The 1970 song Neil Young called CSNY at their best: “Greatest”
Neil Young could be extremely fickle when it came to the kind of music that he enjoyed.
Even though he was willing to test the limits of where someone like him could go on every single record, he knew that the best kind of music was the kind that kept him honest every single time he walked into the studio. Everything music was about someone being honest with their audience, and that rang true the minute that Young decided to join forces with Crosby, Stills and Nash.
At the same time, it took a little bit of convincing for the supergroup to decide that Young was the right guy for them. Young would have been a perfect fit next to Stephen Stills throughout his time in the group but since he could fly off the handle and quit right in the middle of something that he didn’t like, they were bound to be taking a gamble with that kind of musician among their ranks.
When you heard it in practice, though, Young was the best thing that they could have hoped for. He was bringing the band the edge that they needed after their first album sounded a bit soft, and when listening to a song like ‘Ohio’, they were willing to turn their voices up every single time they heard about the horrors going on in the world.
But Young wasn’t above making more downtempo ballads, either. He was only a few years away from making Harvest when he got back to his solo tours, and even though ‘Ohio’ pretty much killed any chance of the song ‘Teach Your Children’ becoming a hit, Young did feel a little bit disheartened knowing that everyone wouldn’t get to hear Graham Nash’s musical masterpiece nearly as much.
They did make the right call in terms of releasing the single that met the moment, but in terms of folk ballads, ‘Teach Your Children’ is pretty much perfect. The entire point of the song was about trying to find some common ground between two generations, and since the Love generation was starting to rebel against their parents, having a simple country song about finding common ground was the perfect kind of peaceful tune that Nash could have written at that time.
Nash could always be counted on to make a great tune, but Young felt that he was proud of that song even though he had nothing to do with it, saying, “For some reason I have a vivid memory of that group of sessions. One day after CSN had cut ‘Teach Your Children,’ which they sang perfectly without me. I was in the control room and Jerry Garcia came in and played a steel guitar part on it. I remember that every time I hear that song, which is one of CSNY’s greatest. I am proud to have my name on it, although I didn’t play or sing a note.”
And when looking at it with the rest of Deja Vu, Young’s songs are a perfect counterbalance to what Nash was singing about. ‘Helpless’ doesn’t have to be the cheeriest song in the world by any stretch, but when looked at in conjunction with the rest of the record, it’s easier to see the band all getting things off their chest throughout the record rather than having one coherent theme.
Their emotional outlet was always their songs, and even when looking at tunes he wasn’t on, Young still had the utmost respect for his bandmates at the time. That kind of happy-go-lucky attitude was never meant to last, but Young knew the songs would be a much better lasting memory than any of their dramatic moments.
