Over Under Sideways Down
single by The Yardbirds
"Over Under Sideways Down" is a 1966 song by English rock group the Yardbirds. A composition credited to all members of the group, it combines elements of blues rock and psychedelic rock. It was first released as a single in May 1966 as a follow-up to "Shapes of Things" and in July was included on group's self-titled UK album (commonly known as Roger the Engineer and Over Under Sideways Down in the US and elsewhere).
Composition and recording
According to Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty, the basic outline for "Over Under Sideways Down" was inspired by Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock". The group had heard Haley's song on the radio after a gig and considered adapting it in their own style. At a later recording session, guitarist Jeff Beck started by playing the song's bassline and the group were soon working out an arrangement. Beck then switched to lead guitar and came up with the intro. McCarty recalled:
We needed an intro, and Jeff peeled one out, an instantly recognisable peel that completely took us by surprise ... Over and over we listened back to that line, going back and forth over whether it belonged in the song. And then like a flash of lightning, we realised that it did.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7113433. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “Over Under Sideways Down” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.