Available to buy in ebook format 'Change Partners - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of CSNY' by clicking here!
On which Nash proves himself to be a ‘beginner’ at relationships but a dab hand as a songwriter…
Track Listing: Military Madness/ Better Days/ Wounded Bird/ I Used To Be A King/ Be Yourself// Simple Man/ Man In The Mirror/ There’s Only One/ Sleep Song/ Chicago/ We Can Change The World (UK and US
"In
a downstairs room in Ormskirk, not too far from the Northern sea, I was a-reviewing
this album and this album was reviewing me, military madness still killing our
country, solitary sadness creeping over me, while you wear the coat of
questions till the answer top hat appears to thee..."
There's a lot going on in this album's front cover.
Keen photographer Graham Nash is trying to shoot a self-portrait and finds
himself shooting a typically mad scene from his current life. He's in a crowded
dressing room, with objects piled up all around him and in front of the mirror,
but weirdly enough the picture seems to have been taken...outside! (Either that
of Graham's dressing room is lined with wallpaper the colour of trees). Graham
is now a 'star', a prized bachelor about town and a rockstar God and now a city
boy at the heart of the California/San Francisco music scenes. But when he
looks back into the camera all he can see is the English 'country boy' everyone
thought he'd left behind. It's no coincidence that this troubled-soul searching
album should return so frequently to the moment when Nash's life changed in
1968 and the awful pull and tug between staying with the familiar he'd known
all his life (England, The Hollies, his first wife Rose) and the new and
exciting (California, Crosby and Stills, the second love of his life Joni
Mitchell). After all, Graham was almost back in the same boat - while he'd made
a new life for himself in America his second band (CSNY if you hadn't guessed)
had broken up spectacularly and in 1971 seemed as if they would never ever get
back together. He's just split up with Joni after an intense couple of years
together and is alone and single for the first time since around 1964 (nobody
is quite sure when Nash married Rose Eccles, but it was no later than 1965 and
knowing Nash he's have married the minute he turned 21). He must have been
asking 'what on earth was all that for?' It's no coincidence either that this
album starts with those power lines reminding himself and his audience of where
it all began: 'In an upstairs room in Blackpool, by the side of the Northern
sea...' And it's certainly no coincidence that this album is wittily titled
'Songs For Beginners' - here comes one of the most famous musicians of his age,
forced into making his first every solo album at the comparatively late age of
29, suddenly realising that he barely knows anything about the world and how it
works just yet. Finally, it's also no coincidence that the camera is left full
on in shot as 'Songs For Beginners' is one of those albums that tries it's
hardest to pull the wool out from over our eyes and let us know what being a
'star' is really like. What's more Nash then takes that mirror and shines it on
his audience: 'this is you as well as me' the album seems to be saying, 'what
are we all going to do about it?' The result is one of the best and certainly
most likeable albums in the CSNY canon.
The various members of CSN/Y could do no wrong in
the early part of the 1970s, whether together or apart. Coming hard on the
heels of best-selling works like David Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My
Name, Neil Young’s After The Goldrush and the
always-great-with-album-names Stephen Stills, Beginners has been rather
forgotten and neglected, released in the midst of these other great albums, but
it’s easily the equal of the other releases of this prolific period. Nash is
back to his Butterfly best for the most part of this album; swapping the
commercial songs and romantic epics he sang on the first two CSN/Y records for
something a bit deeper and introspective, more like the songs produced by his
comrades than Marrakesh Express and Our House (although the tunes
are still as catchy and lovable as ever). Like his companions, Nash is
surrounded by a cast of thousands on this album including Crosby on harmonies,
Neil Young on – unusually - piano (Neil’s credited as ‘Joe Yankee’ on this
album sleeve, for reasons best known to himself), the ubiquitous Jerry Garcia
(did he ever go home in 1971, because he seems to appear on just about every
American record that came out in the early 1970s?!?), the soulful PP Arnold who
seems to crop up on this list with some regularity (The Small Faces back her on
a single in 1968 and she becomes part of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters' solo band
in the 1990s/00s) and long-time Nash collaborator Terry Reid, a forgotten
songwriter who shares similar strengths of melodic melodies and lyrical lyrics.
