marklaw wrote: This is the song that made me a hippie

 jab49 wrote:

'Hippie' I believe, is a state of mind, and a view of life and the world.
It's not defined by the length of your hair, or what you do for a job (unless your job involves killing people).
'If all the hippies, cut off all their hair, I don't care' Jimi Hendrix - If 6 Was 9

To see the sea from a boat is, perhaps, the best way to see the sea

 surfrider4life wrote:

I agree with the answer, 100%.  In this day and age of "autotune" and similar perfection-inducing technology in the recording world, our ears are becoming numb to the human element that is a beautiful part of making, recording, and dare I say performing live, music.

 unclehud wrote:

Speak for yourself. People smile at me every day.

 Emwolb wrote:


They are both wonderful. 

 marklaw wrote:

Thanks for chuckle. I can relate, man.

 butnodog wrote:
No actually, but Kantner did provide some of the lyrics, and JA did record a version for Volunteers.
From Wiki:
"It was written and composed in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a boat named the Mayan, owned by Crosby, who composed the music, while Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics."

Had to turn RP off for a few minutes after this, so I could listen to "Lady of the Island" in my head.

Bill is the best DJ on the PLANET!!!!!!!

We have a theme here.

Perfect song to start the work day.  Just having a coffee in the semi dark waiting for a meeting to start and on comes this masterpiece.   Pulled up RP to mark it a 10 but realized I already had.    Cheers all.

 spacemoose wrote:
I think my ass was clearly naive at the time.  I believe it has wised up subsequently.  Also, foolish clownlike behavior was one of our primary weapons at the time,  to clarify how contradictory and idiotic the behavior of "the establishment" was.  The lethality of their behavior spoke for itself.

 SurfDoc wrote:

Unsure about the guitar parts but the bass player seems to be getting quite a workout on this track...

 On_The_Beach wrote:


OMG!!!! So beautiful.

I love this song

some of the keyboard sounds like morse code signals

So good.  And as for the Jefferson Airplane version, to me it sounds like 4 people drunk around a campfire all trying to sing a song that none of them actually know....just odd inconsistent rambling. 

 GuiltyFeat wrote:

I'll have a bottle of Zafiro Anejo

OOOOHHHHHH NO
hippy time

Emwolb wrote:
I so prefer the Jefferson Airplane version....just saying


 Pjesnik wrote:
 
Same here, both are excellent. Crosby and Stills co-wrote with Kanter. Dave Crosby is in the wooden boat at the beginning of the JA song. 
I like the distorted guitar in this version. 

 On_The_Beach wrote:
 
hmm. Written by Jefferson airplane? Volunteers. But totally agree about his schooner...

 marklaw wrote:
 

Per The Bobs - "first i was a hippie. then I was a stock broker, now I am a hippie again"

Dang Bill,
Going apocalyptic on us now!
The Who next?  Slip Kid?
Oh and I'm 63  

   marklaw wrote:
 
I had this so long ago it was on 4 track tape.

Best song from an album where each cut is a classic.

I can see by your coat, my friend you're from the other side
There's just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please, who won?

Take it from me, a US Navy vet, who sailed in a steel submarine rather than a Wooden Ship:  Nobody involved in a war wins; and only half the politicians win.

 jab49 wrote:
 
Not in your heart.  Fight 'em from the inside.

 marklaw wrote:
 

Marklaw - you have to be born a hippie and if you were, you would never be in law

Over time, of the many outstanding CSN songs, this one has emerged as a unique wonder for me. The music, vocals, and lyrics form a surreal cinematic experience that fires the imagination and both informs, and resonates in, the subconscious.

 Emwolb wrote:
 

I prefer and like both. That's how it is when you are an ordinary Libra.  

 cavemanleong wrote:
 
Watch your mouth with that"old" stuff.  Some of us resemble the remark.

 jacopo777 wrote:
 
It's the effort and intention that counts in any endeavor.

A really nice song - takes me back to my youth. :)

 jab49 wrote:
 
It's not all it's cracked up to be.  

 lewie221 wrote:
 
Considering Y wasn't on this song or album, hence the name Crosby, Stills, & Nash, whatever logic you are referring to was unnecessary.  

As for Young singing on a song with CSN being some kind of act against logic:  I submit Ohio and Helpless.  2 of my top 10 from the band under either incarnation.

 marklaw wrote:
 
This is the song that made me a second generation hippie.

 surfrider4life wrote:
 
stills did momentarily lapse into a "wrong" key for a bit of the solo...

 SurfDoc wrote:
 
I think it's those purple berries they've been eating.  Haven't got sick once, though.

My Hippie mom played this album over and over and over again. It shaped my childhood, for which I am grateful. 

