*CSN&Y : Deja Vu* One of the best LPs ever?

I like Almost Cut My Hair. I don't take it seriously, but I enjoy it. And Carry On is very strong, as are Country Girl and Helpless. 4 and 20 may be a fragment, but it's a good one. And Deja Vu contains the best song CSN or CSNY ever recorded IMHO -- Deja Vu. So yeah, great album. Not as good as the first one, but a great album. What holds it down? Horrid, trite pop contributions by Gram Nash. They both should have been lost in the edit. And the cover of Woodstock. It rocks. But judging by the way it is delivered, I'm left wondering if they quite understood the song. Hmmm...maybe it was Nash who arranged it...

Tim

 

I can't agree about 4+20. I think it's a complete song that says everything he wanted to in two minutes. A dark song for sure, but I like it!

 

I don't think too many people who were listening to the album when it was out would refer to 'Almost Cut My Hair' as utterly embarrassing hippie crap (although my wife does). It's really a timepiece of a song that was really understood at the time. Most young people wore their hair long more as a symbol of something rather than a fashion statement. I know it sounds stupid today.

 

The prejudice that existed toward young men with long hair in the 70's is something many fail to understand. It was serious.

 

And I think your analysis of Almost Cut My Hair is kind of like taking a sweeping negative view of Shakespeare because it's all about that old Elizabethan crap.

Tim

 

I think any real understanding of Crosby's work makes it obvious that Almost Cut My Hair isn't really about haircuts, or anything specific to the hippy ethic of the late 1960s, for that matter.

Tim

 

Some people say that you will always be most comfortable with the music that you listened to when you were 19 years old. Deja Vu was released about 3 weeks before my 19th birthday, and I am certain that i was listening to it heavily when I was 19. I love the album. I understand that some of the songs don't stand up to critical analysis, but why the heck are you analyzing rock music? Either you like the songs or you don't. These songs are embedded in my rock DNA.

IMO, the answer to the OP's question is YES!

 

The unedited version of "Cut My Hair" on the box set is pretty amazing. Neil Young's contributions saved the album from insipidness IMO, and his guitar playing with Stills (i.e. Cut My Hair) is timeless. Altogether, CSNY pissed in the well of their own talent with the usual suspects of indulgence, drugs and ego. Actually I should amend that to CSN, since Neil seems able to rise above all that crap to create great art into old age.

 

Great analysis of this song. I couldn't have said it better.

 

I can't tell you for sure what Crosby was talking about, but I know what everyone thought he was talking about.

 

MFSL LP for me.

(must be because I had the flu for Christmas)

 

Hmm...I don't know what everyone thought he was talking about. But what he was talking about, whether he was aware of it or not, was the courage to do what feels right when it would really be a lot easier to just blend in. Pretty simple, really. And pretty universal hippie crap.

Tim

 

Let's hear it for hippie crap!
One thing nice about "dated" albums like Déjà Vu is that they can transport you to another time.

 

Wow- quite a divided bunch...

I was 13 when this LP came out. I was a CSN fan with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes- but Deja-Vu was my first purchase. The timing of CSN(and Y) was pretty important to the times then to me with the song Woodstock(back then I never knew it was Joni's), and the song Ohio.

What did it for me was the harmonizing! I had never heard harmony like that in my short life. I always loved Teach Your Children, as well as Country Girl, and to this day I still do.

As for versions- I have originals of each LP, and have original CD's of each as well. I also have the Classic Records pressings of both(CSN is greeaat), but jury is still out on Deja Vu- I hear more on the pressing, but also miss what I DON'T hear!!! This does suffer from Mid-Range Suckout!

Chris

 

I don't think so. The end of CSNY, in the wake of Deja Vu, was followed by Stills "Stills," and "Mannassas" projects, Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name" and the excellent "Graham Nash/David Crosby." They weren't out of songs. in fact, it appears more likely that they needed to get away from the clashing egos of a supergroup where they could stretch out a bit and record more songs. And as far as being saved by Young, this is all so subjective, but there are at least three albums released by the trinity after CSNY that I would take over anything in Young's catalog. YMMV.

Tim

 

They have the then-unreleased Buffalo Springfield-era song "Down Down Down" in common. Same melody, different words.

They had TOO MANY songs. Nash was sitting on a couple dozen completed songs. Stills had at least that many, and Crosby had around six. Given what they left off, I think Deja Vu would have been a better record without Neil's songs. His songs are great, but their contribution to the album didn't necessarily make the album better.