(Terry would have been a huge star himself if he hadn’t been hit by a run of
bad luck worse even than The Small Faces', including record companies
collapsing while on the verge of releasing his records, to leaving bands just
on the brink of becoming worldwide megastars; its nice to see he’s made a bit
of a comeback with some well received gigs and albums in the last five years
and his The River album is another one recommended to album archive
fanatics – although interestingly, while his songs are close cousins of Nash’s
warmth and intelligence, his deep soulful and dramatic voice couldn’t be less
like Nash’s catchy, gently emotional alto if it tried). Like Crosby and Stills'
first solo albums, however this is very much an album of guest stars with Nash
in charge throughout - from Beginners’ self-taken portrait on the sleeve
to the deeply felt tunes and the clever complex lyrical rhymes within, this
album could only have been made by one man. Nash’s later albums have more than
their fair share of masterpieces, but this album is still the most consistent
of his five solo records, simply brimming with ideas from beginning to end and
rarely putting a foot wrong throughout. We CSNY fans were spoilt between
1969-71: here's another very good reason why this quartet were the best band in
the universe for one brief shining moment.
It may seem strange that someone who had spent all
of their adult life in the music business and was celebrating the release of
their 10th album in eight years (that’s eight with the Hollies, one
with CSN and 1 with CSNY) chose to call their debut solo effort Songs For
Beginners. The album name isn’t about beginnings in a songwriting sense,
although its true that as Nash’s first solo album this LP does account for a
fresh start to some extent. The ‘beginners’ part of this title seems to come
from the ‘re-birth’ theme of the lyrics, with Nash’s characters all coming to
some sort of new realisation about the world, looking at it anew and finding it
a deeper, scarier or more beautiful place than they had first imagined. Nash
continues his recent creative re-awakening started in his CSN days and like Cat
Stevens before him writes as if he has suddenly found a new insight into life
that makes his pop-star past could never give him. There’s definitely a sense
of starting anew in the lyrics on this album and a sort of head-scratching
puzzlement about what the 60s were all about. Time and again on this album the
world proves to be very different below the surface than it appeared to be at
the time: for instance the military macho posing of warfare that seemed such a
faraway part of Nash's childhood is now everywhere again and he views the trial
of the Chicago Eight in a very different way to most of the Nixon-friendly
papers. More than just the outer world, though, this is a highly personal album
where Nash is still kicking himself for leaving something that was
nearly-perfect for a chance at something perfect that turned out not to be
perfect at all, sighing over both the upheavals of 1968 and his recent split
with Joni ('I Used To Be A King', for instance, realises that even the
miserable existence of The Hollies' 'King Midas - who turns everything to gold
but finds it doesn't bring him anything but misery - was a more preferable
existence to this one). All of that ends up with the pithy statement: 'Though
you're where you want to be, you're not where you belong'. For 'Songs For
Beginners' is a very thoughtful album, arguably the most reflective in Nash's
back catalogue and gave fans a chance to see that behind the fun of 'Marrakesh
Express', the seriousness of 'Teach Your Children' and the warmth of 'Our
House' beat a very tender and emotional
heart and a very fragile shell. Nash's most emotional record by some margin
(he'll only be this upset again on parts of 'Wild Tales', which may or may not
be grieving of a different kind...), 'Songs For Beginners' is a special record
and easily Nash's finest solo half hour.
