 Research analyst Mark Teehan , writing for Popular Musicology Online , has challenged the widely held view among critics , music historians and the Byrds themselves that the U.S. radio ban hurt sales of " Eight Miles High " . Having examined the local music surveys and the Billboard regional retail sales charts , as they relate to the national charting of " Eight Miles High " , Teehan has uncovered evidence suggesting that the progressive and uncommercial nature of the song was a much bigger factor in its failure to reach the Billboard Top 10 . The author 's research revealed that " Eight Miles High " failed to reach the Top Five in any of his sample of 23 regional markets , and most telling , among the thirty radio stations included within this sample , it reached the Top 10 on only seven of them ( 23 % ) . 
