(Credits: Far Out / Marsha Miller / LBJ Library)
Mon 20 October 2025 3:00, UK
When Graham Nash listened to a song, it was always about more than the standard chord voicings that were coming out of every instrument.
He liked the idea of relating to someone through a few bars of a tune, and even if they weren’t telling a story that he experienced himself, it was always nice to hear the personality of any artist shine through whenever they pick up a guitar. But if Nash wasn’t getting that feeling in The Hollies , he was going to learn a lot more about his bandmates in Crosby, Stills, and Nash than he probably wanted to over the next few years.
As much as they fought time and time again during their solo careers, the supergroup were always a united front when they needed to be. They knew that their music sounded great when they worked together, and even though they had great flowery pop tunes like ‘Teach Your Children’, Nash would have gladly killed his own single if it meant making more room for tunes like ‘Ohio’ on the charts.
To him, the songs that deserved to get big are the ones that demanded to be heard, and when listening to all of the band’s work, it’s easy to see which ones float to the surface. ‘Wooden Ships’ was a watershed moment for David Crosby, and Stephen Stills could practically turn anything into gold no matter what instrument he picked up, and while Nash may have been a little lenient about Neil Young joining the group, he at least gave them an edge they hadn’t had before.
But for all of the heights that they had reached together, it was only matched by tragedy. While Crosby had already dealt with the fallout from The Byrds when he walked into rehearsals, having him lose his girlfriend midway through their time together was bound to do a number on him. While he ended up counteracting everything by getting as loaded as possible, he did walk out with a fairly great solo album.
If I Could Only Remember My Name may be a bit of an acquired taste for those that appreciate the layered sounds of the supergroup’s harmonies, a lot of it feels like Crosby expelling his demons. It’s not nearly as hard to listen to as something like Plastic Ono Band by John Lennon, but as soon as Nash had a listen to tracks like, he knew that his bandmate had channelled his grief perfectly.
Everyone in the band had a mutual respect for each other, but Nash knew that there was no way of topping what Crosby had done there in terms of musical harmonies, saying, “The song ‘Laughing’ is a perfect example of [those harmonies] It’s got incredibly simple instrumentation, but it’s the most giant track you’ll ever hear in your life. All the guitars sound like one great instrument.”
But a lot of that simple instrumentation is actually a lot more appropriate for this kind of approach. Not everything needs to have a grandiose arrangement to sound big, and when listening to Crosby wear his heart on his sleeve, it works a lot better because of how exposed he is sounding whenever he reaches into that higher register.
It’s a miracle that Crosby managed to hold himself together for as long as he did, but looking at the beginning of his solo career, he was already treading a very dark path. There was a way out of it after a while, but Crosby’s dark night of the soul was bound to last for a few more years than anyone could have predicted.
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