As we've seen, Joni Mitchell is a key figure on this
album, even though unusually she doesn't sing on it (she's conspicuous by her
absence in fact and will be back in some style on 'Wild Tales'). In many ways
the songs here are the downside to Nash's utopian dreams of life with Joni as
heard in the song Our House, their
cosy comfortable easy way of living descending into chaos as the pair end up
rowing about all sorts of things (including which of the creatives got to have
time at the all-important piano they shared; a lot of this album seems to have
been written for piano, perhaps out of necessity or perhaps out of penance, with
Nash trying to sound more like his ex than ever; funnily enough though Nash
brings Neil Young - under the typically erroneous pseudonym 'Joe Yankee' - to
play those parts for him). By 1971 Nash had taken up with singer Rita Coolidge
(who is on this album, as one of the members of the 'We Can Change The World'
choir), figuring that Joni is just too much trouble and too full of her own
career not his. (Nash's later response on this album can be best heard on
'Simple Man': 'I just wanna hold you, I don't wanna hold you down'). This too
will have ructions: Rita wasn't single, she's been Stills' girlfriend for some
time yet seemed only too eager to elope with Nash (Stephen blew his top
especially over the speed and comments from Graham that 'she didn't really love
him', CSNY dissolved less than amicably in the madness reported by Crosby on his solo track 'Cowboy Movie' and
Nash discovered that she wasn't the one for him either). While Rita seems to
have been ;largely oblivious of the drama she caused to the CSNY family unit,
Joni for her part sounds as miserable as her partner. I came to Joni's work
late, long after getting to know everything written by Graham and still don't
own everything she did but her 1970/71 period is especially haunting, full of
similar ghosts and spectres to the 'Beginners' album. Most remarkable of all is
her yuletide 1970 song 'River' (spot on for when these album songs were written
too), looking out at everyone else planting Christmas Trees and being merry
when all she wants to do is sob (her final verse 'I'm so hard to handle, I'm
selfish and I'm sad, now I've gone and lost the best baby that I'm ever going
to have' could well have been taken from this similarly melancholy guilt-laden
album). Nash is effectively left to begin again.
In fact, Beginners comes about as close to
bitter recrimination as the diplomatic Nash ever got to on record, but it’s
self-doubt creeping in on this album for pretty much the first time that makes
for the most memorable lines: ‘Humble pie is always hard to swallow with your
pride’, ‘It’s because I built my life on sand and watched it crumble into
dust’, ‘The way that I feel all my hang-ups are down’; all these lyrics are a
logical culmination of Nash’s growing self-awareness in the Hollies’ late
period and whose personal songwriting was in part interrupted by CSN’s social
feelings and universal subject matters. This album is generally less like the
social conscience of Teach Your Children and effectively says 'I can't
even teach myself'; it's more like the Hollies’ glorious flop single King
Midas In Reverse, full of songs where belief turns out to be misguided and
accepted facts turn out to be misinterpreted. This songwriting trait had been
interrupted first by the late-60s need for ‘safe’ Holies singles like Jennifer
Eccles and Listen To Me and later the glorious burst of late-60s
sunshine when CSN brought light into Nash’s life as well as record collectors
the world over—but its perhaps a more integral part of Nash’s songwriting
outlook than both of these styles and one he returns to, off and on, throughout
his solo catalogue. Nash's thoughts: make peace with yourself, as best you can,
for in the end it's with you you have to live.
There was also no doubt a bit of professional pride
at stake. Nash had left the stability of The Hollies for the turbulence of CSNY
not just because of their lack of boundaries and a chance to shake the world
but because he felt sure their warring natures could be tamed (every CSNY
biography will tell you that, despite being the one who shook The Hollies out
of their comfort zones with wild ideas, Nash was the stable one in CSNY, the
workhorse who kept them all together). Now CSNY have split, this time because
of something's he's done. I sincerely doubt there'd have been another CSNY
album before 1974 (when there ever so nearly was one and the split wasn't
Nash's fault) but there might have been without that sudden division between
Stills and Nash. Instead of conquering the world in 1971, using music to bring
peace to the world and boot Richard Nixon out of office, CSNY have splintered,
leaving the under-dogs they'd always stood up for with four separate voices
that had put far less pressure on world politics. Add in the horrors of the
Altamont festival that Nash had just seen saw first-hand in December 1969, (despite
CSNY’s performance being cut from the film and most traces being cut from band
biographies since, the quartet were most definitely there), the lingering
darkness during and after 'Deja Vu', the
growing move in 1970s music away from peace-and-love harmonies into something
harder and noisier and the continuing drama of Watergate and Vietnam despite
CSN’s belief they could change the outcome of both and you can see why Nash
might not be sounding his usual perky self on this album. This isn't just
picking yourself and carrying on, it's trying to learn how to function as a
solo artist for the first time in a landscape where all the rules have changed.
