Stephen Stills picks his favourite Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song
We’ve all got a favourite album and a favourite song by our favourite artist, but what about those artists themselves? Surely they must all have a track that they’ve written which means the most to them, or that they’re most proud of; a favourite song of their own making. Not everyone is going to come right out and say it plainly, but even if not, there will be signs, like which song the artist plays the most or which one they name their tour or album after.
The “which song have they played live the most” formula holds up for Stephen Stills when it comes to his solo work, but not so much for his collaboration with Crosby, Nash and Young.
With 139 live performances, more than any other song in his repertoire, it’s no surprise that Stills has singled his biggest hit ‘Love the One You’re With’ as his favourite song from his solo career. The opening song from his eponymous solo debut, it was nearly joined on the record by the song which he has said was his favourite from his Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young days.
The song in question, ‘4 + 20’, came out on the 1970 CSNY album Déjà Vu, although it was originally intended to find its home on Stephen Stills. No wonder then that there are no additions to be heard anywhere on the track from David Crosby, Graham Nash or Neil Young. But it wasn’t for the want of trying on Stills’ part.
Stephen Stills’ most personal song
Having been pushed to perform the song in the studio by his bandmates, Stills laid down the master recording in just one take. Accompanying himself with a gentle, fingerpicked guitar part, his frail voice weaves the narrative of a young man who is wrestling with his worries about feeling so alone. Stills has later described the song as being about a “poverty-stricken man who started and finished with nothing”.
When he’d finished recording his take, Stills tried to orchestrate his bandmates to layer up their parts on the song, as they had with everything else at the session, and to contribute their harmonies and backing vocals. Crosby, Nash and Young had other ideas, though, and refused to add even a single note to the song, preferring to leave it exactly as it was instead.
“We just said, ‘It’s too damn good’,” David Crosby later remembered. “We’re not touching it.”
During the group’s set at Woodstock, most of the band were on stage when Stills ran through the track (though Neil Young wouldn’t join the jam until the next song, a cover of his other band, Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Mr. Soul’), but they maintained the largely solo, sparse, and haunting effect of the album version.
When pushed for their own favourite CSNY songs, Crosby and Young also picked songs they had written themselves in the shape of ‘Delta’ and ‘Ohio’ respectively, while Graham Nash went for another track written by Stephen Stills, in ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’.
