Crosby, Stills & Nash
One person, two alone, three together...
David Crosby: guitar, lead vocals on “Guinnevere” and “Long Time Gone,” co-lead vocals on “Wooden Ships”
Stephen Stills: lead vocals on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and “49 Bye-Byes,” co-lead vocals on “Wooden Ships,” guitar, bass, organ, percussion
Graham Nash: guitar, lead vocals on “Marrakesh Express,” “Pre-Road Downs,” and “Lady Of The Island”
Guests: Dallas Taylor, drums on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Pre-Road Downs,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” and “49 Bye-Byes;” Jim Gordon, drums on “Marrakesh Express;” Cass Elliot, backing vocals on “Pre-Road Downs?” Ahmet Ertegun, “spiritual guidance”
Produced by Crosby, Stills & Nash with Bill Halverson
cover by Henry Diltz
Crosby stills and nash
In October of 1967, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman fired David Crosby from the Byrds. He used his settlement money to buy a run-down boat called the Mayan, fixed it up, and sailed off to Coconut Grove, Florida; where he met recently-divorced folk musician Joni Mitchell. She already had a few hits by then, but strictly as a songwriter. She gave “Michael From Mountains” and “Both Sides Now” to Judy Collins, and “Urge For Going” and “The Circle Game” to Tom Rush. With the help of manager Elliot Roberts, Croz brought Joni to Laurel Canyon for the first time in December of ’67. They introduced her to Warner Brothers Records exec Mo Ostin, who signed her to Warner subsidiary Reprise.
Croz produced her first album, Song To A Seagull. He introduced Joni to all his California friends, one of whom played bass on both Seagull and Clouds...
Stills
Well and truly, what didn’t happen to the Buffalo Springfield?! Lack of chart success, lack of creative direction, consistent managerial chaos, and Bruce Palmer’s continued immigration problems dogged the Springfield. Neil Young ghosted the band on the eve of the Monterey Pop festival, making room for...David Crosby. If none of that could do this band in, then Richie Furay, Jim Messina, Stephen Stills, and Neil Young with a bunch of their friends (and Eric Clapton for some reason?) getting busted for possession at Steve’s place did. Steve escaped by jumping out of a window – Eric by being British, I guess. The rest weren’t so lucky. After the Springfield dissolved in May of 1968 and eeked out Last Time Around, Stills linked up with Al Kooper. Mike Bloomfield didn’t come in until way later in the timeline. Nevertheless, the three were billed as a group. Their cover of “Season Of The Witch” was a runaway success. This will become important later.
Nash
Meanwhile, over in England, Graham Nash has had enough with his band pushing back on his more challenging material. The Hollies were as pop as pop could be: advertising everything from hairspray and chewing gum to gasoline. Not unlike John Lennon in 1965, Graham began expressing his insecurities and self-doubt songs like “Too Many People,” “Tell Me To My Face,” “Clown,” and “King Midas In Reverse.”
And not unlike David Crosby in the Byrds, Graham’s proximity to the Beatles convinced him that his group needed to do something new and challenging to survive. Graham was the driving force behind plugging the Hollies into psychedelia (1967’s Evolution, then Butterfly five months later,) and wrote tunes inspired by his future collaborators; “Maker” was inspired by Crosby’s “Mind Gardens,” and “Wings” a direct response to Neil Young’s “Expecting To Fly.” When the Byrds arrived in England in February of 1967 to promote Younger Than Yesterday, Nash finds a like-minded individual in – wouldn’t you know it! – David Crosby.
In 1968, Graham and his wife embarked on the Hippie Trail, where he wrote “Marrakesh Express.” “I took the train from Casablanca to Marrakesh, an also Tangier and Rabat,” he remembered. “It cooled me down a lot, I think.” After trying and failing to pitch the song to the Hollies, he hung onto it for himself.
On Valentines’ Day 1968, the Hollies played the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go. A who’s-who of Laurel Canyon royalty were in attendance: Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas, John Sebastian, Nancy Sinatra, Crosby, and Stills. Dave and Steve hang around after the show to meet Graham, marking the first time the trio formally met.
Graham went on to Ottawa in March, where he met a newly-single Joni Mitchell. Save for his recollection of her holding a music box (how very manic pixie dream girl of her,) the details of that night have been lost to the sands of time; whether they met at Le Hibou coffeehouse or an afterparty, no one seems to remember. But as soon as he met Joni, he knew his marriage was over. Realizing he couldn’t leave his band (or his marriage) quite so soon, Nash returned to England.