Nash is also beginning again.
In anybody else’s hands this collection of
self-kicking sentiment and self-failure lyrics would be a sob story, even
without Jerry Garcia’s heavy lashings of pedal-steel to make the mood even more
mournful. Yet Nash is also at his creative commercial best here, dispelling the
doom and gloom cobwebs with some bright sing-a-long melodies that complement
rather than compete with each song’s quiet sadness and the presence of the last
great CSNY we-can-change-the-world singalong on Chicago is the last time
any member of CSN sound quite so sure of themselves and their optimistic ideals
again. The year 1971 may have
been the beginning of the end for the huge part CSN/Y had to play on the
world’s stage, but one listen to this album and its respective Crosby, Stills
and Young solo albums will show you what a great new beginning there could have
been for the foursome had things turned out just a little differently. 'Songs
For Beginners' is special because it does have it's cake and eats it: Nash as a
writer grows like never before, finding new layers in himself and pursuing his
need to console his guilty conscience rather than simply comment on world
politics or his latest love affair and yet he never sacrifices that winning
commercial sound that had made his work so popular with fans.
There's been a growing feeling, especially amongst
'non' fans, that Nash was a lightweight who joined CSN purely to provide a high
voice the other's didn't have and the occasional hit single to keep them in the
public eye. But at his best Nash is weirder than Crosby, even more melodic than
Stills and a lot easier on the ear than Neil, whilst being as deep as original
and as moving as all three of them. Like Crosby's 'If Only I Could Remember My
Name' and 'Stephen Stills', I'm not sure if I'd ever trade this album for the
trio and quartet albums of 1969 and 1970 so you could argue that this is in
some ways a backwards step, the four individuals less potent separately than
together. But if this is a step backwards then I'll take it any day, being
another of those remarkably consistent early 70s CSN/Y albums ('Man In The
Mirror' is the only song here that's less than fabulous) and covers so much new
ground. What's interesting too is what comes next: even the few people who
realised what a melancholic album this was assumed, 'well Nash is just upset
over Joni - he'll be back to his normal self any day now!' As it turned out -
and for a variety of reasons - it's not
until as late as 1975 that Nash will return to his old bouncy self. 'Songs For
Beginners' and the causes behind it had a lasting effect on songwriter as well
as audience and is an impressively honest open record that deserves to be even
better known that it already is (funnily enough it followed Crosby's record
released just before it throughout its whole charts, peaking one place lower in
the UK and three in the US, still one of the highest charting of all CSNY
records).
The
Songs:
[60] Military Madness
starts the album as it means to go on – a relatively famous, catchy song that
in typical Nash style marries the personal and the universal together in one
place. As Nash sings on this track, he really was born ‘in an upstairs room in
Blackpool’ while his dad was away fighting in World War Two and, just as he
probably did in his childhood, can’t quite get his head round the fact that
people are still fighting wars somewhere round the planet every hour of the day
no matter how many years have passed by. It’s interesting, bearing in mind the
above comments of self-analysis possibly going on in Nash’s head at the time,
to hear Nash going back to his upbringing on this song for pretty much the
first time and the line about never ‘losing my pride’ despite ‘losing’ his
country of birth when leaving for CSN speaks volumes. This song, a long time
CSN/Y fan favourite, was surely too personal for Nash to put on a group record
but more than deserves its place in their ever-expanding play-list. A dollop of
spiky guitar off-sets Nash’s rockabilly piano playing on this recording,
playing the song’s seemingly deliberately simplified tune, perhaps to emphasise
the need for humanity to find simple solutions to their problems that don’t
involve weaponry and terror. PP Arnold pops up on the chorus, her soulful tones
turning the song into a gospel-pop hybrid, making this plea for peace something
of a spiritual quest as well as a political one.
