In 1968, the line between folk-rock and psychedelic experimentation was blurrier than ever, and The Byrds found themselves right at the center of the shift.
By taking “Wasn’t Born to Follow,” a brilliantly crafted track from Carole King and her then-husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin, and drenching it in effects, the band created a country-rock gem that still sounds unlike anything else from the era. It wasn’t just a standout moment on their 1968 album The Notorious Byrd Brothers, it went on to immortalize the counterculture movement when it landed on the iconic Easy Rider soundtrack a year later.
The Byrds were the first to record the tune late ’60s. King wouldn’t release her own version until 1969 a, slower, piano-based version with her short-lived band The City.
The song, sung by Roger McGuinn, blends folk-rock, country and psychedelic influences. According to the Financial Times, Byrds producer Gary Usher, a friend of King’s, acquired the song and presented it to the band. Surprisingly, the song has no chorus and it’s short, only around two minutes long.
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The song was one of the last tunes recorded for The Notorious Byrd Brothers album, reported Christopher Hjort in the book So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star: The Byrds Day-By-Day (1965–1973). McGuinn, Chris Hillman, Red Rhodes, Clarence White, and Jim Gordon played on the tune. Michael Clarke and David Crosby both left before the LP was finished. Clarke walked out of the sessions, and Crosby was fired.
King and Goffin also contributed another outstanding track to the LP, “Goin’ Back.” Reportedly, Crosby disliked the song so much it was a catalyst for his departure from The Byrds, according to American Songwriter.
According to liner notes from The Notorious Byrd Brothers, as reported by American Songwriter, band road manager Jim Seiter recalled the tense standoff when David Crosby’s original song “Triad” lost its spot on the tracklist to King and Goffin’s “Goin’ Back”. “David sat on a couch for three days and didn’t do a thing,” Seiter revealed, noting that Crosby was adamantly pushing for his own composition.
Another iconic fact about “Wasn’t Born to Follow” is that, indirectly, The Monkees legacy is loosely tied to the recording, the Financial Times reported. The band didn’t record the song until 2016’s Good Times LP, but the band’s connection to the film Easy Rider goes back over 50 years.
TV producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson created The Monkees television series, and helped produce the feature film Head, along with Jack Nicholson. The money they earned from those endeavors helped them to produce Easy Rider. Without their Monkees connection, the film might never have gotten off the ground, and the song wouldn’t have had such an important place in cinema history.
Additionally, King wrote songs with Goffin for the TV show band-turned-music icons, such as “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” as well as fan-favorite album cuts like “Sometime in the Morning,” “Star Collector,” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere.”
Despite the behind-the-scenes friction, The Byrds’ gamble paid off. The track remains a seamless bridge between Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s songwriting brilliance and the budding California country-rock movement.
Related: 1966 Mike Nesmith Monkees Track, Co-Written by Carole King, Was an Underrated Country-Rock Gem
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