One Person
In May of 1968, Stills boarded the Mayan with Croz and Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane. As you can imagine with this group of guys, they got stoned silly, and wrote “Wooden Ships.”
Stills was on a hot streak at the time: he had a small lump of cash from Super Session, he’d begun collaborating with Croz, and he manifested the muse of “Bluebird:” folk singer Judy Collins. They met for the first time at her “welcome to California” party. Much to his delight, she was instantly smitten. He worked on her next album, Who Knows Where The Time Goes.
The lovebirds' bliss didn't last long. On June 6th, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in LA. “I couldn’t go to sleep, and I was mad and a little frightened, same as everybody else was,” Crosby remembered. “It’s bad enough to lose your first leader (meaning JFK) but when you start to lose the second…” Feeling emboldened, he got back together with Stills to write “Long Time Gone.”
It's hard to overstate Cass Elliot's importance to the Laurel Canyon scene. When bands came over from England to play the Sunset Strip, they’d come to see her. Musicians swam in her pool, shared joints, swapped songs, and hung out in her kitchen. Cass Elliot’s home in the Canyon was the place to be. After the dissolution of the Mamas and the Papas, she had a vision to bring all her friends and neighbors together on her first solo album; this would’ve been Crosby, Stills, Joni and Graham, John Sebastian, and Peter Tork. It was to be called “In The Words of All My Friends,” but this never came to be. Cass instead channeled that energy into playing matchmaker.
What exactly happened next is up to much discourse, even the exact date: some sources say it was July of 1968, others say August or early September. Crosby, Nash, and author Peter Doggett remember the meeting taking place at Joni’s place, while Stills, author Michael Walker, filmmaker Alison Ellwood, Cass Elliot’s daughter Owen, and also Graham Nash say it was at Cass’s. Wherever it was, Crosby, Stills & Nash sang together for the first time.“The third time he put on the harmony, you couldn’t forget it,” Croz said. “Stills and I looked at each other and we knew we wanted him to sing with us right then. Immediately.” Nash said, “I’m a harmony freak, and I’d never heard anything like it. We sang that one verse, then started laughing hysterically – laughing with joy.” To Michael Walker, he said, “Each of us just had terrible experiences with our bands and had left or been thrown out. And all of a sudden we realized we'd have to be a fucking band again. Because how could you deny what you were listening to?”
After muscling through exactly one song for the Hollies’ upcoming Bob Dylan covers album, Nash told band and his wife he was leaving. He played his final show as a Hollie in December, then moved into Joni’s home on Lookout Mountain.
The trio first considered signing to Apple Records. Thank god that didn’t work out! Realizing he didn’t have the connections to get this supergiant the record deal they deserved, Elliot Roberts brought in David Geffen.
Crosby was a free agent after he was booted from the Byrds. He would be no problem. Since Nash was signed to Columbia Records subsidiary Epic Records, the plan was to put the trio on Atlantic. But because the Super Session was such a big hit, Atlantic Records wasn’t ready to let go of Stills just yet. As the story goes, Jerry Wexler physically threw Geffen out of his office when he asked for Stills to be released from his contract! Atlantic exec Ahmet Ertegun called Geffen the next day, and convinced him to have Crosby, Stills & Nash signed to Atlantic. Roberts and Geffen were swinging for the fences. By all accounts, they were out of their league. They’d be nuts to say no to Atlantic. Then, Ertegun made Epic an offer: if they gave him Nash, he’d give them Poco.
In the December 29th, 1968 issue of the San Fransisco Chronicle, Ralph J. Gleason announced that “David Crosby of the Byrds, Graham Nash of the Hollies, and Steve Stills of the Buffalo Springfield will form a special trio to record together.”
Two Alone
The trio tried cutting demos with the Doors’ producer, Paul Rothchild, but they just weren’t gelling. The songs were great, but the guys were underrehearsed. John Sebastian and his wife invited Crosby, Stills & Nash to their place on Sag Harbor to iron out their arrangements.
This may seem like a tangent, but stay with me here: Nash’s vocal stylings inspired by Everly Brothers, and Crosby’s by cool and modal jazz and classical music. Stills was the Stax/Motown guy until Judy Collins visited, bringing a copy of the 1964 Elektra Records Music Of Bulgaria compilation with her.
