L'Histoire de... "The Girl Who Had No Name" (The Byrds, 1967) - ENGLISH

« The Girl Who Had No Name »… Weird title for a song, right ? However, this is no innocent title as it is in fact a song inspired by a real person. The reason why The Byrds didn’t name her doesn’t have anything to do with some secrecy on her identity: the young woman’s parents were actually eccentric enough to call the only baby girl of the family… Girl. That’s quite a way to begin in Life, eh?

Girl Dreyer grew up in the 60ies and is a young teenager when she meets David Crosby for the first time, then a member of The Byrds. Back then, she’d hang around on a former ferryboat turned into a restaurant named “Juanita’s Galley” and this is the place where she meets the soon-to-be co-founder of the band Crosby, Stills & Nash. This is also the place where her mum used to barge in to bring her daughter back to the family home. As a matter of fact, Girl was quite a rebellious teen girl who caused quite an amount of trouble for her parents. She already had an impressive amount of runaways under her belt, mostly to get a chance to hang around with local “celebrities”… One of those runaways definitely got David Crosby completely hysterical.

Girl with Pigpen from The Grateful Dead

Girl’s repeated runaways with her friend Martha Wax would lead them to a special school dealing with “difficult children”. Thinking that sending two girls always in search of adventures to such school would change them was definitely NOT a wise idea. At first, they’d spend their lunch time at Paul Kantner’s place, future founder of Jefferson Airplane, smoking weed, before heading back to school for afternoon’s classes. When David Crosby was into town, he’d often stay at Kantner’s place as well and innocently once said to Girl “Aaaah I wish you’d accompany me and stay with me for a while”. And that’s not something to say to a teenage girl in the middle of the 60ies…

On their way to school, Martha tells Girl she has 200$ and suggests her friend a ride… As soon as Martha’s dad drops them at school, they call a cab, go to the airport and take a plane to Los Angeles. After landing, they call David who – of course – starts to freak out at the idea of being send to jail for underage kidnapping. He however advises the girls to get in a cab, wait for him at three blocks away from his home, hide and whistle “Mr Tambourine Man” so he could easily spot them (I’m still wondering if Bob Dylan is aware that his song was used in such context!). David hides the girls in a friend’s house where they are grounded… Both are quite deceived to realize Crosby isn’t as “rock’n’roll” as expected and then decide to go back to their respective homes. Anyway, Girl Dreyer would definitely leave a sufficient mark on Crosby for him to write a song.

Girl’s story isn’t quite over… She runs away again – to Mexico this time – but is brought back by policemen. She’s 17 and may end up in an institution for young offenders. She asks David Freiberg, a friend and bassist for the Quicksilver Messenger Service, to marry her to avoid detention until she comes of age. Although they aren’t really in love, they care about each other and eventually get married.

Even though it was a marriage of convenience, they will remain married for 15 years, will have a baby girl together and Girl will always admit she was lucky to be married to such a nice and tender man. They also remained good friends after their divorce…

Girl, David and their daughter Jessica

(On the far left)

At a later time, David Freiberg will contribute to “If I Could Only Remember My Name”, Crosby’s first solo album. He’ll join Jefferson Airplane in 1971 and will leave the band with Kantner in 1985.

Girl Dreyer/Freiberg has since been remarried and has had another child. She also changed her first name and is now called Julia. But she will remain in music history for having a song with her… erm… “name”.