[61] Better Days
is a far less well known song but it shouldn’t be – Young’s delicate piano
matched to Graham singing at the bottom of his high register makes for a lovely
yearning song, with the underlying tension finally broken by a sudden angry
switch to the chorus. The lyrics are interesting too - more than two years
after he left England, The Hollies and his first wife, Graham seems to be
having second thoughts about the decision now that CSNY are no more, despite
recognising the pull his new American lifestyle has for him (‘Though you’re
where you want to be, you’re not where you belong’). Nash isn’t known for
writing brooding drama in his songs, but on the few occasions he has used this
style it’s nearly always been a success (I’m thinking Cathedral and Wind
On The Water here in particular). Nash's almost painfully depressed vocal
right at the bottom of his range is particularly striking, as is the heavy
thudding organ sound throughout that sounds like the mother of all hangovers
(and highly fitting given that it's just sinking into Nash that 'now that you
know it's nowhere what's to stop you coming home?' and back to England).
[62] Wounded Bird is
more of the same, but this time it’s just Graham and an acoustic guitar,
singing a wordy song about how man succeeds through being humble (it obviously
wasn’t written with CSNY in mind then!) The lyric is a little too
self-conscientiously poetic for its own good (’you’ll wear the coat of
questions till the answer hat is here’) but is not without its charms,
especially the clever half-line rhymes and the fact that Nash sounds like your
big sister here, urging the listener back into the ring of life for another
thrashing. Though ostensibly sung to someone else (Joni?), I'm sure that Nash
is singing about himself in the third person here, trying to urge himself
onwards with a pep talk ('Stand your ground, I think you've got the guts to win!') but this
time trying to make himself 'wait' to check his would-be lover feels the same
and isn't just infatuated (is he singing for Rita on the line 'You must learn
to turn the key before she'll let you in?') Joni though must be the 'wounded
bird', lashing out because of her own problems and with Nash getting caught in
the way. The result is a clever and moving song, if not quite as deep and
detailed as some of the others here. I’m still looking for an answer hat to
wear, by the way, I don’t know about you but I can’t get this darned coat of
questions off at all!
[63] I Used To Be A King is
by far and away the album’s highlight, with a wonderfully downcast, cyclical
riff superbly performed by Nash and Crosby with various members of the Grateful
Dead providing the backing. The lyrics are another slice from Nash’s humble pie
pile, but this time they sound more honest and sincere. Once again lamenting
the fact that he ditched his past for an uncertain present, Nash even adds in a
nice lyrical touch of the hat to his last ‘progressive’ Hollies song King
Midas In Reverse, saying that
actually he did use to be a king who turned everything to gold, but like his
earlier song things just turn to dust once more. As the song has so many
verses, something that adds greatly to the feeling of never-ending untapped
grief coming through in the song, Nash cleverly keeps the piece together by
using two slightly different lyrics in the chorus, a trick that allows him to
really give way to his emotions in the last verse. Garcia’s pedal steel,
already a star on several CSN as well as Grateful Dead Records, is at its best
here too, mournful without being over the top.
[64a] Be Yourself
rounds the first side out in style, with this song a co-write with 60s folkie
Terry Reid. The two writers are quite similar in style (if not in voice) and
worked together on lots of songs, most of which were booted out by the Hollies
when Nash tried to record them in 1968, leaving this as the only official
Nash-Reid song-writing credit on an album. Understandably, unlike most of the
album, this sounds like a typically Nash song only more so– a long list of
complicated words that somehow still manage to rhyme with each other, married
to another it-sounds-like-its-always-existed tune and all held together by a
simple life-affirming chorus, celebrating the differences that make each of us
the unique specimens we are. Listen out too for Nash's lines about 'a prodigal
son coming home' - was he really in the process of moving back to Britain as
this line suggests?