These harmonies melted Steve’s brain. “It was stuff people hadn’t even tried, let alone pulled off. It was as important to me as the Beach Boys.”
As Crosby, Stills & Nash came together, Stills and his sweet Judy blue eyes fell apart. She’d just lost her father when they met, and drank heavily to cope. She was in therapy for her depression; Stills was always suspicious of therapy. He wanted her to move to LA, but she didn’t want to leave New York. “I knew (LA) would do me in,” she wrote in her Suite Judy Blue Eyes memoir. “(T)he music scene and everything with Stephen, my producer, the drugs. I knew that if I stayed out there, I would not make it.” Steve had crushed on Judy for so long, he had built this fantasy version of Judy Collins in his head that the real Judy Collins could never live up to. His frustration with her managers and where she had to be at noon wrote “You Don’t Have To Cry.” His confusion over where he stood inspired “Helplessly Hoping.” Their slow, painful breakup was the basis for the greatest song he ever wrote.
When Judy played Santa Monica, Stills showed up at her hotel room, two guitars in hand. One was a to gift to her. With the other, he played “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for her in full. She was touched, but the song didn’t work. Her therapist had advised her that being in a relationship wasn’t the best thing for her at the moment. She should instead focus on her career, her mental health, and her boundaries.
Three Together
After their false start with Rothchild, Crosby, Stills & Nash called Bill Halverson; who’d recorded some of Monterey. “He drank a lot, his marriage was on rocky ground – excellent credentials, he’d fit right in,” Nash wrote. They booked Wally Heider Studios for February and March of 1969 to record their self-titled debut.
Crosby, Stills & Nash in the studio was a surprisingly no-frills affair – in the beginning, at least. They arrived at the studio at two in the afternoon, smoked a joint, snorted a line, and worked into the early morning hours. Their goal was to capture their live feel (“live” meaning in the background, the group hadn’t taken the stage together yet!) even with overdubbing and backwards guitars. “We were inventing the music,” Crosby wrote in his Long Time Gone memoir. “We tried to be as fearless as we could. We tried to have a rule that we would try almost anything.”
Steve was the multi-instrumentalist of the group, making up for bassist Harvey Brooks and keyboard player Paul Harris’s axeing when Crosby, Stills, and Nash signed with Atlantic. The guys nicknamed him “Captain Manyhands” for his ability to play anything, and I call him “the Laurel Canyon Santa Claus” for “Long Time Gone.” After five weeks of trying, they still couldn’t get the backing track down. Everyone was sent home, but Stills came back; recording all night (with the aid of winter sports, I’m sure) until the track was complete.
“The Suite" was always going to be the album opener. “Wooden Ships” was selected to open side two. “Pre-Road Downs” and “49 Bye-Byes” were marked as the side closers, and everything in between was up for grabs. The guys attempted covers of the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” John Sebastian’s “Darling Children,” and Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” made famous by Harry Nilsson that year. None made the cut. The album was remixed by Tom Dowd at the last minute – no one was happy with this, but it’s what Ahmet Ertegun wanted, and he was the one footing the bill!
They had their sound, they had the record. All they needed was a name. “Rest assured, we weren’t going to name ourselves something young and dopey,” Nash said. Crosby and Stills threw around the name "the Frozen Noses" in the early days, but this wouldn't do. “We’d already been Byrds, Springfields, and Hollies, faceless entities.” The San Fransisco Chronicle first named them Crosby, Nash, and Stills, while Billboard called them Stills, Crosby, and Nash. Stills kicked and screamed to have his name come first. He felt he had the name recognition from Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills – and was miffed that his name came last. He ultimately conceded that Crosby, Stills & Nash sounded best.
“They decided to use their names, like a law firm, as a way to ensure everyone knew who they were individually and to signify that they could splinter and work with others at any time. Calling themselves Crosby, Stills & Nash would also announced their experiment to the world…”
quoted from: David Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup (2019.)
For Each Other
Crosby, Stills & Nash and their self-titled debut received such immediate critical and commercial adulation, it’s kind of ridiculous. Atlantic sold a reported 400,000 copies of to record stores, and every one of them sold. The album went gold by September of 1969. Crosby, Stills & Nash’s set at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival got top billing in Michael Wadleigh’s documentary (their fourth refused to sign the release.) It was a hit at the box office, and the record sold even more: it charted for two years straight.
