I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better - Background and Content

Background and Content

Lyrically, "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" takes a sardonic view of romance, with Clark undecided about whether to break off a relationship with a woman who hasn't been entirely honest with him. The song dates from The Byrds' pre-fame residency at Ciro's nightclub in L.A. as Clark explained during an interview: "There was a girlfriend I had known at the time, when we were playing at Ciro's. It was a weird time in my life because everything was changing so fast and I knew we were becoming popular. This girl was a funny girl, she was kind of a strange little girl and she started bothering me a lot. And I just wrote the song, 'I'm gonna feel a whole lot better when you're gone,' and that's all it was, but I wrote the whole song within a few minutes."

The song is built around a pounding riff that Clark later admitted was based on "Needles and Pins" by The Searchers. The song's refrain of "I'll probably feel a whole lot better when you're gone" betrays Clark's uncertainty about ending the relationship and whether such an act would be the answer to his problems or not. The use of the word "probably" in the song is key, giving the track a depth of subtext that was unusual for a pop song at the time. Jim Dickson, The Byrds' manager, has noted that this level of subtext is not unusual in Clark's songs of the period. Said Dickson, "There was always something to unravel in those songs, the non-explanation of the complex feeling. For instance, if you remember I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better, it doesn't say: "I'll feel a whole lot better", but "I'll probably feel a whole lot better." For me, that makes the song. There's a statement followed by a hesitation." Dickson would later work as a producer on Clark's 1984 album Firebyrd, which featured a re-recorded version of "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better".