Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the classic acid rock group, The Byrds, performing Eight Miles High.
Eight miles high and when you touch down
You’ll find that it’s stranger than known
Signs in the street that say where you’re going
Are somewhere just being their own
Nowhere is there warmth to be found
Among those afraid of losing their ground
Rain gray town known for it’s sound
In places small faces unbound
Round the squares huddled in storms
Some laughing some just shapeless forms
Sidewalk scenes and black limousines
Some living some standing alone
CD Review
The Beat Goes On: 1966, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1988
“Josh, are you coming with me to the Sea ‘n’ Surf Club over in Old Orchard Beach Friday night so we can dance and have some fun? They have got the Ramrods playing and I want to hear their cover of Eight Miles High again,” Lola LaBlanc whispered in Josh Breslin’s ear one Wednesday afternoon, one Olde Saco high school afternoon. Of course one Lola LaBlanc (French-Canadian, like Josh on his mother’s, and like half the town before the mills starting heading south), whom one Josh Breslin had more than a passing interest in, especially some variant of the whispered “have some fun” interest in, did not explain in any way how two, not twenty-one looking sixteen (almost seventeen, okay, but still young) teenagers, were going to get into the security conscious Sea ‘n’ Surf Club in order to have that fun.
Have fun without IDs, without connections, without anything except maybe Lola’s rather nice shape (and toothy smile). But there were a million Lola shapes around when you thought about it and the guys at the door probably had more, uh, “dates” (or promises of dates) than they could possible use. Nevertheless Josh said simply, “Yes”, and left it at that, at Lola that. Because when Lola wanted something, although heaven and hell might tumble to the ground, she was going to get it. So, Josh, no stranger to previous Lola “have fun,” figured to take the ride.
Of course in the year 1966 Lola wants, hell, any teenager ready to break out of the bounds of knee –jerk grind high school wants, included copping some dope to insure Friday night fun. The usual drill was that Lola would score some weed from some Portland connection (or maybe a Kittery across from the Portsmouth shipyard Navy sailor connection), they would get a little high and Lola would be ready to drive those guys at the front door of the club crazy, crazy enough to let her pass. Of course, the part Josh didn’t know (or want to know) was that whispered promise of a “date” to grease the way.
Moreover when Lola got dressed up to the nines, something tight and sexy, put on some misty ancient primordial drive fragrance and rubbed right up against a guy, well, that was Lola wants in a nutshell. But using her magic to get into see The Ramrods with all kinds of tight and sexy dressed to the nines competition from real twenty-one year old women with a little more experience in the wants satisfied department was going to be a different proposition.
Josh could never figure why, every once in a while, Lola came up to him and whispered in his ear, and forced him to say yes to anything she asked for. Maybe it was for old time’s sake since they had been middle school sweethearts and although it had not lasted long once both realized that this was not a match made in heaven (or what passes for middle school understanding of such a situation). But maybe it was just Lola trying to keep her hooks into small hokey town Olde Saco’s kind of first “hippie” to see what was what on that scene.
That is how it had had happened the first time they had gone to see The Ramrods in Old Orchard, had gotten high as kites on some weed Josh had scored in Boston one weekend (and grapevine Lola had heard about and whispered in his ear), they had bopped the dance, and afterward gone to “watch the submarine races” at the beach (a localism but you can figure it out, boy, girl, high, dope high, hot, and kind of loose, get it. And no submarines seen anywhere in the area since about 1942, get it).
Come Friday night and Josh picks up Lola in his father’s old Buick (no problem since Lola never was a car magnet girl). After doing the normal come in and get her, say hi to the folks, they finally got under way to Old Orchard. Along the way Lola casually stated, “Josh, I didn’t get weed for us tonight, tonight I have some good mescaline. I have never tried it but my sailor boy says it’s mild, mild compared to LSD, and is just great for grooving on music, especially for The Ramrods. I got a couple of extra tabs for the guys at the door. We are going to do it up before we go, okay?” Josh, feinting sophistication in matters of drugs said “Sure” although he had never tried anything more heavy than weed. Take the ride, he thought.
Like I said what Lola wants Lola gets and Josh and she take their tabs. Moreover the new trick, mescaline, got them into the club without any problems (although Josh thought he heard a date go with it but that was just Lola). About a half hour later Josh is “grooving” (and Lola too) as The Ramrods start their version of the yellow brick road magical mystery tour with a ripping set, featuring Eight Miles High. Josh (and as later described to him by Lola) is nothing but flash colors, strobe light visions, and distorted shapes.
Groovy. Too groovy to stay in the hot, hepped up club after a while. So like couples have done ten thousand times before in ten thousand locales they went down to the beach to cool off. Cool off watching submarine races (I don’t have to explain that again, right) but mostly giggling, and goofing. And that, my friends, is how one Josh Breslin and one Lola LaBlanc came of age in the 1960s psychedelic high night.
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