The 1960s band Graham Nash knew could never exist again: “I don’t see it anywhere”
Graham Nash never seemed to lose the sense of idealism that he had back in the 1960s.
Crosby, Stills and Nash may have had the reputation of being a bunch of hippies talking about the ongoing problems with the world, but even when the country seemed to be at its darkest, Nash was usually the one around with the kind of hopeful love song or a catchy tune that could put a smile on anyone’s face. Because even in times when things look dire, Nash could see the beauty in the world whenever he turned on his stereo.
Some of his favourite artists were born to make people smile, and even if he didn’t have the greatest track record all the time, he could still find something to love about everything in his record collection. Breaking up with Joni Mitchell was never going to be easy, but it would have been impossible to ignore a record like Blue, if only for the genius melodic lines that she wove throughout every single song.
The same could be said of what he listened to on all of those Beach Boys records. Brian Wilson was one of the few geniuses of pop music around at the time, and by the time that they had reached Pet Sounds, Nash was thinking that Wilson could take on the world whenever he came up with a catchy tune. And all of that seemed to go directly into what he would do with his supergroup.
Crosby, Stills and Nash weren’t interested in making a group that only made the most technical songs of all time, but when they harmonised, everything seemed to sound absolutely perfect. They weren’t afraid to get a little bit technical here and there, but as long as the song sounded great, that was all that mattered. Nash already had a knowledge of that from working with The Hollies, but The Beatles were the ones who opened everyone’s eyes to what could be done when they started thinking outside the box.
Nash had already got to see what the Fab Four sounded like when they were still a bar band in Liverpool, but by the time of Sgt Pepper’s and Abbey Road, they had started to become something much bigger than anyone could have dreamed. Every single song seemed like a new adventure, and by the time that they broke up in the late 1960s, it truly felt like a certain era of music had come to an end.
People like Nash may have been left to pick up the pieces and move on, but he felt that even today, there was no band that could ever touch what The Beatles did, saying, “[The music industry is] just completely changing as it always did and it always will. But there are certain things that are inevitable. I don’t think, personally, there’ll ever be a band as great as The Beatles ever again. I keep my ears open. I don’t see it anywhere. I see certain individuals creating great music, but I don’t see The Beatles.”
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. Some of the biggest names in music have been able to make their greatest songs as a reaction to what The Beatles did, and even if some of the biggest stars in the world weren’t a fan of the Fab Four, a lot of what they did back in the day made it possible for everyone else to feel free to express themselves in their own unorthodox way whenever they made a record.
So, really, The Beatles should be looked at in music history the same way that Citizen Kane is looked at for film lovers. No one is obligated to say that it’s the greatest thing the medium has ever created, but there’s no doubt that anyone serious about their craft has taken something from it at least once.
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