The 1969 show Graham Nash could never recapture again: “There’ll never be anything as good”
Anyone who has been around for as long as Graham Nash has is always going to be looking for the next great song that they can write.
It’s one thing to play into the nostalgic factor of it all, but there’s not a single song that Nash hasn’t worked on where he has tried to make the best tune that he could, be that with The Hollies, on his own, or with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. And while he will be remembered for some of the finest melodies of his time, he understood that there were a few moments where it felt like time stood still for a few seconds as he was performing his material.
But considering Nash’s history in rock and roll, there had to have been a few ‘pinch me’ moments happening before he even became famous. He was one of the first people to see The Beatles up close before they were famous, and despite being able to sing along with John Lennon before they went into making Please Please Me, his relationship with Joni Mitchell is also the stuff of legend at this point.
Their breakup may have helped inform what she eventually made on Blue, but given her abilities as a songwriter, it’s hard to even be mad if you were in Nash’s position. Sure, hearing songs that are all about the demise of your relationship doesn’t normally feel good, but the fact that Mitchell was leaving nothing to the imagination is still one of the raw and honest portrayals of a relationship that anyone has ever heard in a song.
But the real soulmates that Nash always had came from his relationships with his bandmates. The entire reason why he was able to establish himself later was because of joining forces with David Crosby, and even if leaving The Hollies was a real sink-or-swim moment, there was no way that he was going to watch as a song like ‘Marrakesh Express’ got butchered by his former bandmates.
There was something new for him to work on every single time he made a new record, but most people probably didn’t know what they had on their hands when they signed on to play the Woodstock festival in 1969. This was the moment where everyone preaching about peace and love finally came together, and even if it wasn’t the most accomplished musicians by any stretch, Nash knew that there weren’t too many things that were going to be able to top what he had seen.
It was a shame that Mitchell couldn’t be there to celebrate with him, but even years on, Nash doesn’t feel like anyone should ever try to compare their shows with what Woodstock was, saying, “A lot of us in the years since have shied away from the Woodstock myth. It’s like, if you were at Woodstock and you’re enthused about it, then you’re a ’69 hippie, you’re to be discounted. But there’ll never be anything as good as Woodstock, because it was the first and the best. I don’t think you can re-create that. There was a certain glow about the Sixties, a certain naiveté and exploration, an excitement for the future that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Not everything was all sunshine and roses by any stretch, but during some of those shows, it did feel like a cultural moment was happening. ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ played by Jimi Hendrix is still one of the finest snapshots of what the Vietnam era of rock and roll was all about, and when you’re listening to CSNY perform their tunes, they were ready to play the role of the folksy rockers that were trying to make the world a better place.
Whether or not they actually changed the world for the better is up to interpretation, but it’s not like they didn’t have the right ideas in mind. Everyone was supposed to be talking about the importance of peace and love, and Nash was ready to keep that memory preserved in his mind for the rest of his life.
