 The studio recordings featured on ( Untitled ) mostly consisted of newly written , self @-@ penned material , including a number of songs that had been composed by McGuinn and Broadway theatre impresario Jacques Levy for a planned country rock musical titled Gene <unk> that the pair were developing . Plans for the musical had fallen through and as a result , McGuinn decided to record some of the material originally intended for the production with the Byrds . Among the Gene <unk> songs included on ( Untitled ) was " Chestnut Mare " , which had originally been written for a scene in which the musical 's eponymous hero attempts to catch and tame a wild horse . The song was excerpted from the album and issued as a single in the U.S. on October 23 , 1970 , but it only managed to climb to number 121 on the Billboard chart . Nonetheless , the song went on to become a staple of FM radio programming in America during the 1970s . " Chestnut Mare " did much better in the UK , however , when it was released as a single on January 1 , 1971 , reaching number 19 on the UK Singles Chart and giving the Byrds their first UK Top 20 hit since their cover of Bob Dylan 's " All I Really Want to Do " had peaked at number 4 in September 1965 . 
