When Songs Imitate Life

The story behind Graham Nash's debut solo album is just as compelling as the music it contained.

It was 1971. Nash and Joni Mitchell had just ended a romantic relationship of several years. After a hit debut album, Crosby Stills and Nash had temporarily gone their separate ways.

Nash hadn't really planned a solo album. But he started writing songs about his breakup with Mitchell ("Simple Man," Better Days," "I Used To Be King") and about bandmate Stephen Stills' relationship with Judy Collins ("Wounded Bird") and gradually, Nash says today, "I realized I could craft something special that you could listen to and could help you in your own life."

The result was Songs For Beginners, a mostly quiet and gentle album (the exceptions being the protest songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago") that suprised no one any more than Nash when it reached #15 on the Billboard album chart. Collaborators included Stills, Neil Young (alias Joe Yankee in the credits) and Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh.

On September 23, Songs For Beginners (Compare Prices) is being reissued as a CD/DVD set, with re-engineered sound and a new interview with Nash in which he confides, "I wanted it to be straight from my heart to whoever listened to it. What I’m saying has survived pretty well."

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^{Cover image courtesy Rhino Records}