The 1971 album David Crosby loved until the end: “The music won”
There are a number of reasons why the members of Crosby, Stills & Nash were able to work with one another so well.
The first was purely because of how great their voices sounded when they were all put together. We’ve all heard harmonies before, but not like this. The feeling that each member got as soon as they started singing was truly inspirational, as they realised that even though they were all currently involved in successful projects, it was time to leave them behind and start working on something together.
During an exclusive interview with Graham Nash, he said that while he was happy with a lot of the music that The Hollies were making, he had to move to the States and start working on sounds for this new folk trio. It was a decision which didn’t come easy, but that was completely unavoidable.
“I was born and raised on the outskirts of Manchester, and I heard a magical sound when me and David and Stephen put our three voices together to try and make one voice,” said Nash, “And when I heard that I had to go back to England, leave The Hollies and instead go back to that magical sound that we had created.”
However, it wasn’t just their sound which ensured each member would work well together; it was also their creative ethos. When it came to writing music, the band were all on the same page that their songs should be a reflection of the moment they were written in, which meant that, beyond great-sounding songs, you also got beautiful lyrics that were packed with very real emotion. Whether they spoke of joy, sadness, politics or personal life, there was no escaping just how much Crosby, Stills and Nash were all willing to leave everything in their song.
“I really still think every day about a quote by Nina Simone,” said Nash, “who said ‘Every artist, whether you’re a songwriter or a piano player or a sculptor or a painter, you have to reflect the times in which we live’.”
This happened with the band’s music and also for their solo albums, as that ethos didn’t change depending on who they were working with. When David Crosby put together his first solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name, he wrote from an incredibly personal place, as his partner, Christine Hinton, had sadly passed away in a car accident, and that moment became a large part of the 1971 album. It’s a pretty heartbreaking narrative, but one that gave rise to one of Crosby’s greatest and most emotional pieces of music.
Despite the album coming from a pretty depressing place, Crosby admitted that he still loves it, as it feels like one of his most honest pieces of music, and it’s an album that people have been talking about with him for decades now, with which he is happy to engage because of how close he feels to the whole thing.
“No, I loved it,” he said, “You have to understand, the result was immensely positive. It came out of a really incredibly, painful situation, but the music won. It’s like a battle happened and the music won. The result was this shiny, glorious, beautiful fucking piece of music that I’m immensely proud of. The pain doesn’t show through; the only place you can sort of start to feel the pain is the very last song.”
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