[66a] Man In The Mirror
is rather less impressive, so its strange to think that it was the one song
from this album CSNY ever did regularly in their tours together (one such
ragged recording even found it’s way onto the CSN box-set, just about the only
questionable judgement among that set’s 110-odd tracks). The track tries hard
to reach back to earlier songs about the gap between the performer and his
public image (Clown on the Hollies album For Certain Because is
the earliest example and is even name-checked in this later song), but can’t
quite get beyond the title theme that the performer is in many ways the
‘reverse’ of the real ‘him’ (mirrors and being in reverse play a large part in
Nash’s writing in this period—interestingly the front cover for this LP is in
fact a ‘mirror’ image, a photo off Graham’s reflection rather than the ‘real’
him). Like many of Nash’s worst songs, this track leans towards country, a
style whose often faux-melancholia and OTT drama only works for a select few
and certainly doesn’t work for a singer as subtle as Nash, with Young’s guest
spot on this track finding him busy practising for the sound he’s about to
cement on the country-rock hybrid Harvest the next year. Garcia too is
here again, getting his money’s worth out of that pedal steel guitar on its
last appearance of many on this list. Another gloriously life-affirming chorus
just about rescues the song from mediocrity, however, with a sudden change of
tempo and the presence of a chorus sending the pulses racing, albeit only
briefly. One question about this song; I can usually follow Graham’s lyrics
quite well, but what on earth does the line ‘In the middle of nowhere I found
me a tree and the fruit that we live on reminds me of me’ meant to mean?
Despite its interesting central idea, this is a fruitless track, in more ways
than one.
[67] There’s Only One
is, like Be Yourself, another long list of clever rhymes vaguely jumbled
together to tell a story, only this time it’s slower and slightly more
sinister-sounding, with enough of a story to reward close attention. This time
its Nash back on the ivories for this stately well-arranged song, which adds in
another instrument or singer in every verse. The chorus is yet again the most
convincing moment of the track, with a true CSN-ish plea for equality and an
early glimmer of Nash’s ‘no nukes’ demonstrations and benefits in the 1980s,
with the warning that we only have one planet to live on, muck that one up and
we’re lost. Nash had obviously been listening closely to the Jefferson Airplane
Blows Against the Empire project going on just a couple of albums higher
on this list (which Nash partly mixed for them) – from this song’s gentle
warnings of Armageddon to the last verse about building up mankind from nothing
all over again (‘Do we have the grace to begin our race in another place face
to face?’) this song sounds like a close cousin.
[68] Sleep Song,
a Hollies reject stretching back to 1968, is a slightly risqué composition for
its time about two lovers together the morning after a romantic evening, which
just about manages to get away with its not-quite-there acoustic accompaniment
and near-sentimentality, courtesy of Nash’s expressive vocal. Rejected outright
by the Hollies, who would indeed have offended a large part of their core
fan-base had this song about disrobing been released on one of their albums,
this song was in the running for both CSN/Y albums, although so simple and
sparse is this arrangement that it’s hard to work out what the others would
have added to this simple song (bar some Crosby-esque ba-da-daing in the song’s
very David-esque instrumental passage, perhaps). A quiet, intimate portrait of
the beginning of a romantic encounter, this song is the missing bridge between
Nash’s pre and post Hollies work, with a very Hollies-esque ear-catching vocal
stretch on the chorus-line (You know I’ll be the-e-e-re’) and a very CSN-era
use of personal pronouns in the song, with Nash in first-person as the narrator,
not telling a story through another’s eyes as he would have done come 1966 or
thereabouts. A Sleep Song’s sequel - Another Sleep Song,
available on follow-up album Wild Tales (1974) – is an even better stab
at the same idea, being just as cosily intimate but twice as mournful and
hypnotically menacing.
After nearly an album’s worth of introspective
ballads, there’s nothing left for Graham to do but rock out with another quite
well known song, [69] Chicago.
