Yardbirds – Over, Under, Sideways, Down

The 1966 song begins loudly with a snake-charming-sounding riff by Jeff Beck. It jumps out of the turntable. I had one of the many Yardbirds greatest hits packages in the 1980s and became a fan. 

Jeff also plays the bass on this song. When you talk about the Yardbirds, you almost have to pick which Yardbirds you’re talking about. The Clapton Yardbirds? The Jeff Beck Yardbirds? The Page Yardbirds? They were a band in constant transition, always chasing the next sound (and guitar player). With Jeff Beck holding the guitar reins, they gave us one of their strangest and coolest singles.

From the opening guitar riff, you know you’re not in typical British Invasion territory. The tune was inspired by Middle Eastern scales. The band had been soaking up Indian and Eastern music around the same time the Beatles were dabbling in sitars. Instead of George Harrison’s spiritual leanings, though, the Yardbirds went for having a good time at all costs. 

The song was a group composition, something the Yardbirds often did to keep things fair. Beck’s guitar is the real star, but the whole band had a hand in shaping its feel. It was one of their last sessions with bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who would leave shortly afterward to focus on production. Chris Dreja, their rhythm guitarist, has said the song captured the manic, party-heavy atmosphere of their lives at the time.

Over, Under, Sideways, Down peaked at #13 in the Billboard 100 and #10 in the UK in 1966. I must say it’s one of my all-time favorite titles.

Jim McCarty: “‘Over Under Sideways Down’ was about the situation of having a good time – a bit of decadence, really – in the ’60s. Cars and girls are easy to come by in this day and age, and laughing, drinking, smoking, whatever, till I’ve spent my wages, having fun.”

Jim McCarty: “On ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ I think we all put in our bit. I put in a tune, somebody else said, ‘How about the state of things at the moment, it’s all over the place, so it’s sort of over, under, Sideways, down.'”

Jim McCarty: “It’s very much up and down. Yeah, it was very much like a microcosm of a life, really. Very extreme, because we’d go from being on top of the charts and going to fantastic places and traveling to places like California that were just our dream after being in a sort of post-war London, which was rather dismal and rather miserable. Suddenly we were going to sunny California where things were happening and things were rich and there were lovely girls and cars and everything. From that to sitting all night in a bus driving to a gig and not being able to stop and feeling absolutely wretched from being so tired. And getting on each other’s nerves and arguing. (laughing) So it’s very much the extreme life.” 

Jeff Beck: “I actually didn’t have a guitar of my own, I was so hard up. The Yardbirds sort of sneaked Eric’s guitar out. He’d finished using the red Tele (Fender Telecaster)
and was using a Les Paul, so he didn’t care about the red Tele. The bands manager, said well, ‘You’d better use Eric’s guitar—we can’t afford to go out and buy one now.’ So I borrowed Eric’s for the first couple of gigs”.

Over, Under, Sideways, Down

(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Cars and girls are easy come by in this day and age.
Laughing, joking, dreams, weed smoking, till I’ve spent my wage.
When I was young, people spoke of immorality.
All the things they said were wrong are what I want to be.

(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
When will it end? (When will it end?)
When will it end? (When will it end?)

(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
I find comments ’bout my looks irrelativity.
Think I’ll go and have some fun, ’cause it’s all for free.
I’m not searchin’ for a reason to enjoy myself.
Seems it’s better done than argue with somebody else.

(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
When will it end? (When will it end?)
When will it end? (When will it end?)

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

48 thoughts on “Yardbirds – Over, Under, Sideways, Down”

  1. That opening is rather unmistakable. I am probably not the only one that wondered “what is that strange sounding instrument?”. Of course there wasn’t the benefit of videos to see that it was Beck on a guitar. Brilliant stuff.
    I don’t own this song and I probably only heard it a handful of times. Is it just me or do I hear some “19th Nervous Breakdown” I mean they had to have heard that before this was recorded. No?

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    1. Great catch! I agree with you…it does have that Stones melody in it…I like this one better but that is beside the point…they were released within months of each other. The Stones released that song in Feb and the Yardbirds released this one in May…
      I love Beck’s intro….that is what really drew me to this one…It has that otherworldly sound.

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  4. Pingback: Yardbirds – Over, Under, Sideways, Down – MobsterTiger

  5. Wow, that’s really different. I wouldn’t have guessed it at the Yardbirds. I’m not sure that I like how they melded in that Middle Eastern sound but it definitely made it distinctive sounding.

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  10. I have to disagree (in a good sense) with the idea “When you talk about the Yardbirds, you almost have to pick which Yardbirds you’re talking about.” I was a kid listening to Top 40 KHJ boss radio. I didn’t know Clapton was God. I knew these great sounds kept coming out of the radio and I loved it!!! I didn’t differentiate between Herman’s Hermits, the Animals and the Yardbirds, I just knew the 45s that had the name Mickie Most on them. I laugh at how different each are, and how different the individual singles were. But not back then.

    I knew the eastern sound that I associated with the drone of a sitar. I heard it on Mother’s Little Helper and a few other tracks. But this was a time that rock and roll was reaching out.

