(Credits: Far Out / Marsha Miller / LBJ Library)
Thu 12 February 2026 18:00, UK
From day one, Graham Nash was always setting the bar higher than most in rock and roll.
His work with The Hollies could have taken him to the greatest heights possible, but if it wasn’t exciting him in the way that some of his favourite records used to, there was no point in him continuing on for too long. He had a lot more to offer once he met David Crosby and Stephen Stills, and all he wanted to do was make something that would go down in history as his heroes did.
That said, it’s not like Nash was making half-hearted songs every single time The Hollies played. He certainly had room to stretch out, but a tune like ‘Marrakesh Express’ demanded more than the typical rock and roll treatment. And given what was happening around the time of the Summer of Love, Nash would rather have been anywhere than having to play the same kind of Bob Dylan covers that he was being forced to make.
Every other singer-songwriter was trying their hand at making something new, and while he was perfectly fine working with Allan Clarke, as soon as he heard what Crosby and Stills could do with him when they harmonised, there was something different going on. They had a sound that no one else did, but there was still room for them to grow once they discovered different layers of harmony.
The Everly Brothers were where all great harmony singers started, but people like Joni Mitchell deconstructed what it meant to be a singer-songwriter when she picked up a guitar. She was reaching for notes that no one else was thinking of, and it didn’t take long for that to seep into records like Deja Vu when Crosby started working on the title track or when they interpreted her version of ‘Woodstock’.
She was pulling from the biggest names in jazz, but Nash was far more interested in what Brian Wilson had done on his classic records. The Beatles may have had all the acclaim anyone could ask for in a rock and roll outfit, but if Lennon and McCartney were pop geniuses, Wilson was the equivalent of Mozart or Beethoven whenever he walked into the studio, and Nash still felt that nothing could ever come close to what he did on Pet Sounds.
Every note is immaculate, all the voices are perfectly arranged, and as far as Nash is concerned, the songs were almost too good for any musician to match, saying, “It was one of those albums that pulled you in straight away. Start to finish it’s perfection. I think in a way that album set the bar higher for many of us as musicians. It was a real testament to Brian’s true musical genius. It still is today. You can put that album on now, and it sounds just as inspiring and fresh as it did when it came out.”
It’s not as easy to hear the influence of a song like ‘God Only Knows’ in CSN’s music, but Nash was always the one bringing that pop flavour to their sound. ‘Teach Your Children’ and ‘Our House’ are still the catchiest tunes in their catalogue, and even when they reached into new territory, Nash’s high harmony was providing an anchor for the band, the same way Wilson used to do when performing tunes like ‘I Get Around’.
But the idea of being perfect wasn’t that much of a concern for Wilson when he was making the record. He knew that he had something to prove, but if he taught generations of musicians anything, it was that the best songs are the ones that come from the heart rather than ones that are trying to become popular.