A plea to Stills and Young to join him and Crosby in playing a benefit on
behalf of the Chicago Eight (and, possibly, a message from the group’s renowned
diplomat urging his old band to get back together again in order to ‘change the
world’), amazingly the pair of musicians still refused to come even after
hearing this song, leaving benefits largely to Crosby-Nash for the rest of the
1970s. Actually it wasn't the counter-cultural figures 'The Chicago Eight'
(also known as 'The Chicago Seven' after Bobby Searle was indicted on a
separate charge of contempt of court) that included Abbie Hoffman and Jerry
Rubin that Nash was trying to protect (though he undoubtedly supported their
belief in 'freedom of speech' that so scared Nixon). Instead he was protesting
against the treatment of the protestor's protestors, whose outbursts in court
were frowned upon too, although he does mention Searle directly, a 'brother'
who was 'bound and gagged and chained to a chair' (which really was what the
judge ordered in court; the trial resulted in that great and very CSNY quote
when one of the men were told off for swearing on court: 'Your idea of justice
is the only obscenity in this room!') The trial resulted in good news
eventually: while five of the men were convicted, all of these sentences were
overthrown in 1972 after finding that judge Hoffman was 'biased' against them
all.
Long admired
as Nash’s political riposte to Ohio, Young’s famously barbed CSNY song
about Nixon’s betrayal of American standards and free speech, this song is actually
less about the individual benefit show Nash wants his friends to appear at than
a general song about the 60s revolutionary zeal hitting a brick wall in the
1970-71 period, when politics and music
didn’t seem to mix too well. Chicago ends with the desperate
hippie plea ‘we can change the world’, sadly just about the last time that any
singer will be able to say this with any conviction, but the fact that we know
Nash and his comrades didn’t quite change the world doesn’t detract at all from
this simple, charming song. A pounding piano riff and an ominous walking-pace
trot merely add to the desperation of the piece but that catchy singalong
chorus dilutes the despair of the rest of the song, transforming it back into
hope. Typically Nash, he even pulls off the same trick in the lyrics, telling
it like it is (‘its dying…’), before adding an optimistic twist at the end
(‘…to get better’). Graham even revives the song’s chorus for a Hey Jude-like
minute-long singalong at the album’s end (Indexed separately as [70] 'We Can Change The World')
just when you think the track is over, something which is guaranteed to have
you singing all the way to your CD player’s repeat button. Magic.
When you hear the calibre of the work Nash and his
comrades were writing in 1971 it’s hard not to agree with him: put the songs
that CSN and Y made independently all together on one album and these songs
really could have changed the world, even more than CSNY already had by 1970.
Well, maybe, perhaps I don’t want the world to change if it’s so perfect it no
longer inspires such classic songs of hope, despair and outrage. CSNY for
America’s greatest band of the period? World’s greatest band of any period,
more like…
A Now Complete List Of CSN/Y and Solo Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:
'Crosby, Stills and Nash' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-29-crosby-stills-and-nash-1969.html
'Deja Vu' (CSNY) (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-34-crosby-stills-nash-and-young.html
‘Stephen Stills’ (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/stephen-stills-1970.html
'If Only I Could Remember My Name' (Crosby) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-45-david-crosby-if-only-i-could.html
'Songs For Beginners' (Nash) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-46-graham-nash-songs-for.html
'Stephen Stills II' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-48-stephen-stills-ii-1971.html
‘Graham Nash, David
Crosby’ (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/graham-nash-david-crosby-1972.html
'Stephen Stills-Manassas' (1972)http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-51-stephen-stillsmanassas-1972.html
'Wild Tales' (Nash) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-graham.html
'Stephen Stills-Manassas' (1972)http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-51-stephen-stillsmanassas-1972.html
'Wild Tales' (Nash) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/news-views-and-music-issue-75-graham.html
'Down The Road' (Stephen
Stills/Manassas) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/stephen-stillsmanassas-down-by-road-1973.html
'Stills' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-65-stephen-stills-stills-1975.html
'Wind On The Water' (Crosby-Nash) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-67-crosby-nash-wind-on-water.html
'Stills' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/review-65-stephen-stills-stills-1975.html
'Wind On The Water' (Crosby-Nash) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-67-crosby-nash-wind-on-water.html
'Illegal Stills' (Stills)
