The song that Graham Nash was forced to change: “That sucks”
The key to all great bandmates is having a healthy level of communication. Suppose everyone simply agreed with every single song that their creative partners brought to the table. In that case, there’s a good chance that they would either get the most generic version of themselves or spend their days building up resentments about their songs, which eventually lead to a falling-out with each other. And while Crosby, Stills, and Nash were never exactly known for seeing eye-to-eye on everything, Graham Nash did know how to take criticism on the chin every now and again.
Because, really, who was he to argue with other artists who could have already been considered legends in their own right? David Crosby was already one of the finest harmony singers in America thanks to his work with The Byrds, and since Stephen Stills could play virtually anything that he got his hands on, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to pick up a guitar and transform what was a pretty standard tune into something beautiful.
But above showboating, each member knew what made their voices work. The whole reason they got together in the first place was to hear each other sing harmony off of themselves, so if they had the right songs to wrap those voices around, they would have the kind of record that each of them could be proud of. Then again, that also meant surrendering something else in Nash’s case.
And if there was one thing that band members hate, it’s the word ‘compromise’. The idea of compromising someone’s work drove Nash out of The Hollies, after all, and he wasn’t about to join another group and get thrown into the same situation right from the jump. But when he came into the studio with the song ‘Teach Your Children’, it was about time that someone told him how to put some soul into the music.
The lyrics and the message of the song were airtight for the most part, but Nash remembered having to be schooled on how to play a tune with feeling, saying, “When I played Stephen that demo, he said, ‘That’s a fine song. Don’t ever play it like that again, that sucks!’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Well, you sound like Henry VIII. It needs this country swing that I’ve got in my right hand here,’ and he turned it into a hit record.”
While the demo itself still has the makings of a hit record, it’s easy to tell what’s wrong when Nash strums his guitar. His voice is in fine form, and the way it plays off the chords is magical, but the rhythm is about as wooden as the ships they talked about on their earlier songs. It needed that sense of groove, and while it’s very subtle, hearing Stills’s sense of rhythm on it is what makes it so sentimental.
The whole track is already about a personal topic between parents’ relationships with their children, so adding that little bounce to the music is about more than an arrangement choice. It’s a touch country, but that rhythm almost feels like a baby being rocked by their mother, which works beautifully, knowing that the song is about parents who have to let their children grow into adults themselves.
Was that exactly what Stills was thinking about when making this tune? Probably not, but it doesn’t make it any less effective once it’s there. It’s so subtle that most casual music fans wouldn’t even bother to notice it, but that kind of emotional touch to the song is something that hits you in the heart before your brain half the time.
