
, Beat-Club
Beat-Club
Beat-Club was a German music program that ran from September 1965 to December 1972. It was broadcast from Bremen, Germany on Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen, the national public TV channel of the ARD, and produced by one of its members, Radio Bremen, later co-produced by WDR following the 38th episode...
. In addition to its appearance on the (Untitled) album, "Chestnut Mare" also appears on several Byrds' compilations
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
, including The Best of The Byrds: Greatest Hits, Volume II
The Best of The Byrds: Greatest Hits, Volume II
The Best of The Byrds: Greatest Hits, Volume II is the third greatest hits album by the American rock band The Byrds, but only the second to be released in the United States, since the earlier The Byrds' Greatest Hits Volume II had only been issued in the UK. The album was released in the U.S...
, History of The Byrds
History of The Byrds
History of The Byrds is a budget priced, double album compilation by the American rock band The Byrds and was released on May 18, 1973 by CBS Records . The compilation was released exclusively in Europe and the UK, peaking at #47 on the UK Albums Chart, but it was also available in the United...
, The Byrds, The Very Best of The Byrds
The Very Best of The Byrds
The Very Best of The Byrds is a compilation album by the American rock band The Byrds, released by Columbia Records in 1997. Initially the compilation was only released in Europe but as of 2006, the album has seen some release in the U.S...
, The Essential Byrds
The Essential Byrds
-Disc one:#"Mr. Tambourine Man" – 2:31#"I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" – 2:32#"All I Really Want to Do" – 2:04#"Chimes of Freedom" – 3:51...
and There Is a Season
There Is a Season
There Is a Season is a four-CD box set by the American rock band The Byrds that was released on September 26, 2006 by Columbia/Legacy. It comprises 99 tracks and includes material from every one of the band's twelve studio albums, presented in roughly chronological order...
. A live performance of the song is also included on The Byrds' Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971
Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971
Live at Royal Albert Hall is a live album by the American rock band The Byrds, released in 2008 on Sundazed Records. The album consists of recordings from the band's appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England on May 13, 1971...
album.
The Icicle Works covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
"Chestnut Mare" as a medley
Medley (music)
In music, a medley is a piece composed from parts of existing pieces, usually three, played one after another, sometimes overlapping. They are common in popular music, and most medleys are songs rather than instrumental. A medley which is a remixed series is called a megamix, often done with tracks...
with another Byrds' song, "Triad
Triad (David Crosby song)
"Triad" is a song written by David Crosby in 1967 about a ménage à trois, a subject perfectly in keeping with the "free love" hippie philosophies of the day. The song was written while Crosby was a member of the rock band The Byrds, who were at that time recording their fifth studio album, The...
", on the 1989 Byrds' tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
, Time Between – A Tribute to The Byrds.