Though Barry McGuire’s anguished version is the one that hit No. 1 on the charts, it was the Turtles who first recorded the song by P.F. Sloan (“Secret Agent Man”) that was pitched to and rejected by the Byrds. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan harmonize beautifully on the choruses, but the tune wasn’t released as a single until McGuire’s version was already popular.
Barry McGuire, a folk singer who had recently left the New Christy Minstrels, recorded it in July 1965 with a crack team of Los Angeles session players: Sloan on guitar and harmonica, Hal Blaine on drums and Larry Knechtel on bass. The vocal track was a rough mix — McGuire was reading the lyrics from a crumpled piece of paper. It was supposed to be replaced by a more polished take, but the unfinished recording was leaked to a DJ. McGuire later recalled that it was recorded in one take on a Thursday, and Monday morning a record company exec woke him up and told him to turn on the radio, where the song was an instant hit. It reached No. 1 about six weeks later.
P.F. Sloan was only 20 when he wrote it, and he wasn’t expecting the blowback it caused. Many radio stations banned the song, which was held up as an example of what was wrong with youth culture; several patriotic “answer songs” were written in response. McGuire never had another Top 40 hit, and by 1971 was recording Christian music. Because you can find just about anything on YouTube, here’s the demo Sloan took to the Byrds.
