Little Games ~ The Yardbirds

Little Games is the fourth American album by English rock band the Yardbirds. Recorded and released in 1967, it was their first album recorded after becoming a quartet with Jimmy Page as the sole guitarist and Chris Dreja switching to bass. It was also the only Yardbirds album produced by Mickie Most.

Although the new lineup was becoming more experimental with longer, improvised concert performances, the Yardbirds' record company brought in successful singles producer Most to coax out more commercial product. However, neither material that properly presented their new approach nor hit singles were forthcoming. The release of the title track "Little Games" that preceded the album did not reach the singles chart in the UK and consequently the album was not released there. However, the album saw limited release in the US, Germany, and New Zealand, but only reached number 80 in the US.

Little Games became the Yardbirds' final studio album, although Most continued to produce singles for the group. These were later collected and released with the original album along with outtakes and alternate mixes on an expanded edition titled Little Games Sessions & More in 1992.

Russo describes the four and a half minute instrumental collage "Glimpses" as a "brilliant piece of psychedelic imagery [that] revealed the Yardbirds at their most experimental and inspired". It features multiple-guitar tracks, with effects and bowing, and an electric sitar-backing propelled along by a 6/8 beat and bass riff by McCarty and Dreja. Relf adds several tracks of chanting vocals, reminiscent of the Yardbirds' 1965 song "Still I'm Sad". A barely-understandable truncated mechanical-sounding voice recites:

Glimpses of clouds in a forest
Can review well within us
And never to linger on one is life
Energy radiates from the source
The life around us is but a reflection of our own
Flowing within never-ending boundless infinity
Time is just a cumular limit
Which with one glimpse can overcome
Can overcome

As with "Little Games" and unlike their previous hits, the Yardbirds' subsequent singles were written by others: Tony Hazzard composed "Ha Ha Said the Clown" (a pop hit for Manfred Mann) and the similarly pop-ish "Good Night Sweet Josephine" and Harry Nilsson supplied "Ten Little Indians", written in the style of a nursery rhyme.
"Little Games" 00:00
"Smile On Me" 02:28
"White Summer" 05:45
"Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Sailor" 09:41
"Glimpses" 12:30
"Drinking Muddy Water" 16:55
"No Excess Baggage" 19:48
"Stealing Stealing" 22:21
"Only the Black Rose" 24:46
"Little Soldier Boy" 27:39
"Bonus - Puzzles" 30:18
"Bonus - I Remember the Night" 32:29
"Bonus - Ha Ha Said the Clown" 35:32
"Bonus - Ten Little Indians" 38:01
"Bonus - Goodnight Sweet Josephine" 40:17
"Bonus - Think About It" 43:00
"Bonus - Goodnight Sweet Josephine" 46:46
"BBC Sessions - Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" 49:34
"BBC Sessions - Little Games" 52:25
"BBC Sessions - Drinking Muddy Water" 54:49
"BBC Sessions - Think About It" 57:32
"BBC Sessions - Good Night Sweet Josephine" 1:00:36
"BBC Sessions - My Baby" 1:03:09
"BBC Sessions - White Summer" 1:06:05
"BBC Sessions - Dazed and Confused" 1:10:31