Six songwriters Graham Nash considered the best he ever heard
Graham Nash always knew that he was part of something greater whenever he began working with Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Although The Hollies had been fun, he now had multiple songwriters to work off of, each of whom sounded like absolute angels from the first time they sang together. But even outside his group, he was always a student of any great songwriter that he saw.
While Nash was certainly no slouch as a songwriter, he knew that his writing chops came from years of listening to the greats at work. He had already seen firsthand what the biggest names in the British invasion could sound like before they were even famous, but once he opened himself up to the world of folk music, he realised what he had been missing for all of those years playing rock and roll.
The singer-songwriter genre was first coming to prominence, and all of the greatest in that field knew how to make people feel something at the end of every single chorus. Whether that’s James Taylor or JD Souther or Laura Nyro, there was always someone out there willing to push the envelope when that lone spotlight hit them when they had their acoustic guitar in their hands.
But whether it was during the golden age of the singer-songwriter or the days when rock and roll was first finding its feet, Nash knew when he was dealing with a true original. There have been countless artists who have come and gone throughout rock history, but the right artists are the ones who almost have greatness thrust upon them when they come out with their first records.
Graham Nash picks the six best songwriters ever:
Chuck Berry
There’s no self-respecting rock and roll that doesn’t have a bit of Chuck Berry in their arsenal. Ever since he duckwalked for the first time, any kid who loved rock and roll was transfixed and immediately wanted to play ‘Johnny B Goode’ the same way that he did. But beyond being one of the true originators that everyone stole from, Nash knew that there was something about listening to his lyrics that stood out compared to everyone else.
Unlike most other party songs, Nash could appreciate the storytelling in Berry’s work, saying, “Chuck Berry was the foremost American lyricist in popular music. He captured the soul of American kids and never let go. Another side of Chuck is this song: Listen to ‘Deep Feeling’, an instrumental piece that still turns me on today.”
Even if he could do a lot of talking with the guitar in his hands, the simplicity of tunes like ‘School Days’ and ‘Maybellene’ are the reason why so many people got the confidence to start writing the same kind of basic stories in their repertoire. Joe Perry wasn’t off when calling him the Ernest Hemingway of rock and roll by accident, and Nash knew that what Berry did made the ordinary elements of life extraordinary.
Paul Simon
By the time the Hollies got started, the British invasion had been underway for a while. Every other band out of the US was starting to get their own electric guitars and start following the lead of The Beatles and taking that one extra step. But when Nash first crashlanded on the other side of the Atlantic, he got introduced to folk when he saw what Paul Simon could do with his acoustic guitar.
Simon and Garfunkel were far from the most entertaining duo in the world, but Nash remembered the craftsmanship that he learned from watching them every night, saying, “One of my favourite songwriters is Paul Simon. He and Arthur Garfunkel took great care of me when the Hollies played in NYC. Paul came to our hotel and took me to the CBS studio where they were finishing Bookends. The song ‘Old Friends’ is an absolute fave of mine. The lyrics, the melody, the emotion… stunning! ‘America’… give me a break!”
But one of the greatest aspects of Simon was his constant need to search for the next song, whether that was working on his solo career without Art Garfunkel or those odd moments when he would delve into world music. Nash had a firm handle on his craft at that point, but Simon helped show him that nothing was off the table as long as you had the right idea.
Bob Dylan
Not every artist has to focus on the words behind every song they sing. No one was going to Little Richard to expand their mind whenever they heard him, and even the biggest British invasion bands could have more than a few nonsense songs in their arsenal. But as soon as Bob Dylan burst onto the scene, there was a much different approach to songwriting that everyone was going to follow.
Compared to every other folkie from that time, Nash knew that Dylan was one of a kind when he first heard him, saying, “How fortunate I feel being alive at the same time as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joni, James Taylor, Paul Simon… so many wonderful writers. But no one comes close to Dylan in my humble opinion. ‘Blowing in the Wind’, ‘Masters of War’, ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’… what incredible pieces of poetry.”
But even if Dylan’s appeal was his lyrics half the time, it wasn’t strictly about being able to fit as many words as one could into a single stanza. When you listen to ‘Teach Your Children’, Nash seemed to pore over every word to make sure everything sounded perfect in the same way that Dylan did when he was making masterpieces like ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ or ‘Ballad of A Thin Man’.
Joni Mitchell
It’s always tough to pick the greatest songwriters when they are among colleagues. There’s no disputing that Nash thought David Crosby was a fantastic songwriter, but it was always going to be difficult to walk that line when he was in a band with the guy. They all worked off each other incredibly well, but if there were any other honorary members of the group, nearly everyone in CSN bowed at the altar of Joni Mitchell.
Outside of being one of the finest songwriters in the world, Nash always had a little bit more of a personal connection. He was practically the inspiration behind almost half of the songs on Blue, and while it was never going to be easy for him to revisit an album like that without getting emotional, there’s a certain atmosphere that Mitchell created with her music that seemed to seem too beautiful for this world.
Although there were many times when they could collaborate, even Nash had to admit that there was no sense of competition between him and Mitchell, saying, “I would never, ever try to compare any of my work with any of Joni’s work. I think she’s a genius. I think in a hundred years’ time, when people are looking back at this century and what happened in music, they are probably going to remember The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and they’re definitely going to remember Joni Mitchell.”
Brian Wilson
The British invasion was far from the only type of musical movement coming out of the 1960s. There were plenty of artists who were trying their hand at making rock and roll, but when Brian Wilson rose to the forefront, he wanted to dream bigger than the usual pop that he had been doing with The Beach Boys. Progress was possible, and when Pet Sounds dropped, Nash was absolutely shellshocked by what he heard.
Although the Summer of Love was about to begin, Nash put Wilson’s work on the same level as any of the greatest artists of the time, saying, “He was way advanced of what anybody was doing at that point. And I think the Beatles recognized that and I think every harmony group in the world recognized that there was some different thing going on – something very sophisticated.”
And when listening to ‘God Only Knows’, it’s not that hard to see why Wilson was so respected. He was trying to find the emotions in between the notes that no one else had found yet, and by daring to dream a little bit bigger than traditional pop music, he gave rock and roll its answer to greats like Mozart and Beethoven.
The Beatles
You notice how we’ve been slowly tiptoeing around The Beatles throughout the course of this copy? Nash had already been familiar with the Fab Four back in the days when they were still playing clubs and getting ready to put out their first album, but as soon as they started finding their feet, they realised that there was so much more work to be done with the album format. And while The Hollies were still making British invasion pop, nothing could have prepared the world for what albums like Sgt Pepper were about to do.
The Fabs had already been fantastic songwriters up until that point, but bringing in the experimental side of music into their work was their true stroke of genius. Whether that was working off of bizarre templates like ‘I Am The Walrus’ or creating high art like ‘A Day in the Life’, every single step that they ever took was about pushing themselves one step further, and Nash was definitely taking notes.
Compared to everyone else on this list, Nash knew that there would never be another Beatles ever again, saying, “I think that the universe put those four kids in the right place at the right time and gave them the right talent, to be able to move the hearts, minds and spirits of billions of people, and continue to this day.” And given the fact that the world has yet to get tired of everything from ‘She Loves You’ to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ to ‘Penny Lane’, it’s safe to say they will be singing their music until the end of time.
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