The one song David Crosby never figured out: “I’m still freaked out by it”
Any band that’s been around for decades doesn’t have time to reference every single song in their catalogue. The hits are the ones that stand out for a reason, and since they’re the tunes that everyone wants to hear, it’s better to just stick with the classics than having to remember what the fourth song on side two of your third album was back in the mid-1970s. While David Crosby was proud of everything he created with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, he admitted that he never wrapped his head around how they came up with ‘Pre-Road Downs’.
Then again, CSN were never meant to be a fully fleshed-out group. They all had been superstars in their own right long before they came together, and their music seemed to be a project for them as independent artists rather than a supergroup that would play on for the rest of their lives.
Still, it’s telling that their debut record sounded about as close to perfection as any of them would reach. Graham Nash had certainly made great records with The Hollies, but ‘Marrakesh Express’ was the kind of tune that was too weird for his old outfit but too revolutionary to fall by the wayside.
Whereas most people think of the harmonies in the group before anything else, Stephen Stills was the pure creative engine of the band. He had already turned in time with Buffalo Springfield, but his ability to play nearly any instrument he could get his hands on made him a musical Swiss army knife on their first record, which showed on ‘Pre-Road Downs’.
Even though the track doesn’t sound all that difficult up close, this is the equivalent of putting one’s brain through the wringer on the guitar. Regardless of the ringing strings, the entire guitar break was played backwards, which made it seem like Stills had a musical language all his own. Then again, it wasn’t a language that Crosby had the time to decode.
Recalling his days in the studio, Crosby said that he gave up trying to decipher what the hell Stills was doing, saying, “This is real backwards guitar, and how he got it match up to the forwards stuff, I have no idea. He did it, and we looked at him and thought, This guy is from f—ing Mars! I’m still freaked out by it.”
At the same time, the Los Angeles club scene was used to making these off-the-wall choices in the studio. After all, Crosby had just started to become infatuated with Joni Mitchell’s music, and her various open tunings and knowledge of harmony weren’t all that different from what Stills was doing here.
Even though most of Crosby, Stills, and Nash conjures up the image of a bunch of musicians strumming along on acoustic guitars, ‘Pre-Road Downs’ is the kind of landmark that any artist hopes to achieve in the studio. Anyone can throw together chords, but to make it sound like something that no one else could play takes years to develop.
