Recorded in June and released as a single in October of 1970, “Chestnut Mare” was co-written by Roger McGuinn and Jacques Levy, a psychiatrist who had hung around with Bob Dylan, for a modern adaptation of the Danish play Peer Gynt, written by Henrik Ibsen in 1867, entitled Gene Tryp. The adaptation was abandoned because of unrealistic production costs. This song, one of over two dozen songs written by McGuinn and Levy spread over a few of their last albums, was one of the rare semi-hits for the later lineup of the The Byrds in an edited single version more than two minutes shorter than the album version. In the US, the song reached no. 121 on the Billboard chart, but in the UK it reached no. 19 and was a staple of both their live shows from 1970 to their breakup in 1973 and on FM radio. A video performance of the shorter version of the song on a German television show from 1971 or 1972 is available on YouTube.