Why are Crosby, Stills & Nash still the gold standard? In the words of Peter Doggett, “...the men and their music became impossible to distinguish: their songwriting expressed exactly who they were, and what was happening around them…” Each member contributed such distinct material to Crosby, Stills & Nash. Consider Crosby’s unique fingerpicking style and pervasive jazz influence. Hailing from the American South, Stills got to see Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King in and around Florida in his youth. He worshipped Stax/Motown, and cut that with the Laurel Canyon folk thing. He had “Bluebird” and Croz had “Lady Friend.” Nash had a pop sensibility the others had abandoned. He had more hits under his belt with the Hollies at this time than the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield combined! Put these three together and sparks are sure to fly.
I’ll get this out of the way now, because it runs through every single song. Harmonies this, harmonies that, but why? What made Crosby, Stills & Nash so different from, say, the three-part harmonies of the Beatles? Ironically, they avoided the triad. Having the jazz freak in the middle, with Stills on the bottom part and Nash up top, moved the middle of their chords around. They create weird shapes and uncanny parallels. This forced the other two out of their comfort zones. That and Graham’s very high voice punched all of their harmonization into another realm. These attributes do the most justice to Crosby, Stills & Nash’s showstopping opener.
Even people who don’t like Crosby, Stills & Nash concede that Suite: Judy Blue Eyes is one hell of a song. Four distinct movements come together to form a seven-minute medley; not unlike the Beatles stitching their unfinished songs into medleys. After a few seconds of that instantly-recognizable sputtering guitar, played way up on the fretboard, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” becomes deeply, uncomfortably close. It’s the story of the Bluebird’s real life, beyond Steve’s fantasies; her mental health struggles, her therapy, their real relationship and all the pain they’d caused each other.
“It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore,
I am sorry.
“Sometimes it hurts so badly I must cry out loud,
I am lonely.”
Forget happy music-sad lyrics, have you ever heard album that begins with such resignation? From the outset, she is unhappy, she feels her unhappiness is ruining things, and she feels lonely in the relationship.
“Suite” is masterful for how Steve blends and messes with the song’s point of view. The next verse switches to him begging her to stay. “Remember what we’ve said and done and felt about each other/Oh babe, have mercy.”In the same verse, she responds: “Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.” He retorts, “I am not dreaming.” Judy wanted to be her own individual, while Steve wanted them to be better together than apart. How could they go the distance together if neither were willing to give an inch? Therein lies the tension of “Suite.” Thoughts mess with each other in the same line and blend into one. They can’t speak without hurting each other. “I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are” is either plaintive acceptance or a rueful accusation, depending on the verse which surrounds it. Each chorus ends with tempers boiling over: “And you make it hard.”
It’s important to remember that, while the lyric is so intensely autobiographical, “Suite” can’t let go of Steve’s fantasy. This is his ideal of things Judy would say and do for him. When he lets her go, “Tearing yourself away from me now, you are free/And I am crying,” he imagines her consoling him. “This does not mean I don’t love you, I do/That’s forever, yes, and for always.” Again, these two are on totally different planets; constantly pushing and pulling on each others’ wants and needs. Talk about codependency!
The second movement of the “Suite” is rung in by a bass run, which punctuates soft, bright guitar flourishes. The group vocal chorus names the days Judy went to therapy, “Thursdays and Saturdays.” Steve’s passion boils over when he takes a solo; you can hear his voice echo off the studio walls. “Can I tell it like it is? Listen to me baby/It’s my heart that’s a-sufferin’, it’s a dyin’/And that’s what I have to lose.” But pay attention to Nash and Crosby in between Stills’s cries: “Help me, I’m suffering,” “Help me, I’m dying.” They voice the inner psyche.
“I’ve got an answer,
I’m going to fly away.
What have I got to lose?”
Considering Judy’s struggles at the time of her relationship with Steve, the listener can infer she posed a much more permanent solution than leaving him.
Stills dazzles with agile guitar. The percussion comes from him drumming on the back of his instrument. A tabla might have taken its place a few years before, but we’re more grounded now. The song’s third movement heralds how remarkable Judy is, like “Voices of the angels, ring around the moonlight.” He begins to accept her need for independence. “Asking me, said she’s so free/How can you catch the sparrow?” But he goes right back on himself and openly begs for her back. “Change my life, make it right/Be my lady.”
