The song that David Crosby said could be “my best”

For all his alleged personal faults, David Crosby was a talented singer with an iconic voice. His songwriting began to blossom with The Byrds before reaching full bloom in his next chapter, where he worked with Stephen Stills and Neil Young of Buffalo Springfield and Graham Nash of The Hollies. When he formed CSNY (or CSN when Young wasn’t around), Crosby also connected with Joni Mitchell, who also greatly influenced his songwriting.

In an earlier interview with Joe Bosso, Crosby talked about CSN’s debut album, Crosby, Stills & Nashas one of the releases he is proud of. “The term ‘supergroup’ didn’t exist until we formed,” he claimed.

He added: “We’d all been in successful bands before, but there had never been anything like us. We set the precedent. And the fact that we became even bigger than our previous bands was even more unique.”

In fact, the 1969 album was a groundbreaking release and seemed to coin the term “supergroup.” Unlike much of Crosby’s material with the Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash was compiled entirely from original material. Crosby contributed two original songs, “Guinnevere” and “Long Time Gone,” and was credited as co-writer on the classic “Wooden Ships.” He and Stills co-wrote the song with Paul Kantner, who recorded it with his band Jefferson Airplane.

When Crosby was evaluating his contributions as a songwriter for the supergroup, he chose “Guinnevere” as his favorite. The song is spread over three verses, each about a different woman: one was Joni Mitchell, another Christine Hinton, and the third Crosby declined to name. “I think this song is beautiful. It might be my best,” he beamed.

Crosby is often happy with either the lyrics or the music, but with “Guinnevere” he felt he found the perfect balance between the two. “I like it musically, I like it lyrically and I really like the mood it creates,” he said. First, he noted the “complex and delicious” structure, which alternates between 4/4, 6/8 and 7/4 in each verse. He also used an alternate tuning, which made for a more unique chord progression. “The guitar pattern, I can’t say how it came about,” Crosby added. “I just played around and it came out. It’s in a very odd tuning that a guy from the Midwest showed me once.”

A year after the CSN debut album, the trio teamed up with Neil Young for the classic album Déjà-vuThe robust tour de force included songwriting contributions from all four members and a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” Crosby wrote the title track and the timeless rock song “Almost Cut My Hair,” which Young calls the high point of Crosby’s songwriting.

“I think this is Crosby at his best,” said Young Rolling Stone in 1970.

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