    I never understood the theme of the song’s lyrics, but some of the lyrics popped out at me.

    All the things they said were wrong are what I want to be.

    YEAH!!!!

    Remember, this was BEFORE we were Experienced with Hendrix or felt free with Cream. Only a couple of years, but a huge time to live.

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    1. I guess it’s because I’m a musician… and I tend to think like that with them and Fleetwood Mac…which era? I always wonder.
      I feel for the sitar and I thought this was a sitar until I saw the film clip of Beck playing it.
      I was wrong about the lyrics before as well…

      There is a Small Faces recording called “You Need Lovin” in 1966 as well that really setup the hard blues that were coming…and they predated Led Zeppelin…Whole Lot of Love…

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  12. Quite a lot to sift through on this one today. There’s a bit more to the lyrics in here when you look at the whole. song overall. They were enjoying that hedonistic lifestyle, and why not?

    The mention of getting away from grim grey potholed post war Britain by drinking, smoking some strange smelling ciggies and errr, enjoying the attentions of some female companionship was the way a lot of the young kids o’ the day wanted to go. Why not escape the confines of first the classroom, then the old skool restrictions of Britains Old School Tie Class system, and then being shoved into some boring job like a five year soul-destroying apprenticeship to eventually become a plumber or some other shi- stinking job like that ?Why accept THAT as your lot when you could escape that sort of future, if only for now, or tonight?

    When a few of the guys who made it as a band did get to the US, where all the grey skies were blue, the sun shone everywhere, you were chauffeured around in a Cadillac not some clapped-out 15 year-old asthmatic Austin Van, and the blonde California girls were more than happy to meet you? Why, who wouldn’t want to live for today and leave the Motherland behind for a while?

    I don’t want to go on a history lesson but the real everyday grimy England wasn’t really swinging just yet and the US looked like it had everything a young lad could want. A real rich land of plenty of everything. (Imagine how the Kinks may have turned out if they hadn’t been turfed out of the US? The so-Brit ‘Waterloo Sunset’ might have been ‘Golden Gate Sunset’ complete with a Country and Western twang?)

    The Eastern feel on this is striking, and I never would have thought of it as a (borrowed) guitar, though I’m no student of music or instruments-I don’t know my oboes from my piccolos- I just liked what I heard. This is young, urgent, upbeat, real fun good-time music.

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    3. I totally agree and if it were me in their spot I would have done the very same thing. Keith Moon talked about this before…how everything was more enticing in America.

      I can’t imagine a young Englishman with money in his pocket and everything in Technicolor. This was the Wizard of Oz when it turned to color.

      Sensory overload…. I’ve heard The Who say that they were surprised that it wasn’t an 8 hour country…but a 24/7 hour country.

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    4. It is so important to remember the world in which this happened. The British post-WWII was a whole lot different from the post WWII in the United States. Or maybe its just my memories of how Los Angeles had all sorts of incredible open opportunities such as aerospace and…

      Hey, Max!! You are hosting a sociological blog today.

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      2. Yeah, I won’t blather on, but after the Second World War Britain was bankrupt through the 50s and 60s and onwards and didn’t pay off their WW2 lend/lease debts to the US until 2006!

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  13. I never would have known the song from the title alone, but the moment it started I recognized it. Love this part of your post:
    “The band had been soaking up Indian and Eastern music around the same time the Beatles were dabbling in sitars. Instead of George Harrison’s spiritual leanings, though, the Yardbirds went for having a good time at all costs.”

    It’s a kickazz song, and yes, about the Yardbirds, they had a steady stream of the great lead guitarists didn’t they. Love the story at the end about borrowing Eric’s guitar for the first couple of gigs.

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  14. for some reason the Yardbirds just never clicked with me…..there’s so many reasons you’d think I would have…just so many tunes just never clicked…even things like outside woman blues just didn’t work for me…maybe I should go back and listen again?

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  15. Rock and roll! I’m not sure if I knew this one, but it did sound familiar. I love that first verse, and the celebration of being a rock star. But the ‘when will it end?’ brings it back down to earth.

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  16. Kenny Daniels of the Texas band, Kenny and The Kasuals had a Yardbirds story. He told it to me persoanally back in the day and then we relived it a few times in 2008. His band was playing the Studio Club, which was one of the big teen clubs in Dallas at the time. After their first set, the owner of the club asked Kenny of a band from England could use their gear and do a few tunes, they called themselves the Yardbirds. Kenny, not knowing who they were or why they might have been in Dallas said ok. Well, the got on stage and completely gave Dallas aa musical spanking, He wasn’t sure who the lead guitar was at the time, but the band was there to promote a single.

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      1. Kenny said hey had to go back on stage and follow that performance and it was pretty humiliating. I don’t know enough them or who the guitar player would have been at that time in 1965 or 66. He did say the owner of the club had no idea who they were, just a band from England here promoting a record or some such stuff. I heard that Led Zeppelin pulled a similar affair in Dallas in 1968 before they hit it big in 1969, but can’t confirm it.

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