Stills’s bass pulses over tense guitar work. A double-clap by Dallas Taylor on snare (and not a moment too soon!) propels “Suite” into its fourth and final movement. Steve sings in Spanish of his wanting to visit Cuba over a samba thing. His solo is quite charismatic, and showcases his range. “Aha! A-ha!” The guys sing positively Joni bird-chirps behind him. I used to think this movement was a less-serious send-off, a la the Beatles’ Spanglish on “Sun King,” but after reading Judy’s memoir, my interpretation has changed. “Stephen was driven by something I could not see and did not understand.” Considering this statement, this movement of the “Suite” might be Steve admitting he “spoke a different language” than his love, so to speak.
As for the song itself, “Suite” greatly benefits from the studio. Doubling the group vocals a la the Beach Boys makes three men sound like six. Stills’ ad-libs cut in and out. Of course, those echoey, interlocking guitars between movements two and three wouldn’t have been possible with a strictly “back-to-basics” approach. If your ears aren’t overwhelmed by sweet harmony or the groove, you can hear some organ peppered into the last part.
That being said, it’s impossible for your heartstrings to be untugged by this song’s graphic honesty. Its subject, too, was overcome with emotion when she first heard it on the radio in the back of a city cab.
“‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ was the single that would spearhead a fresh new sound in popular music, and I knew after I heard it the first time that I would have a hard time getting over it...I was the one who threw the dice and then backed away from the table. Stephen knew exactly what he was doing; he was that smart and that gifted. In a way it was his revenge, served hot, and it was magnificent.”
quoted from: Judy Collins, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life In Music (2011.)
This song is an autopsy of a failed relationship, told on the edge of the scalpel. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” is my pick for the greatest breakup song ever written. Fucking bravo, Stephen.
Track one of album one is obviously very important. You only get one first impression. Track two matters as well: how do you continue fleshing out the identity you’ve presented on your opener? Which other other facet do you reveal? “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” is tough act to follow, and I cannot believe these guys thought they could get away with Marrakesh Express as track two. This is a good pop number and a good single. That’s what Nash does best at this stage in his career. It’s a bouncy little travelogue about getting stoned in North Africa, with squiggly electric guitar and wobbly organ. It works on paper; the palate cleanser. But sandwiched between a seven-minute epic and the murky depths below, the lighthearted “Marrakesh” didn’t stand a chance.
Where Stills was interested in writing expansive songs and Nash packed a punch, Crosby wrote bottomless. Let’s compare and contrast Guineveres for a moment. Donovan’s “Guinevere” was about one woman, Linda Lawrence. It was 1966; he went full East-West-medieval, as any psychedelic folk singer of his day would. Crosby’s Guinnevere started as an East-West thing. He had Donovan’s sideman, Cyrus Faryar, playing bouzouki and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane on the 1968 demo.
In about a year, Crosby’s tune molted into what we hear on Crosby, Stills & Nash. His “Guinnevere” was at least two women, mostly Joni Mitchell. She didn’t have green eyes, but their time together in Florida appears the most in the lyrics. Peacocks wandering aimlessly underneath an orange tree practically scream Florida. He describes the harbor where the Mayan was docked, and Joni’s long, straight hair “streaming out when we ride” (they’d ride bicycles up and down the shoreline.) “She shall be free” is a response to Joni’s “Cactus Tree;” a song in part about David, and “Seagulls circle endlessly/I sing in silent harmony” a nod to her “Song To A Seagull.”
But as so often goes with artists, the muse departs before the song is finished. So arrives another: the Guinnevere who “drew pentagrams” was Byrds fan club president-turned-Crosby’s Laurel Canyon girlfriend, Christine Hinton.
If you listen really hard, you can hear the percussion the guys originally recorded. They had Bill Halverson scrub it out in post. I think this was the right call; “Guinnevere” is unmoored, floating in an ocean, and percussion would have anchored it. This song owes a lot to its arrangement. We feel the electric shock Crosby does when “she turns her gaze down the slope to the harbor where I lay.” You can stare into her green eyes, golden hair streaming out, but any real identifying features of hers are obscured. Crosby instead captures his loves’ essences – perhaps what he loved most about them. He could love these women, but he would never have them.
