Birds of Fire
is Mahavishnu Orchestra's second studio album released in 1973. It is the last one performed by the original Mahavishnu Orchestra line-up, before Jean-Luc Ponty replaced Jerry Goodman on violin and Narada Michael Walden replaced Billy Cobham on drums.
The back cover of the LP features a poem entitled "Revelation" by Sri Chinmoy.
A remastered version of the album, on CD, was released in 2000 by Sony Music Entertainment. It features a facsimile of the LP cover, a new set of liner notes by Bill Milkowski, as well as photographs of the band.
As in the case of The Mahavishnu Orchestra's previous album, The Inner Mounting Flame
, Birds of Fire
consisted solely of compositions by John McLaughlin. This includes the track "Miles Beyond (Miles Davis)", which McLaughlin dedicated to his former bandleader.
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BIRDS OF FIRE TICKETS
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Track listing
All tracks composed by John McLaughlin.
#"Birds of Fire" – 5:50
#"Miles Beyond (
Miles Davis)" – 4:47
#"Celestial Terrestrial Commuters" – 2:54
#"Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" – 0:24
#"Thousand Island Park" – 3:23
#"Hope" – 1:59
#"One Word" – 9:57
#"Sanctuary" – 5:05
#"Open Country Joy" – 3:56
#"Resolution" – 2:09
Personnel
- John McLaughlin - Guitar
- Rick Laird - Bass
- Billy Cobham - Percussion
- Jan Hammer - Keyboards, Moog synthesizer
- Jerry Goodman - Violin
- Ken Scott - Engineer
Charts
; Album
Billboard (North America)
| Year
| Chart
| Position
|
| 1973
| Pop Albums
| 15
|
Miscellanea
The rock band
They Might Be Giants borrowed the song title "Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love" for a song on their album
Flood
. The songs are only related by title. The Mahavishnu Orchestra song is simply a very short instrumental jam interlude between "Celestial Terrestrial Commuters" and "Thousand Island Park", while the They Might Be Giants song is a literal interpretation of the lyrics, describing sapphire bullets fired from a
revolver.