David Crosby’s favourite Stephen Stills song
The partnership between David Crosby and Stephen Stills was a volatile one at times, but the pair clearly had a lot of respect for each other and their songwriting abilities. Earning their stripes in The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, respectively, the pair are surely two of the most recognisable musicians of the 1960s counterculture movement. After forming the supergroup Crosby, Stills and Nash with Graham Nash of The Hollies, the pair cemented their position as some of the most notable musicians of the period.
Over the years, David Crosby gained a reputation for his outspoken views on politics, including voicing support for a conspiracy theory regarding the assassination of JFK whilst onstage with The Byrds.
As a result of his eagerness to always speak his mind, there were often rifts between him and other members of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Famously, Crosby fell out of favour with Neil Young, who joined the supergroup in 1969, when he referred to Young’s partner as a “purely poisonous predator”.
As with any four people who have spent most of their lives crammed on a tour bus together, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fell out a lot. After Crosby’s comments about Young’s girlfriend, Neil made the announcement that the band would never tour again. Although there had been constant arguments over the years, often as a result of Crosby’s comments, that seemed to be the final straw.
Despite their bickering, Stills and Young paid tribute to their former bandmate after his death earlier this year. Stills organised a benefit concert in memory of Crosby, inviting Young to play through some of their classic hits together. Speaking to The Independent about the loss of his friend, Stills commented, “There’s part of me that misses him dreadfully, and there’s part of me that thinks he got out of here just in time if you look at the world”.
The mutual respect between bandmates was always clear, even when they were at each other’s throats or in a period of not talking to each other. Back in 2022, Stephen Stills shared a video of the supergroup performing ‘So Begins the Task’ back in 1969. After being tagged in the comments, David Crosby – who was infamous for his use of social media – jumped on the thread to reveal that the track is “probably [his] favourite Stills song”.
Although he has sadly now passed away, the legacy David Crosby leaves on rock music, along with his CSNY counterparts, is untold. Whilst he may have caused the occasional rift between his bandmates, his respect for their respective songwriting abilities always shone through, and his admiration for ‘So Begins the Task’ is indicative of that.