You Don’t Have To Cry is a strikingly grown-up love song – as far as subject matter goes. This song is the reality of love with outside obligations. “In the morning, when you rise/Do you think of me and how you left me crying?” Or is she immediately overwhelmed by her responsibilities? Telephones and managers and where she’s got to be at noon? At this time, Steve was in a relatively quiet phase of his career; without a band, waiting at home for Judy to complete her tour. Had their romance blossomed a couple years before, the roles might have been reversed.
“You are living a reality
I lived years ago, it quite nearly killed me.”
He knows what that world does to soft, sensitive artists’ souls. He cautions her: “In the long run it will make you cry/Make you crazy and old before your time.” His ego might be bruised being the stay-at-home ex-boyfriend, because he flips the script:
“And the difference between me and you,
I won’t argue right or wrong,
But I have time to cry, my baby,
You don’t have to cry.”
It’s a sweet sentiment on the surface, but patronizing in practice. I may be a bum right now, but you see, I’ve actually got it better than you. I have time to cry, you don’t.
As far as the arrangement, having a tambourine instead of a drum kit favors the lightness of the voices, the bubbling low part “A-a-a-ah” under chants of “Cry, my baby…” Stills’s guitar licks ramble on so many different trains of thought, all bouncing off each other across separate tracks. It’s really impressive that they were all able to be joined in one cohesive conversation; you won’t know where one line ends and another begins. The warm tones of Crosby’s voice and Nash’s range give this song its life.
Pre-Road Downs is the most electric number on side one. Backwards guitar plays a principle role, a la the Beatles’ Revolver, and Steve plays a strong bassline I’ve definitely heard before…(“Questions,” “Suite”)...and we will definitely hear again…(“Questions” in “Carry On.”) Graham wrote the lyric for Joni, anticipating the first time he’d go out on the road in their relationship. He mentions her waiting months (or “a year” as the lyrics would have you believe) for him to finally be with her. Already, there are hints of discord: “Felt rejected as expected/You rejected all the thoughts of words/So I’ll pray with you to stay with me forever, and we’ll make it work.” They’d already waited so long to be together. Could their relationship really survive the punishing realities that pulled Steve and his sweet Judy apart?
Graham takes the melody higher and higher with every verse until he truly tops out his range on the “Elevated, you’re elated” verse. His rocking delivery almost convinces me to forgive his last few bum lines: “Be sure to hide the roaches.” Huh?
According to Nash, while the group was rehearsing in Sag Harbor, Stills came up with the idea of a double album; one acoustic disc, one electric. Opening side two of Crosby, Stills & Nash with Wooden Ships echoes Steve’s grand idea. Paul Kantner loved science fiction. Those images in the lyrics, purple berries and all, is where his presence comes through. Jefferson Airplane were a huge influence on Croz musically from about 1967 onward. When we say, “Oh, the chords in ‘Wooden Ships’ are so Croz!” They’re actually so Jefferson Airplane. They favored the moody, and their music had lots of space. Surrealistic Pillow has so much echo and reverb on it, the early stereo pressings sound like shit. Croz took that space and infused his music with it.
Muted guitar strums bounce off the studio walls, bursting into the riff like waves over the bow. Then the subdued, jazzy line enters; muted in color as opposed to volume. “Wooden Ships” is unusual for Crosby, Stills & Nash because there’s about two minutes of verse without harmonies. After an agonizing holdout, the dire blast into the group harmonies prove to be some of the best they ever did. You can hear Stills on the bottom of the stack and Cros in the middle jostling the insides of chords around, creating some wild stuff. This is a huge sound for three guys; appropriately dramatic. “We are leaving, you don’t need us” hangs on air. The guys’ vocalizations over insistent, anxious organ and Dallas hitting double-time on the drums is a thrill.
I know “Wooden Ships” is about a doomed post-apocalyptic voyage, but one could make a connection to Woodstock. The rickety wooden stage was like a Noah’s Ark of rock-and-roll over a sea of half a million people in a rainstorm. Ironic, considering the following lines...
“If you smile at me, I will understand
Cause that is something that
Everybody everywhere does in the same language.”
...were apparently lifted from a church sign.
While Graham was prized at the time of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s release for his pop writing, over the next couple of years he would prove himself to be a writer of tender, damn good love songs. Think “Our House,” right? Like Goffin and King’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” Nash captured the uncertainty of the very first night together with one-take wonder Lady Of The Island. He’s so close to the mic, like he’s right in the listener’s ear under the covers. The lyric mentions the fireplace at Joni’s house, and the “peeping sun” through the famous stained-glass window. He uses “Joni tuning” and bubbly, dancing scatting with Croz. He may not sing her name, but she’s all over this song.
