The 1977 song to make you fall in love with Graham Nash, according to David Crosby
David Crosby‘s reputation as a difficult member of the musical fraternity is an image that is not without foundation.
The singer-songwriter was a notable grump throughout his life and often found himself in feuds with former friends, most notably Neil Young, with whom Crosby shared both a period of time as part of the same supergroup and at each other’s throats after Crosby labelled Young’s wife, Daryl Hannah, “a purely poisonous predator”.
It’s enough to turn lifelong friends into enemies, and the two men rarely connected between those comments and Crosby’s passing. The fallout was particularly painful given the depth of their shared history. Beyond their musical achievements together, Crosby and Young had spent decades navigating the highs and lows of friendship, making the breakdown of their relationship all the more significant.
“I got as out-front with it as I could,” later shared Crosby, reflecting on the bust-up. “I sent an email to Neil, saying, ‘Listen, I know you’re pissed at me because I slagged your girlfriend. And I’m sorry.’ I’ve apologised for a couple of times publicly … and I said, ‘I’m really sorry I shot my mouth off about your girlfriend. I really am. But we’ve all been horrible to each other over the years.’ Neil left Stephen in the middle of a tour twice! Twice! It was a really good email, man.”
The email wasn’t enough to get the band Young and Crosby shared with Stephen Still and Graham Nash back out on the road. Crosby would find ways to argue with those two as well. While apparently being so routinely embroiled in disagreements with Stills that the duo would argue for hours on end, he offended Graham Nash so badly that the two men barely communicated before Crosby’s death. Though things did seem to be on the precipice of reconciliation.
Nash shared with Rob Tannenbaum: “The fact is that we were getting a little closer at the end. He had sent me a voicemail saying that he wanted to talk to apologise, and could we set up a time to talk. I emailed him back and said, ‘OK, call me at 11 o’clock tomorrow your time, which is 2 o’clock on the East Coast.’ He never called, and then he was gone.”
But while Crosby never got around to squashing the beef that pervaded the music he will be most remembered for, he always did share his love for the three men as artists, once selecting a classic Graham Nash song as one of the most important in his life. ‘Cold Rain’ is one of Nash’s best compositions, and it struck a chord with Crosby: “This one of Nash’s has particular significance for me. In that song, you hear how this kid said to himself that life in this gritty, industrial city of Manchester just wasn’t going to be good enough for him, and he was going to find a way to play and sing his way out of there.”
Released as a part of their 1977 record CSN, the Crosby, Stills, and Nash track is a reminder of the different energies each member of the band brought. On ‘Cold Rain’, Crosby felt: “You can hear exactly where he came from and how he decided to lift himself up by his own bootstraps and get out of there.”
The song also highlights why the partnership proved so enduring despite its many difficulties. Each songwriter contributed a distinct perspective, and it was often those contrasting personalities that gave the group’s music its emotional depth and character.
The track clearly meant something to Crosby, as he wistfully remembered how he and Nash would sing it: “It’s a revealing song, and if you really understand it, it makes you love Graham. Nash and I can read each other’s minds, when we’re singing harmony we’re like a pair of spitfires doing stunts. We’ve had arguments before but it’s very, very rare. I argued a lot with Joni [Mitchell]. She’s easy to argue with, but Nash has always been a true gentleman.”
David Crosby was not an easy man to get along with, but he clearly held a deep affection for his bandmates right up until the very end.
For all the stories of feuds, arguments and fractured friendships, Crosby’s reflections on ‘Cold Rain’ reveal a softer side that was sometimes overshadowed by his reputation. Beneath the sharp tongue and stubborn streak was a musician who deeply valued the people he created music with, even when those relationships became complicated. In that sense, the song stands as both a tribute to Graham Nash and a reminder of the affection that endured beneath the conflicts.
