The Crosby, Stills, and Nash song that Iggy Pop hated
In the weeks since David Crosby’s death, artists have been sharing their favourite songs from across his catalogue. A fair number of those favourites have been songs from Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The trio’s debut album contains some of their best-loved songs, including ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ and Crosby’s evocative ‘Guinnevere’. The release of Crosby, Stills, and Nash made the group instant superstars, and when they added Neil Young for the subsequent supporting tour, it only made them bigger.
But not everyone loved the hippie ideals and gentle harmonies of CSN. While the group was riding high as the kings of the dying counterculture, a new strain of aggressive reactionary music was bubbling up across the United States. In Detroit, bands like the MC5 and The Stooges were creating distorted and discordant rock music that was miles away from the comforting tones of CSN. It should come as no surprise, then, that Iggy Pop wasn’t much of a fan of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Pop didn’t pull any punches when sitting down with Rolling Stone in 2005. While discussing how The Stooges were consciously reactionary against the peace and love ethos of the Laurel Canyon scene, Pop took aim at Graham Nash’s ode to chickens and train cars from Crosby, Stills, and Nash, ‘Marrakesh Express’. “I mean, ‘Marrakesh Express?’ It may be the worst song ever written,” Pop proclaimed.
He doubled down in the Jim Jarmusch documentary on The Stooges, Gimme Danger. “There was more American Idol, more of the corny talent show, suggested to the American audience at the time than people like to admit,” Pop claimed before vocalising a few lines from ‘Marrakesh Express’ with a disgusted look on his face. “Somebody needs to say that some of the biggest peace-love acts of the California five years of love were created in meetings.”
The Stooges were the anti-heroes of the late 1960s. Just as left-wing as acts like CSN, The Stooges weren’t inherently political in their music. Instead, they were hell-bent on destruction. The acoustic guitars and optimistic messages that often came out in Nash’s music were anathema to Pop and his outlook on the rock landscape.
Although Pop pits them as enemies, CSN and The Stooges had more than a little bit of crossover. The endless scuzzy jams that filled out live versions of ‘Southern Man’ and ‘Long Time Gone’ had at least some of The Stooges’ take-no-prisoners style, especially once Neil Young added his signature jagged edge to the guitar duels between him and Stephen Stills. If Iggy Pop had a perfect polar opposite in the counterculture, though, it makes sense that it would be Graham Nash.
Check out ‘Marrakesh Express’ down below.