“Lady Of The Island” articulates the private side of Graham and Joni’s very public relationship in its very beginning stages. It’s so tender and bare, just like the music. “Letting myself wander through the world inside your eyes/You know I’d like to stay here until every tear runs dry.” Intimacy in the highest. “We both knew this would happen when you first appeared...” But everything else? Who’s to say. But he’s got high hopes
“Wrapped around each other in the peeping sun/Beams of sunlight light the stage, the red light’s on.” The red light refers to the recording light in the studio, proving there’s a lot hinging on this thing and a lot of eyeballs on them both. But it’s just him and his guitar singing to her, and the two of them are all that matters. “I never want to finish what I’ve just begun with you.”
Helplessly Hoping is Stills’s exercise in alliteration. Everyone focuses on this song’s harmonies; these are the most snug of the album. The build on “They are one person, they are two alone/They are three together,” adding a voice every time to mirror the count of one, two, three, is clever. The alliteration is cause for celebration as well. “Helplessly hoping her harlequin hovers,” “Love isn’t lying, it’s loose in a lady who lingers/Saying she is lost.” What blows me away is what Stills does inside the lines on the third verse. He starts with straight alliteration, playing on the letter “S.” “Stand by the stairway, you’ll see something...certain to tell you.” He sneaks in a word that starts with a “C,” but with an “S” sound. Certain. That word flips the verse to where Stills can introduce the letter and sound “C.” “Certain to tell you confusion has its cost.” That shows Stills’s command over the written word.
Long Time Gone achieved immortal status when Michael Wadleigh and his music coordinators played the song over the boys building the Woodstock stage. It’s the most Sixties song on the album, with a very prominent organ and a groovy rhythm section.
David Browne described “Long Time Gone” as “sounding like a switchblade, sharp and dangerous.” Croz was always the most political and most outspoken of the Byrds (see the Monterey Incident.) He brings that question-authority energy to his “Long Time Gone:” “Speak up, you’ve got to speak up against the madness/You’ve got to speak your mind, if you dare.” He hints to the sunshine-and-daisies audience that there might not be an easy way out of the darkness of 1968. Remember, they were recording this in February and March of 1969. The year before was still a fresh memory for all. The chorus sings, “It appears to be a long, appears to be a long,” and soloist picks it up with “Time, such a long, long long long time/Before the dawn.” The song’s arrangement gives it the air of danger Browne suggests. All three of Crosby’s main contributions, “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” and this, share that intensity. (That’s where he would play really well with Neil Young; the flint to his steel.) I love where “Long Time Gone” is going, but then it just sort of ends. It feels like unfinished idea. This could’ve been jammed on and I wouldn’t have minded, but this isn’t that kind of record.
Crosby, Stills & Nash closes with what I’ve always thought to be a toothless finale for such a body of work, 49 Bye Byes. “Country Girl” and “Everybody I Love You” closing Deja Vu blows “49” out of the water. Instead, I’d like to close things out by attempting to answer this question: why did Crosby, Stills & Nash hit as hard as it – and they – did?
For the music industry, Crosby, Stills & Nash were real kick in the pants. For about decade, 1957 to 1967-ish, it was all about the single. Sgt. Pepper, “the White Album,” Electric Ladyland, the first Led Zeppelin album, and now Crosby, Stills & Nash were proof that the tides had turned. The numbers this album and other juggernauts of the late Sixties pulled shifted dynamic between labels and their artists. Record labels started pumping more money into the album, and the Seventies became The Album Decade as a result.
Obviously there’s the Woodstock of it all. About that morning, Croz said,
“My feelings about Woodstock aren’t particularly strong, but it’s significant to remember the amazing feeling that prevailed, a very encouraging thing about human beings. We haven’t managed to do it before or since, but for that one moment we did something that tells you what’s possible with human beings. For three days there was a very good feeling among half a million people. There were no serious fights. There wasn’t a single reported rape. There was no real violence. There was no murder...There was not one sign of the normal bad behavior that goes along with large groups of people.”
quoted from: David Crosby with Carl Gottlieb, Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby (1988.)