 SurfDoc wrote:
 
It's spontaneity, and slight imperfections that give art in it's purest form, distinguishing character .

SEE : Led zeppelin  

Your trivia for today (from Wikipedia):
On the cover the members are, left to right, Nash, Stills, and Crosby, for no particular reason, the reverse of the order of the album title. The photo was taken by their friend and photographer Henry Diltz before they came up with a name for the group. They found an abandoned house with an old, battered sofa outside, located at 815 Palm Avenue, West Hollywood, across from the Santa Palm car wash that they thought would be a perfect fit for their image. A few days later they decided on the name “Crosby, Stills, and Nash”. To prevent confusion, they went back to the house a day or so later to re-shoot the cover in the correct order, but when they got there they found the house had been reduced to a pile of timber. And I understand (from an RP listener commenting on another CSN song from this album) that this site is now a parking lot.

 SurfDoc wrote:
 
You might as well wave a red sheet in front of an angry bull.  

Why do some of the guitar parts sound out of key?  Any musicians out there to explain this? 
Please try to refrain from nasty comments about me or my tastes as so many internet conversations often devolve into.

 mcampbellbell wrote: 
They delve into some atonal or off key notes. Almost as if not familiar with scales of the key they were playing in. There's an imperfect quality that is strangely appealing in a way.

Such innovative guitar work.  So happy these guys came together.

Such a sweet, smooth song. Personally, I prefer the comments to be about the music......  

This song was released waaaay before I was born and yet strangely, I love it. I have an 'old' soul.

Off-topic, but love the new website!

lol bomb the middle east

 westslope wrote: 
Greetings from Tel Aviv. Not quite sure what Israel did to get dragged into this conversation, assuming that is you're referring to the sovereign State of Israel when you write "the Israeli nation-building project". I'm always suspicious of decisions to use weird ways to describe things that are in common parlance.

I guess I just wanted to call BS on your bizarre figure of "30K Americans" and your equally bizarre use of the term "nation-building exercise". Would you call India a "nation-building exercise"? How about the Republic of Ireland? Is Israel the only UN nation state that you publicly refer to as a "nation-building exercise"? If so, how come?

Whatever you seem to have taken away from your time in the 60s, it seems to have brought with it an oddly exceptionalist attitude towards one particular country, a country which was around before the 60s and is still a functioning, if flawed, democracy today, similar to the United States.

Is it really worth the cost and the risk? No more nor less than any other country in the world. Did you ever ask that question about any of the others?

Have a blessed day and drinks are on me, next time you're here for a visit.

spacemoose,

Good post but you read too much into my remarks.

I was there and active during the period.  I have a pretty good idea of what was accomplished and what was not accomplished. 


Examples:  Racism and sectarian attitudes remain an important factor in both domestic and international politics.

The USA still strongly supports the nuclear weapons backed affirmative-action ethnic cleansing program that passes as the Israeli nation-building project.   

I do admire the Israeli discourse of cultural superiority and the willingness of American policy makers to pay for this project in both blood and treasure, more specifically American blood.   (Close to 30K Americans have died because of this nation-building exercise.)    But is it really worth the cost and risk?

Then there is the American-lead War on Terrorism from one of the greatest terrorist nation states in modern history.   The War on Terrorism was invented to illustrate that the average American knows nothing about violent conflict and the history of war despite the powerful, agonizing movement to get the USA out of Vietnam.  Ultimately more innocent civilians are dying thanks to the 'War on Terror'.


Besides many of the experiments of the counter-culture ended up on the trash heap of history.  That is OK; it is important for people to be able to socially experiment.  This ability to accommodate sub-cultures is what separates modern democratic freemarket societies from all others in history.

So even if many of the aspirations of the counter-culture were hugely ambitious, naive and ultimately doomed to failure, just the fact that it happened and had some influence was a significant accomplishment.

I saw David Crosby in Dallas this past Sunday and his voice is still amazing. So many memories came flooding into my head that he actually brought tears to my eyes.  See him if you can.  You won't be sorry.

 spacemoose wrote: 
Wow, nice post spacemoose.
I don't think there's any doubt that the counter culture and student protests/rallies helped to hasten the end of the Vietnam war.
Once the military starts gunning down innocent students on college campuses, you know you're having an effect.
And of course television was bringing all the gory details into America's living rooms on a daily basis, which added further pressure. Pretty hard for the government to deny things are happening when you're watching them on the nightly news.

 westslope wrote: 
I was born after the counter culture was mostly crushed and coopted, so I have no nostalgia to cloud my mind.  I have to disagree with your assessment.

