The Byrds - Gene Tryp - what's available?

I finally got around to picking up the 2 CD Sony Legacy edition of The Byrds UNTITLED CD. In reading about the album in Wikipedia, it had this to say:

For most of 1969, The Byrds' leader and guitarist, Roger McGuinn, had been developing a country rock stage production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt with former psychologist and Broadway impresario Jacques Levy. The musical was to be titled Gene Tryp, an anagram of the title of Ibsen's play, and would loosely follow the storyline of Peer Gynt with some modifications to transpose the action from Norway to south-west America during the mid-19th century. The musical was intended as a prelude to even loftier plans of McGuinn's to produce a science-fiction film, tentatively titled Ecology 70 and starring former Byrd Gram Parsons (no relation to Gene) and ex-member of The Mamas & the Papas, Michelle Phillips, as a pair of intergalactic flower children. Ultimately, Gene Tryp was abandoned and a handful of the songs that McGuinn and Levy had written for the project would instead see release on (Untitled) and its follow-up, Byrdmaniax.

Of the twenty-six songs that were written for the musical, "Chestnut Mare", "Lover of the Bayou", "All the Things", and "Just a Season" were included on (Untitled), while "Kathleen's Song" and "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician" were held over for The Byrds' next album. "Lover of the Bayou" would later be re-recorded by Roger McGuinn in 1975 and appear on his Roger McGuinn & Band album. Despite not being staged at the time, Gene Tryp was eventually performed in a revised configuration by the drama students of Colgate University between November 18 and November 21, 1992, under the new title of Just a Season: A Romance of the Old West.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_(The_Byrds_album)


So from Gene Tryp, the officially released tracks are:

• Chestnut Mare (UNTITLED, studio master)
• Lover Of The Bayou (UNTITLED, live version)
• Lover Of The Bayou (UNTITLED, studio version, CD bonus track)
• All The Things (UNTITLED, studio master)
• All The Things (UNTITLED, studio alternate version, CD bonus track)
• Just A Season (UNTITLED, studio master)
• Kathleen’s Song (BYRDMANIAX, studio master)
• I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician (BYRDMANIAX, studio master)
  
• Lover Of The Bayou (ROGER MCGUINN & BAND, studio re-recording)

​

A couple questions:

1. Have other songs from Gene Tryp appeared elsewhere, officially or unofficially (and either as studio recordings or live recordings)? To avoid violating Forum rules, let’s avoid discussions of specific bootleg titles and just focus on the songs themselves.
   
   
2. The Wikipedia article states 26 songs were written; even if they haven’t been released and/or recorded, are the lyrics available?

I really like the songs from this proposed project, and are my favorite Byrd songs from this era/line-up. It’s too bad they weren’t able to complete this project so it could have been fully realized.

 

This is my favorite period for the Byrds. My all time favorite Byrds track is lover of the bayou

 

The idea was scrapped but some of the songs were recorded and released, as you very well know. I don't think much else has ever been made known about this. The book Endless Flight may shed more light on this. I haven't read it for years. All of my books are in boxes at the moment.

 

I just found this in an April, 1999 interview with Roger McGuinn:

E.C.: I'd like to ask about one of your unfinished concepts, Gene Tryp. The Who only recently got to present "Quadrophrenia" to their satisfactionin 1997. It also took them several years to get the idea into a movie. Also, Townsend has talked about resurrecting the futuristic"Lifehouse" project from 1970. Have you ever thought of continuing Gene Tryp?

Roger: We did a presentation of "Tryp" at Colgate University a few years ago. It was great fun!

http://earcandy_mag.tripod.com/rogerm.htm

Wow, I wish I was at that show!

 

I did some investigations in this thread, I think I might have turned up two more tracks: Bag Full of Money and Sweet Mary possibly http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/search.php?searchid=8450032

 

Great Deceiver, the link you provided doesn't seem to be working (well, not for me anyways)... can you check it? I'd like to read what you found out on those two tracks.

 

"Bag Full of Money" is not from Gene Tryp. It is a topical song about the D. B. Cooper incident, which took place in 1971, long after the abandonment of Gene Tryp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

"Sweet Mary," with its 1972 copyright, is also very unlikely to be from Gene Tryp. Roger McGuinn collaborated with Jacques Levy throughout the 70s on non-Tryp material.

Some have speculated (not entirely convincingly IMO) that "Pale Blue" started life as a sketch for a Tryp love ballad.

Reportedly, McGuinn has been working on a solo studio reconstruction of Gene Tryp for several years. Not sure whether he's still working on it, or he's shelved it again.

 

Maggie: thanks for the info. I think I had heard about those two second hand.

Looking back, my posts aren't that revelatory, but it's a good Byrds thread and worth looking through

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=2292002&highlight=gene+tryp#post2292002
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=2296240&highlight=gene+tryp#post2296240