The artist Graham Nash gets nervous about talking to: “I’ve met him many times”
Graham Nash didn’t start his career intending to make poignant music. Instead, when he initially started playing with the band The Hollies, he just wanted people to dance.
“I’m realising more and more as I get older just how good The Hollies were,” he admitted, “They were a band, even though I was part of the band, we wanted to have as much fun on stage as possible, and we wanted our audience to feel the same thing. We wanted them to shake their ass and dance, and sing. That’s fine with me. Even today, I love it when people sing my songs back to me.”
Who knows what Graham Nash’s career would have ended up looking like had he not met Stephen Stills and David Crosby? Would he have wound up continuing to make this kind of fun-filled music? Potentially, as it wasn’t until he combined his voice with his two musical counterparts that he realised he should also try to capture more socially relevant topics within his writing.
“I was born and raised on the outskirts of Manchester, and I heard a magical sound when me and David and Stephen put our three voices together to try and make one voice,” said Nash. “And when I heard that I had to go back to England, leave The Hollies and instead go back to that magical sound that we had created.”
Since then, while Graham Nash has still made music that people can move to and dance to, his songs are much more layered than that. Up until his most recent album, NOW, which was released in 2023, he has continued to discuss any themes which are having a significant impact on his life. This means love, politics, and the hardships of life are all touched upon with Nash’s unique voice.
“I really still think every day about a quote by Nina Simone, who said, ‘Every artist, whether you’re a songwriter or a piano player or a sculptor or a painter, you have to reflect the times in which we live’,” said Nash during an interview with Far Out. “Unfortunately, the Trump administration is trying to destroy that ability to be able to reflect the times in which we live, because the times in which we live now, politically, is a huge part of our lives, and is gunna rule our lives for a long, long time.”
Graham Nash isn’t the only artist who tries to use their music to reflect the times that we currently live in; this is a practice that is used by a lot of artists, especially those in folk music. One of the best examples is Bob Dylan, who Bruce Springsteen once called the “father of my country” because of how well he was able to comment on the current state of America within his sound.
It seems that Graham Nash was a big fan as well, as he admitted that despite meeting Bob Dylan many times, his influence and ability with words meant he was always nervous about talking to him. It seems that it doesn’t matter what level of stardom you reach, Bob Dylan is always going to be an imposing figure.
“I’ve achieved quite a lot in my life, but I’m still a fan,” he concluded. “I still don’t know what to do around Bob Dylan, and I’ve met him many times. There are certain people in your life who mean enough for you to be intimidated.”
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