The counter-culture was well meaning and had a positive effect.  There was a powerful, highly orchestrated, well funded and violent campaign to crush all elements of that counter culture that threatened entrenched powers and capital-flow structures.  The remaining aspects of the counter-culture were co-opted.  That doesn't make your belief naive. 

As a result of that co-opting huge segments of America and American culture got more civilized.  Blacks,  gays, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, women, freaks and wierdos have a much more comfortable existence now than they did before the counter-culture, and that's a powerful and meaningful accomplishment that has made generations of lives better.

Political discourse has at least gotten broader too.  It's hard to say if things are better or worse in that regard now.  The spectrum of allowed discourse is much better, but rationality and meaningful discourse have suffered.   I think it's safe to say that things are better in this regard now than they would have been without the counter culture, so I think there's room to be proud there.

 Sadly, the forces that perpetuate and profit from exploitation, environmental destruction and militarism have adapted successfully and seem to be racing us ever more quickly to the precipice, but I personally believe the counter culture helped slow this down. 

One of the most effective tools in the anti-counter-culture campaign has been a propaganda campaign that trivialized the counter culture and painted it ass naive, foolish, clownlike, etc.  I think it's important to fight that propaganda campain — in our own hearts as well as in public forums like this one, as the struggle continues.

Does this - otherwise lovely - track have two of the worst guitar solos ever recorded? Or is it just me?!

 westslope wrote: 

 kcar wrote: 
Good post.  I gave this a 9 instead of a 10 for the precise reasons you raised. 

The nostalgia factor drives my rating.  That silly, naive belief that the counter-culture would save us from ourselves.  :-)  

 Stephen_Phillips wrote:
That is probably Stephen Stills playing that 'scale exercise'; I don't believe Kantner is playing on this album - though he did co-write this tune.  Whoever is playing, it is a pretty lifeless solo, and muffled-sounding as well.  Considering he was such a good guitar player, it seems like he would've redone it later, but I guess they liked it at the time. 

 Stephen_Phillips wrote: 
But such a great song, anyway.  And maybe not thinking they could do no wrong.  Maybe just trying to be authentic.  Well, maybe that's the same thing..  and you don't "try" to be authentic. I give up.  It's just a really crappy guitar solo.

 mcampbellbell@gmail.com wrote: 
That's because Paul Kantner is just jamming up and down the pentatonic scale. It sounds unrehearsed and does not follow the song melody - just background noodling. It is anybody's guess why they did not construct a 'proper' guitar solo. I guess in those days I suppose they believed they could do no wrong.

 Skydog wrote: 
Me three.  ;-)  And I mean no disrespect for CS&N's version, just that the Airplane did it better.  

Such an amazing song. Thanks!

 h8rhater wrote: 
CSN's singing is almost always amazing and everyone does a great job playing their instruments. But the lyrics wander around and at times the music is so much noodling. "Wooden Ships" feels like a coupla great ideas that weren't fleshed out before they were jammed together. Even when I was a kid, I thought "Could you guys get to the point?" 

From what I could tell, CSNY had tighter lyrics and more structured music; that's what I prefer. I still like this song—gave it a 6—but the group did better work. Feel free to love this and them to bits. 

 mcampbellbell@gmail.com wrote: 
No, that title has to go to the one currently missing in this group, Neil Young in Cinnamon Girl unless you just appreciate the irony of it.   I like the song anyway.

If you smile at me I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language.

Too bad we've forgotten about how to smile at other people.

To my ears, this is both very much of its time as well as being ageless. No one hearing it is going to think it was written, say, in 1998, but it sounds as good today as it did in 1969. 

Redpoint wrote: 

1->0 

Probably the worst guitar solo - ever!

Very nostalgic nevertheless. 

 Redpoint wrote: 
8.3 SAYS IT ALL

 jab49 wrote: 
immediately BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL JR YEAR —-AHH THX RP 

 marklaw wrote: 
This makes me *want* to be a hippie. I'll have to settle for being a chilled out family man / executive with a short haircut.

Always great to hear CS&N. But the next song should be by Y.

Written aboard Crosby's beloved wooden ship "Mayan":

This is the song that made me a hippie

 Emwolb wrote: 
me too

Highest Quality morning music imo

Thank you DJ

I so prefer the Jefferson Airplane version....just saying

I simply love the voice... wow. 

Every now and again a song is played here that just sounds ageless... 
Unfortunately this isn't one of them (IMHO).  

 kcar wrote: 
Yeah, what is there really to like about epic story telling, timeless poignancy, Crosby writing with Kantner, great guitar, and effortless harmonies? 

 idiot_wind wrote: 
I've spent some time on Mifflin Street as well. I think I saw your diatribe passing by....

manna for a certain generation

As the years pass, I think I like this song more and more!

 aelfheld wrote: 
I know a lot of people here love Wooden Ships but I just never could dig it. Generally I like CSN a lot more when Y is in mix. 

