Having marked the passing of 3 artists at the weekend, we missed out on arguably the most significant. David Crosby. Mark Beaumont-Thomas reflects on an album that matters to him, and which I’ve gone back to after reading his words,a s well as following his advice to buy the 50th Anniversary reissue.
Following the sad news of David Crosby’s passing, it’s the perfect time to reflect on his 1971 solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name (surely the ultimate stoner album title). Its reputation has rightly grown over the years, after it was largely panned when it was released, drawing disparaging comparisons with the recently released Déjà Vu and After the Goldrush. For sure, it is more idiosyncratic and even ramshackle compared with those albums but as a showcase for Crosby’s wayward talents its unequalled.
Most prominent is his remarkable voice – even shorn of the harmony opportunities with Nash and Stills, it’s the dominant instrument on this album. Often it is even stripped of any lyrics, just scatting wordlessly through beautiful arrangements, often in layers. He hammers home the point with the title ‘Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)’ – the beauty is still there, you just need to look at a tree in a different way. That song is in classic CSN territory – and demos of that and ‘Laughing’ have appeared on the reissues of Crosby Stills and Nash and Déjà Vu. Quite why they didn’t make the cut is a mystery, particularly ‘Laughing’ which imho is Crosby’s greatest song.
Some thoughts on ‘Laughing’. It was apparently written for George Harrison in the wake of his disillusionment with the Maharishi. The opening lines are just so great, with its layers of uncertainty about thinking that he’d met a man who knew a man who in turn claimed to know what was going on… and then the payoff that he “was mistaken”. What then lifts the track into the stratosphere (an addition from the CSN version) is the keening pedal steel guitar of Jerry Garcia.
As well as ‘Song With No Words’, the vocal showcasing continues on ‘Tamalpais High’ and then the run of the last three tracks, that ‘Song With No Words’ and then the stunning arrangement of the traditional song ‘Orleans’, and a final wordless moment, the 1:21 of ‘I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here’, which sounds as if it was recorded in a gothic cathedral. Incidentally, the excellent 50th anniversary reissue, with a great second disc of material, rounds off the original album with the brilliant 7-minute ‘Kids and Dogs’.
As well as the voices, there are interesting arrangements throughout this album. The album artwork features a photo album page with shots of 23 musicians + Crosby, basically anyone who was anyone on the West Coast, from Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to Grace Slick and Jerry Garcia. Thankfully though, the album never descends into one of those self-indulgent ‘heavy friends’ showcases. This dazzling cast is used sparingly, except on the crazy Cowboy Movie (surprisingly, easily the most streamed Crosby track on Spotify), which basically has the Grateful Dead as the backing band. The lyrics of the track imagine a cowboy movie with CSN &Y as cowboys with names like Eli, Fat Albert, Duke and Young Billy, enacting out the (real life) competition for the love of Rita Coolidge (Raven).
This album is run through with a feel that is more reflective than melancholic, following the, at the time, recent tragic death in an accident of Crosby’s girlfriend Christine Hinton, an event that would haunt Crosby throughout his life. Whatever the circumstances at the time, the stars aligned though, creating one of the finest West Coast scene albums, do check it out.
Note that, if you stream via Spotify, the two tracks featuring Neil/Joni are not available – the perfect excuse to grab yourself a physical copy of that 50th Anniversary version…
