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Your ONE favourite C and/or S and/or N and/or Y track. (Or combination, thereof…)

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As an eleven year old, I fell in thrall to Deja Vu. It was my first taste of the holy sacrament that is The Rock Album. Immediately, I was seduced. The stiff cardboard, almost mock leather, cover. The sepia tinted photography. The promise of new stories, more complex than those told by Chicory Tip or Edison Lighthouse, my former fancies.

I had, literally, no idea who they were but loved the way they looked and loved the way they sounded. Only later, did I read about the craziness, the competitiveness, the contractual conflicts. All I heard was magic.

And, despite my subsequent Punk led adventures, rebellion fed Reggae binges or drug addled House experiments, C and S and N and Y – have always been quietly present. A hidden treasure. A guilty, if you call it that, pleasure.

The track I’ve selected may not actually be my favourite. It’s certainly not their best. It’s from one of their many comeback albums but it carries their essence. Sounding slightly fucked up, slightly fucked off. Simultaneously careworn and carefree. Perfect poetry one minute; Off the wind on this heading, lie the Marquesas. We got eighty feet of the waterline, nicely making way . Cliched, even suspect, sentiment the next; I have been around the world. Lookin’ for that woman-girl

So, on this occasion, it’s C and it’s S and it’s N. And it’ll make a car park in Colchester seem like the wide blue deep off the south shore of Catalina.

Over to you for your favourites from these four ever separate, ever joined, individuals.

Crosby, Stills and Nash
Southern Cross

3

Comments

  4. Deja vu was one of my favourite albums for years but I personally find much of CSN and CSNY pretty unlistenable now. I really don’t think they’ve dated well – tracks like Our House, and Guinevere and Almost Cut My Hair just sound risible to me now. But then two of those have already appeared on this thread, so what do I know?

    Generally Stills’ 70s work has dated best for me. One of my favourite CSNY tracks is actually just S so arguably shouldn’t be on this thread at all….

    • Not guilty no more! Out and proud now. But at a Sham 69 gig in 1978, CSN&Y were not the ideal name to drop.

      Good choice Deccers. Touch of Steppenwolf’s The Pusher about it?

  10. Track 1 Side 1 Deja Vu is pretty fuck off good I think, but can take or leave much else by the quadro on that disc, it otherwise dating abominably. Youngs weaker tunes, Stills best tune post Buffalo S, lukewarm pap from Nash and bombastic emptiness from Croz. Pretty much a zeitgeist for nearly everything subsequently done together, as duos, trios or the full rectangle.

  13. Oh bloody hell, here’s a tricky one. Like probably quite a few around here, I loved Crosby Stills and Nash and Deja Vu when I was young, but so much of it has aged so badly. I adore some Buffalo Springfield, David Crosby’s song “Laughing” makes me want to forgive everything that man ever did, even “Triad.”

    But the thing about these guys even after you’ve given up on them, the chance is always there that you’ll stumble across something brilliant which you haven’t heard. Most recently “Both Of Us (Born To Lose)” from Stephen Stills “Manassas” has just blown me away. The guitar playing at the end is just sublime…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6V9qZBTJpg

  15. You’re right on several counts Gangle.

    – Bits of Deja Vu are at best jejune yet listening to it after a long absence I was struck by how fresh it still sounds.
    – Stephen Stills is a sublime guitarist and not mentioned nearly enough when best ever fret-botherer lists are compiled.
    – Manassas is a thing of joy and wonder in and of itself.
    – Undiscovered gems lie around in plenty amidst the back catalogue.

    I hadn’t heard Southern Cross till about a week or so ago. Played it many times since.

  16. This is my favourite CSN track. This demo version is superb because a) it shows that Stephen Stills had most of the whole darn thing worked out before he took it to the others and then b) the others simply made it better.

  17. A sunny morning here in Berlin today and for some reason, a C, S, N and Y (and related) playlist for the morning dog walk. I wasn’t around in the 70’s yet when I hear CSN or Y, I feel as if I was.

