Post-release
The largely unenthusiastic press reaction to the album caused the individual members of the band to lose faith in the concept of an ongoing, periodic series of band reunions and ultimately, all five members returned to their own careers following the album's release. In the following years, the band themselves would echo many of the sentiments expressed by the music press, with the general consensus being that the recording of the album was rushed and ill-thought out. Gene Clark offered his thoughts on the album during a 1977 interview: "I am disappointed in that album. Some of the harsh criticism is unjust, because, if you listen to it carefully, the album isn't that bad, but it just hasn't got the punch that it could have had if we'd taken the time." Chris Hillman concurred with Clark, telling The Byrds' biographer Johnny Rogan "In all honesty, we didn't have enough time on the album. They gave us one-and-a-half months to do that album, expecting guys to regroup after a five to six year absence." Hillman also cited the band's eagerness to avoid conflict as a contributing factor to the album's artistic failure: "everybody was so afraid of stepping on the other person's feet because of the tension that had gone down six years prior to that, that it became a bland album. Everybody was being too nice to each other." McGuinn blamed the reunion album's lack of success, at least partly, on the hedonism exhibited by members of the band during the recording process: "David had this incredibly strong pot. Half a joint and you couldn't do anything. We were stoned out of our minds the whole time. I don't remember much recording."
In addition, none of the parties, save for perhaps Gene Clark, seemed willing to contribute their best material to the album, instead holding back their finest songs for their own individual solo projects. This has been confirmed by Hillman, who told author John Einarson "I'll be honest, I contributed my worst material because I was getting ready to do a solo record, Slipping Away, and I was saving all my good stuff and contributed this throwaway stuff that was awful. Crosby's stuff was sketchy and Roger had 'Born To Rock & Roll', which was terrible, yuck." McGuinn also supported the suggestion that some band members had held back their best material, although he added "I don't think I was guilty of that. I gave them my best stuff at the time."
The timing of the album, between Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reunions, the fact that it was produced by David Crosby, and the presence of the individual band members' names on the album cover has led to the suggestion that the album was something of a substitute for CSNY. For his part, Crosby's motivation for taking over production duties on the album may have been an attempt to finally exert dominance over the rest of the band, as he had tried to do during his earlier tenure with The Byrds. McGuinn certainly supported this viewpoint, as he revealed in a 1977 interview: "Crosby was calling the shots. It was his coup d'état. He wanted to minimize my importance in the group, and maximize his, and other people's." In Crosby's defense, it is worth noting that both McGuinn and Hillman were actively touring between recording sessions for the album, the former with the Columbia version of The Byrds and the latter with Manassas. With only sporadic availability of two of the band's four creative parties, the brunt of assembling the album was left to the otherwise unengaged Crosby and Clark, which could account for the preponderance of Clark vocals and the CSNY-esque production on the album.
Byrds has been reissued on CD a number of times: first by Elektra Records in 1990; then again in 1998 by WEA; then in 2004 as a remastered edition on Wounded Bird Records; and most recently by Rhino Records in 2005 and 2008. None of these CD issues have included bonus tracks and in 2000, Roger McGuinn went on record as stating that any available outtakes from the recording sessions ended up on his first solo album. However, McGuinn's claim has proven to be false, since a cache of multitrack tapes dating from The Byrds' reunion sessions and featuring a number of alternate versions and at least one outtake were discovered in late 2009. The tapes include work-in-progress versions and alternate takes of the songs "Laughing", "(See the Sky) About to Rain", and "Long Live the King" (listed on the tape box under its working title of "The King is Dead"). In addition, the tapes also contained three different versions of a previously undocumented outtake, the traditional song "Fair and Tender Ladies". Reportedly, one of these versions of "Fair and Tender Ladies" features David Crosby singing lead vocals, while the other two feature Gene Clark. Also included among the recordings is a track with the title "The Circle Song", but it is not known whether this refers to the Gene Clark penned "Full Circle" or to another previously undocumented outtake.
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