That "saved by Young" quote referenced above sounds 'trollish' to me. Nonetheless, I'll indulge it for a second. Neil Young's career was nowhere in 1969. Crosby, Stills & Nash were the biggest act in pop music. Neil entered the picture because CSN wanted to tour with an electric ensemble and needed an additional player. Ahmet Ertegun suggested Neil because he loved Buffalo Springfield so much. Stills was against it, then he came around. Crosby and Nash were even more against it, but "Helpless" changed their minds. Neil insisted that his name be included in the band name. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that it should have been.

Neil's career took off after joining CSN. They gave him a world stage. It didn't hurt that Neil had had the goods, but CSN are the reason Neil had the level of success he did, rather than something more along the lines of Gene Clark. He irrevocably changed the CSN's dynamic, for the worse. Had he been committed to the group, I might think otherwise. His lack of commitment meant that "where's Neil?" would dog these guys forever, essentially removing focus from their own strengths. CSN were self-destructive enough without Neil's help. I think that if they had always remained CSN, and never added Y to the group, they would be held in higher esteem. I also tend to think they would have handled the "CSN" brand name better than they did. The trajectory of their career and Neil's career draws mostly unfairly unfavorable comparisons.

However, Neil always remembered who gave him his big chance (ultimately Stills). Even though Neil was essentially a terrible band member, he remained loyal to the guys regarding personal matters, and sometimes professional matters.

 

I didn't take it to be trollish so much as fueled by an overenthusiastic love of Young's work. He has had a long, productive career. For those who view it as mostly excellent it could be pretty easy to see Neil's career as superior to those of his old band mates. But like I said, it's all subjective. When I look at Young's career, what I see is really spotty. And even the best and brightest moments, which in my opinion are all early ones, don't appeal to me as much as Crosby's first solo album and his duo work with Nash. I like the first Mannassas album better than my favorite Young albums too.

Tim

 

I think the first/couch album is CSN's pinnacle, the only album where every song was not filler. On Deja Vu, I like Almost Cut My Hair and Woodstock, and basically nothing else.

I think CSN would have had the same approximate trajectory without Y. The market for their particular brand of hippie crap wasn't ever going to be bigger than it was in 1970.

Also, Neil makes it clear (sort of) in Thrashers that he bailed for some pretty specific reasons -- amounting to a basically incompatible worldview -- not just disinterest. This blog post has the best analysis I've read: http://attitudesong.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!BB0401274A23D807!4705.entry

 

I'm sure that's your humble opinion, but when the song was being played and listened to by everyone I knew, it was about letting your freak flag fly, which was your long hair. If you were there, you'd know the universal sentiments attached to the song. So, I assume you weren't there.

 

And let's not forget 'Songs For Beginners'.

 

I was, indeed, there. I was a lit major though. Perhaps that's the problem.

Tim

 

Oh...I understand the intent behind it pretty well. It's just that the song comes across as stilted, hamfisted, trite, tepid and dated to me in much the same way that, say, "Student Demonstration Time" from The Beach Boys' Surf's Up does. There are other songs from the period that mine similar thematic terrain while actually translating to the here and now and kicking some butt in the process. Hendrix's "Stone Free" would be one example. Anyway, I think that when it comes to CSN and (sometimes) Y we are talking more Marlowe than Shakespeare. I tend to agree with whoever said that Neil Young has done much, much stronger work in his own than CSN either with or without him.

 

"hippie-ish
hippie crap

Thoses words sound like something my dad would have used when i was around 18 or so. He would have been mid 50's.
Got to remember and this is starting to be a problem{might be the wrong word} with classic rock is a lot of music or songs were making a statement for that time just like everyband had a song about war. Now when you listen and more so with non-baby boomers would be to thing these songs are a bit silly today. Well all i know is at the time they sure meant a lot and made a strong statement to some without as loud a voice.

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I resurrected "Almost Cut My Hair" and have been playing it for a few years now in a couple of different formats to a variety of audiences, and even the less than 40 seem to enjoy it. I do it tongue in cheek, more so as I have lost more hair, but I think that's fitting; I think it was a deliberately cheesy allegory at conception.

We'll have to agree to disagree on Mr. Young's career as well. I'm a big fan of his work with Buffalo Springfield, the first solo album and bits and pieces thereafter, but, for my part, I'll take the highlights of Crosby's sparse catalog over all Young's much larger one. And I don't feel the need to pronounce Young "stilted, hamfisted, trite, tepid and dated" to have that opinion.

YMMV.

Tim

 

If I could only buy one album, it would be "4-Way Street". But, then again, I really enjoy live albums.