    I’ve always loved Stills’s version of ‘New Mama’
    ‘Triad’ is (despite opinions to contrary) a beautiful showcase for DC
    ‘Carry On’ can be a killer live track

    As can ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’
    Then we have pretty much ‘Tonight’s The Night/On The Beach’ with one or two (‘LA’ and the title track) from ‘Times Fades Away’

    Never been a big fan of them solo otherwise.

    • I heard an interview with Graham Nash in which he described writing it – he and Joni had been out at a market, she’d bought a vase, they got home, it was a chilly night, so he said “I’ll light the fire – you put some flowers in the vase that you bought today”.

      How easy is that?

      I’m going to try it

      ” oh for fuck’s sake Blackie shut up I’ll feed you – oh no bloody Son No 1 didn’t bring in the washing it’s all soaked…”

  20. “Almost Cut My Hair”

    Almost cut my hair, it happened just the other day.
    It’s getting’ kinda long, I coulda said it wasn’t in my way.
    But I didn’t and I wonder why, I feel like letting my freak flag fly,
    Cause I feel like I owe it to someone.

    Must be because I had the flu’ for Christmas and I’m not feeling up to par.
    It increases my paranoia, like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car.
    But I’m not giving in an inch to fear cause I missed myself this year.
    I feel like I owe it to someone.

    When I finally get myself together, I’m going to get down in that sunny southern weather.
    And I find a place inside to laugh, separate the wheat from the chaff.
    I feel like I owe it to someone.

    Not even sure I understand it but always loved that dark ominous confession on the open – “almost cut my hair, happened just the other day

    Like wow man a seriously heavy thing to say for the times. Great singing, great guitar and great stretched out live.

    Found this on the web:

    David Crosby recorded this track with the last remaining moments of studio time that the band had remaining, and while he was still reeling from the death of Christine Hinton days earlier in a car accident. She had been his girlfriend, and he was obviously still grieving. The pain in his normally smooth voice reflects a cracked and angry quality, belied by the light-hearted directive he makes at the start of the recording. If you listen to it, he starts, then stops, and comments as to the pace and gain of the recording, then the song starts again. According to the story as told by Crosby on the air with Bob Coburn of KLOS in the late 1990s, the recording is the only take that was done

  21. If it’s only one then its this one. Haven’t heard them do a bad version but have always had extra love for the box set re-recording from ’91.

  22. Crosby & Nash despite sounding like a small firm of solicitors in Basingstoke, do make a lovely noise together. They made a couple of records at the tail end of the 70s of which Wind On The Water is a favourite of Mrs Nock who despite being a tad younger than me (46) likes all manner of wet and weedy singer songwriters from the 70s and early 80s 🙂

    Left to her own devices, she would fill the house with Joan Armatrading and James Taylor, Tapestry or Tea For The Tillerman. Similarly our daughter has a marked penchant for tunes and songs and singing despite my best efforts to inculcate her in the ways of ancient saxophonists who make various squawking noises. Honestly, what’s a chap to do? 🙂

    Anyway, I’m going to cheat and post this one on behalf of my wife (and cheekily post my own choice later to get around the one only rule) 🙂

    Crosby & Nash
    Carry Me

  23. I first heard this on the radio in about 1984 on a Buffalo Springfield retrospective hosted by Paul Gambaccini. It’s kind of lumbering of tempo, and somewhat overwhelmed by those background vocals, but I love it to bits.

  24. I think their version of Woodstock is the best. I like the slightly spiky edge that they bring to the song, the way that it builds momentum and, as ever, the soaring harmonies. So I will nominate that as my favourite.

    CSN&Y: Woodstock

  27. For many years, my view of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was somewhat coloured by the views expressed about them by Pete Frame in his well-known Rock Family Trees book.
    In a paragraph surreptitiously hidden at the bottom of the CSNY family tree, he says this:

    “This family tree suffers from a definite bias. The consistently high standard of Neil Young’s work must make him THE rock figure of the seventies. And Stills, for all his foibles, is basically an OK bloke…. but I do have severe reservations about Crosby and Nash. There is something about their persona that I find extremely repugnant; their seeming lack of humility may have something to do with it.”

    I can’t imagine Frame received too many Christmas cards from David or Graham after that.

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