The fake 2010s singer David Crosby couldn’t stand watching: “It really doesn’t fucking do any goddamn good”
David Crosby was never going to mince his words, but what did you expect? The man made a career out of that very trait.
You could say, in fact, that he thrived on the very idea of conflict, and while that perhaps sounds overly callous or cruel, you then have to remember the list of people he got into fights with, which includes Neil Young, Graham Nash, Roger McGuinn, and many more; the point is that he was never afraid of making his voice heard, even if it also chalked up a few enemies along the way.
Of course, this is not to suggest that Crosby couldn’t be complimentary of people where he wanted to be, but those instances were far fewer and in-between compared to the times when he would let the full thrash of his wrath into the open. You had to brace yourself for impact because the strength of that tornado could easily knock you off your feet.
But then again, when you’ve been treading the boards of the music business for as long as Crosby and his cronies did, you have to become somewhat used to getting in the firing line from time to time. For the man himself, it felt like a sense of him being freed from his shackles, while for everyone else, it felt like the start of a war.
Potentially unexpectedly, Phoebe Bridgers was the first to face the flames, after Crosby saw her smashing up her guitar during a performance on Saturday Night Live and said in a 2021 interview, “It has nothing to do with the artist in question. I don’t even know who she is. I’ve never heard a bit of her music. She might be terrific, or she might be nothing. It doesn’t even have to do with the guitar, either. She broke a fake guitar, I’m sure.”
But in many ways, this was only the spark that led him off on a tangent. “What it has to do with is stupid theatrics onstage. It’s the same with that guy who used to pretend to bite the head off a chicken or something. Ozzy Osbourne?” he said with a hilarious lack of irony, as if he expected the ‘Prince of Darkness’ to ever be subtle or nuanced.
Yet whether it was biting heads off bats or smashing guitars up, Crosby’s thoughts were more than clear. “It’s gross, stupid theatrics onstage in place of, and instead of, the thing that you’re actually supposed to do, which is sing really great songs. It really doesn’t fucking do any goddamn good at all.”
That would go a long way in explaining why Crosby’s own theatrics were only in the verbal capacity. Ultimately, despite what some of his exploits might have suggested, he actually much preferred just to get on with things, but when people could be egotistical, throw strops, or see themselves as too important, that’s when he got angry.
All of this combined to create a moving picture of the man that was often impossible to pin down. He could be in one mood for one second, and another the second after, so it was up to those on the receiving end of him to work out whether those words were worth rising to the challenge of. The rest was him just getting things off his chest.
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