As the years pass I like this song less & less.

 gjeeg wrote: 
no adjective for my buzz

 blkstd wrote: 
like

Feels like this is taking me back to a time before I was born. 

Makes me think of Paul Kantner, RIP, who co-wrote this with Stills and Crosby on Cs boat with guitars, weed, and Time on their hands.

Got an apocalypse buzz working here.

Oh yes, this is good.

Never really liked the song but the feelings I get are very nice. make sense?

 coloradojohn wrote: 

I was just thinking there are striking similarities between early CSN and Fleetwood Macs Future Games. Then, as if reading my mind, on comes Wooden Ships. If I were paranoid I’d be lying under the desk in the foetal position sucking my thumb.

Brilliant weaving harmonies. I find this a little lyrically noodley sometimes. I think they nailed the sound on the next album but Suite Judy Blue Eyes from this album is still probably my favorite songs of theirs.

Wow, got the chills down the back from this, coming after Future Games... This is transcendent stuff, for sure. It resonates, with power

Ever since Man discovered rhythm by banging on a tree (and such) there has been pap meant to entertain for the moment, and then pffffft...gone, forgotten.  And then there is the "stuff" that cuts right to the heart, that is timelessness itself.  For the rock-n-roll genre I file this one by CS&N under the latter category.  Good stuff.

Highlow
American Net'Zen

Mifflin Street in Madison!!!

I left some brain cells on the street that went chasing a four minute diatribe about the aesthetics of fishing in northeast Iowa while figuring out how space...and time...and light are all connected via some level of physics!

I think that diatribe is now gossamer, floating over the lakes in Madison.   

 jjtwister wrote: 
PERFECT follow up. 

 Piranga wrote: 
Yep. 405 W. Fourth St, Greenville, NC, 1975. Not a care in the world.

 Kokoloco53 wrote: 
Yeah, that's a good'un.

Good follow up to Future Games 

 On_The_Beach wrote:  Oh, yes...Oh, God, yes...sooo much bad music it's amazing stuff like this was made.

Sometimes RP just gets it right.  Today, CSNY preceded by OLD Fleetwood Mac, Buena Vista Social Club and NOW listening to 78 Saab.  So happy.  
thanks. 

 ngunnell wrote: 
In. Deed.

We had a couch like that, a house like that, and hair like that. Mifflin St, Madison, Wisconsin. 1969.

FORTY FIVE YEARS old! How brilliant is that? 45 years before it came out was 1924. Imagine. Godlike, no less.

 Rodro wrote: 
Am I supposed to know who that is? 

Yep this was and still is magic! And for your info mike zucker taught david to sail in da 60" s 

One of the greatest albums of all time. I was 10 years old when my older brother bought this.
It is permanently ingrained in my soul.
And that is a very good thing.
 

Jefferson Airplane's rendition of same song is eqaully good, off the Volunteers album. One of Jefferson's other anthems always sets me straight when I hear "Doesn't mean shit to a tree"

 fitzworld wrote: 
Well, I'd like to think that there is always room for new creative genius. Doesn't make this anything less than a 10 in my book, though.

 unclehud wrote: 
This was my first experience with music...According to my folks

First real experience with psychedelic music.  The memories of that loooooong afternoon are quite special.  You hear that twanging background guitar throughout the verse?  Wow, man, such a cool energy. 

 ceviche wrote: 
Not hippie claptrap. Listen close to the lyrics; the song is about a postnuclear apocalypse. "Silver people on the shoreline" have to be people in radiation suits checking out the radioactive areas.

I was 2 years out of high-school, and at the U of Wash. in "69"  My lady and I went to sleep 100 nights listening to this sweet
sweet music. Every time I hear this song, the memories come flooding back, and they are as fine as the song. 10 !

 Stranglersfan wrote: 
Actually there was TONS of bad music back then. Bobby Goldsboro, anyone?
Thankfully most of it has been forgotten and the good stuff (like this) lives on.

 martinc wrote: 
I agree, its amazing how times have changed. There was a remarkably small amount of bad music made in those days.

 godspeed wrote: 
Yep but 1969 was even better. Check date here. Led Zep I and II  ......

 mcYammer wrote: 
yes in contrast to CSN+Y

I listened to this album for a long time on just a crappy old record player — no stereo.  I didn't hear the "conversation" for years.  First time I did was a big "WOW" moment for me!

Not unlike when the Wizard of Oz goes from black and white to color!

 Hannio wrote: 
Sez me 2.