Originally released in 1982, the album was a follow-up toThe Original Singles: 1965-1967, Volume 1 and compiled all of themono single versions of songs that the Byrds' had released on 7" between early 1967 and early 1969 for the first time. The tracks on the album are all laid out chronologically by release date, featuring the A-side first and then the B-side. For example, the album opens with the single version of "My Back Pages" and follows it up with "Renaissance Fair", which was the B-side.
The album was released on LP and tape cassette and has never been issued on CD. Due to the commercial failure ofThe Original Singles: 1965-1967, Volume 1 in the U.S., Volume 2 was only issued in Europe. Nevertheless, the track listing follows the Byrds' North American A and B side release order (singles released outside the U.S. sometimes featured different songs).
The Byrds' biographerJohnny Rogan has stated that CBS Records asked him to compile a third volume of Byrds' singles for the UK market, but as Rogan recalled, "I told them they were scraping the barrel, not least because there were not enough singles to make up a full 16-track compilation".[1]
The mono mix of "Don't Make Waves" made its first album appearance on this compilation, although it can now also be found on theSundazed compilationThe Columbia Singles '65-'67 and on the JapaneseOriginal Singles A's & B's 1965-1971 compilation. In addition, a stereo remix of the song is available as a bonus track on the 1996 CD re-issue ofYounger Than Yesterday.
"Lady Friend" was only released as a single and was never included on any Byrds studio album.
The single version of "Old John Robertson" is an entirely different mix to the one found onThe Notorious Byrd Brothers album.
The mono single mix of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" was never released on a Byrds studio album, since its parent album,Sweetheart of the Rodeo, was the first Byrds' album to be mixed exclusively in stereo. The album was issued in a mono variation in the UK, but all eleven album tracks are stereo-to-mono fold-down mixes. This means that "You Ain't Going Nowhere" on the UK mono version ofSweetheart is a fold-down of the stereo mix instead of the unique mono mix found on the single.
"Lay Lady Lay" was only released as a single and never appeared on a Byrds studio album.