(1976)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stephen-stills-illegal-stills-1976.html
'Whistling Down The Wire'
(Crosby-Nash) (1976)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/david-crosby-graham-nash-whistling-down.html
'Long May You Run' (Stills-Young) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-stills.html
'CSN' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-70-crosby-stills-and-nash-csn.html
'Long May You Run' (Stills-Young) (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-33-stills.html
'CSN' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-70-crosby-stills-and-nash-csn.html
'Thoroughfare Gap'
(Stills) (1978) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/stephen-stills-thoroughfare-gap-1978.html
'Earth and Sky' (Nash)
(1980)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/graham-nash-earth-and-sky-1980.html
'Daylight Again' (CSN) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-131-crosby.html
'Daylight Again' (CSN) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/news-views-and-music-issue-131-crosby.html
'Right By You' (Stills)
(1984) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/stephen-stills-right-by-you-1984.html
'Innocent Eyes' (Nash)
(1986)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/graham-nash-innocent-eyes-1986.html
'American Dream' (CSNY)
(1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-american.html
'Oh Yes I Can!' (Crosby)
(1989)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/07/david-crosby-oh-yes-i-can-1989.html
'Live It Up!' (CSN) (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-104-crosby.html
'Live It Up!' (CSN) (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/news-viedws-and-music-issue-104-crosby.html
'Stephen Stills Alone'
(1991)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/stephen-stills-alone-1991.html
'A Thousand Roads'
(Crosby) (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/david-crosby-thousand-roads-1993.html
‘After The Storm’ (CSN)
(1994) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-final-review-crosby-stills-and-nash.html
'CPR' (Crosby Band) (1998)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/cpr-david-crosby-band-1998.html
'Looking Forward' (1999) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-looking.html
‘So Like Gravity (CPR,
2001)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/cpr-just-like-gravity-2001.html
‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html
‘Songs For Survivors’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/graham-nash-songs-for-survivors-2002.html
'Crosby*Nash' (2004) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/news-views-and-music-issue-21-crosby.html
‘Man Alive’ (S) (2005) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/stephen-stills-man-alive-2005.html
'Deja Vu Live' (CD) (2008) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/news-views-and-music-issue-1-crosby.html
'Deja Vu Live' (DVD) (2008) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008_09_21_archive.html
'Reflections' (Graham Nash Box Set) (2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-22-graham.html
'Demos' (CSN) (2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/news-views-and-music-issue-41-crosby.html
'Manassas: Pieces' (2010) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-52-manassas.html
‘Carry On’ (Stephen Stills Box Set) (2013) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/stephen-stills-carry-on-box-set-2013.html
'Croz' (Crosby) (2014) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/david-crosby-croz-2014album-review.html
'CSNY 74' (Recorded 1974 Released 2014)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/crosby-stills-nash-and-young-csny-74.html
'This Path Tonight' (Nash) (2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/graham-nash-this-path-tonight-2016.html
'Lighthouse' (Crosby)
(2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/david-crosby-lighthouse-2016.html
‘Sky Trails’ (Crosby)
(2017) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/david-crosby-sky-trails-2017.html
‘Here
If You Listen’ (Crosby) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/10/david-crosby-and-friends-here-if-you.html
The Best Unreleased CSNY
Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/csny-best-unreleased-tracks-news-views.html
Surviving TV Appearances (1969-2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/csny-surviving-tv-appearances-1969-09.html
Non-Album Recordings (1962-2009)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_6.html
Live/Compilation/Rarities Albums Part One
(1964-1980)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young.html
Live/Compilations/Rarities
Albums Part Two (1982-2012)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/crosby-stills-nash-and-sometimes-young_20.html
Essay: The Superest Of
Super Groups?
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/csny-essay-superest-of-super-groups.html
Five Landmark Concerts and
Three Key Cover Versions
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/csny-five-landmark-concerts-and-three.html
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