LONG TIME GONE by CROSBY, STILLS, NASH. Tribute by M.B. Donnelly

 

“Sometimes it hurts so badly, I must cry out loud…” -Stephen Stills

In the wake of David Crosby’s death, I can’t help but find myself recalling that first moment when I heard Crosby Stills Nash’s (CSN) debut album.

It wasn’t 1969, it was 1989. Yes, Vietnam was long over, but as a Gen Xer, I’ve always felt as if my generation lived in its shadow.

I was 17, a senior in high school, at someone’s house for a school related event. Some bohemian looking high schooler asked me what music I listened to. (If memory serves, I think I’d recently discovered Neil Young–I’d just bought Harvest, a musical epiphany in itself.)

So, had I ever heard of CSN, he asked? (Wait, what!? Was that a news channel? A law firm?) No, I had not.

Within minutes, a cassette was popped in a machine. And that feverish strum of Stephen Stills—now so familiar to me—came over the stereo. It was exciting, fresh; “thrilled me to the marrow”, in fact.

That first listen struck a chord, as the old saying goes. And to this day, hearing it still evokes the rush of that first listen. So I did my homework: I trekked to the record store, asked some questions, and tracked down the cassette for myself.

That poor white tape soon became well worn, carrying me from the end of high school to a faraway college that promised a fresh start. (“I’ve got an answer, I’m going to fly away.”) Ah, the album’s musical cornucopia of hope: despair; hope; love; heartbreak; bitter; sweet; musical harmony; political discord. All in the same album. And these three unassuming but photogenic guys on the cover—sitting on an old couch, outside a bungalow—with voices like angels—took me on a journey, to a past I was supposedly learning but had never truly heard.

You see, I was hearing this music at the same time I was learning about Vietnam. Starting to understand that maybe the ardent patriotism of my childhood might need some nuance. Beginning to realize the views foist upon me might not be my own. And more than anything, recognizing that the world was more complex than I thought.

Wooden Ships taught me the universality of the human condition: “If you smile at me, I will understand/Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language…”  I was starting to realize that commonality exists among us humans, but we are consciously and deliberately taught to lose it. The lyrics of Crosby/Stills (and Kantner) plead the agony of battlefield brutality to the listener: “Horror grips us as we watch you die. All we can do is echo our anguished cry…”  and the primal desire to escape from it  “.. Far away, where we might laugh again…” I started to understand war’s gruesomeness in a way textbooks never did.

In Long Time Gone, Crosby’s lyrics cry out with pain over the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, imploring us to: “Speak up, you’ve got to speak up against the madness…”  These words would help me find strength to convey some of my own truths over the years. But his anguish was not without hope, as Croz’s lyrics remind us, “But you know the darkest hour is always, always just before the dawn…”

Growing up in the materialistic 1980s I admittedly went searching—and found meaning—in many of CSN’s anthems. Their vocal blend was a primary source to so much of the history I missed born a few years too late. Their vivid words and vocal candor helped me appreciate the devastation of the turbulent 1960s. Music—this album, particularly—helped me realize that there are more ways to learn history than just sitting through a lecture and reading through notes.

The sad irony, of course, is that CSN, antiwar voices that transcended their generation, suffered from more than their fair share of demons and internal strife.The ups and downs of their relationships intrigued and saddened me; I celebrated their reunions in the early 2000s, seeing them three times (twice with Young and once without) while the United States faced the specter of war with Iraq. And while no one but the three of them can know their truth, I can only hope that, in the end, there is peace in knowing that  their harmony and discord were not polar opposites, but in fact synergic forces that created eternal magic.  

“… Bye, bye baby (Bye, bye, bye, bye baby). Write if you think of it maybe. Know I love you….”  -Stephen Stills

 

StereoStory#701