Crosby, Stills & Nash became the poster boys of that “free-love” thing. But why them? They were long down the line of a procession of Laurel Canyon hit-makers with that same ethos. The Byrds sang “Turn! Turn! Turn,” the Buffalo Springfield had “For What It’s Worth,” the Doors had “Light My Fire.” There was the band Love, and Joni Mitchell. 1969 was the year of the guitar hero: Clapton, Hendrix, Page, and Beck. Pete Townsend’s out here clobbering Abbie Hoffman over the head with his guitar, and here come these three guys with their ponchos and acoustic guitars. They were a breath of fresh air.
Consider the harsh world this soft group came into. Weeks before the Hollies crashed the Whiskey back in 1968, the North Vietnamese stunned those watching the war on their TV sets with the Tet Offensive. Another 10,500 troops were sent to Vietnam after peace talks failed. The assassinations of MLK and RFK and the disaster that was the 1968 DNC rocked the nation. Then came Nixon’s election in November. Just before Crosby, Stills & Nash was released in May of 1969, hundreds of American soldiers died at Hill 937. The gore was so horrific, survivors came back calling it Hamburger Hill. The same week as Woodstock, the Tate-LaBianca murders robbed Laurel Canyon of its innocence. As soon as Crosby, Stills & Nash returned from Woodstock and the Dick Cavett Show, Crosby bought a gun, took Christine Hinton and left the Canyon. Then came the trials of the Chicago 8, which Judy Collins herself testified at, and the trials of Charles Manson and his accomplices. All the while, the threat of the Cold War loomed overhead. Why were Crosby, Stills & Nash so big at the turn of the decade? We were desperate for something good to hang onto. These guys, in their denim, flannel, and suede singing in cozy harmonies comforted an audience of disillusioned, traumatized young people. Why is this album “it?” Because three equally-powerful songwriters discovered their respective abilities to write about and for their times, all at the exact same time.
As for Crosby, Stills & Nash themselves, they only spent about four years total of half a century as a functioning band. The rest were spent various solo ventures, spinoffs, and doing everything but reuniting ’til they could resist the magic no longer. The kicker is, they only felt the magic this one time on this one album. I love Deja Vu. I prefer it to this album. But it’s not the same. Deja Vu’s energy is heavy. It’s smoke, incense, death in a dark room. Crosby, Stills & Nash has the windows open. It smells of fresh air, oranges, and a touch of weed. It’s the last whisper of Laurel Canyon’s freedom before cocaine, heroin, and Manson snuffed it out. Isn’t it such a beautiful thing to witness, even from afar?
What I think the most people forget is that long before the yacht rock and reunion tours, Crosby, Stills & Nash were one of rock-and-roll’s great experiments. They were an experiment in being a non-group. The three individual names, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and the breath of reverence between each. The group full of guys who didn’t want to be in another group! In the decade’s twilight, Crosby, Stills & Nash were an ultimate symbol of the 1960s ethos. One could do anything they liked with anyone they pleased, but could join together to invoke the power of the collective. Free love, maaan. What could possibly go wrong?
Personal favorites: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Guinnevere,” “You Don’t Have To Cry,” “Wooden Ships,” “Lady Of The Island”
– AD ☆
Watch the full episode above!
Browne, David. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup. New York: Da Capo, 2019.
Collins, Judy. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music. New York: Random House, 2011.
Crosby, David, with Carl Gottlieb. Long Time Gone: The Autobiography of David Crosby. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Doggett, Peter. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. New York: Atria, 2024 ed.
Einarson, John, with Richie Furay. For What It’s Worth: The Story of Buffalo Springfield. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2004 ed.
Ellwood, Alison, dir. Laurel Canyon: A Place In Time. Epix: Amazon Prime, 2020.
Nash, Graham. Wild Tales. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2013 ed.
Walker, Michael. Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood. London: Faber and Faber, 2006.
in that back of the limousine photo Graham is wearing Joni's knitted hat i swear! that's so cool!... actually it's not really: looks silly.
this is one of my favourites of the written versions. the structure using the helplessy hoping lyric as chapter headings is so apposite. i achieved a fuller understanding of the suite and i love the phrase " graphic honesty", honestly.
i don't mind Marrakesh being 'there' because no matter where it was sequenced it was gonna be a jump. i love big serious bands that have singles in them: pumpkins with 1979, tonite ( is that how they...) king crimson getting on peak tv with catfood.
whoopa hey meshy goosh goosh. and with that...
Thanks AD…