Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

The words do not have to be perfect.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / David Crosby, R.I.P.

Reader Interactions

Commenters

No commenters available.

  • AliceBlue
  • Almost Retired
  • Anotherlurker
  • Barbara
  • Cameron
  • David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
  • David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
  • Dorothy A. Winsor
  • Elizabelle
  • Grumpy Old Railroader
  • HinTN
  • HumboldtBlue
  • Hungry Joe
  • J R in WV
  • JML
  • karen marie
  • Leslie
  • lowtechcyclist
  • MagdaInBlack
  • Manyakitty
  • Miss Bianca
  • Old Dan and Little Ann
  • Omnes Omnibus
  • OverTwistWillie
  • OzarkHillbilly
  • Paul in KY
  • Raoul Paste
  • raven
  • Raven
  • Ruckus
  • Spanky
  • Steeplejack
  • StringOnAStick
  • Subsole
  • sxjames
  • The Moar You Know
  • The Thin Black Duke
  • tobie
  • Uncle Cosmo
  • wenchacha
  • zhena gogolia

Filtered Commenters

No filtered commenters available.

    Settings




    Settings are saved immediately; press X to close the box.

    85Comments

    1. 1.

      tobie

      This one really hurts. David Crosby was a living reminder of the idealism of the 1960s and he kept it alive till his end. Just yesterday he posted a tweet saying how brave Greta Thunberg is. Make music in the great beyond, David Crosby. It might help make peace here on earth.

      Reply
    4. 4.

      Hungry Joe

      Sometime around the late ‘80s I heard Crosby & Nash when they opened for Jackson Browne at the San Diego Civic Theater. The blending of their voices was … perfect. It seemed unreal. People were glancing around, catching each others’ eyes: Are you hearing what I’m hearing?

      Jackson Browne wasn’t half bad, either.

      Reply
    6. 6.

      HumboldtBlue

      I mentioned on the family text thread six months ago that you know you’re getting old when the soundtrack of your youth (and sweet Jesus weeping on a guitar I was formed in the absolute golden era of rock, soul and the birth of rap and hip-hop) becomes the soundtrack of advertising on TV.

      My older brothers and sisters introduced me to so many ridiculously awesome bands and songwriters, and near the top of the list is Crosby, Stills and Nash (along with CSN&Y).

      I almost cut my hair

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Elizabelle

      Really good article in the LA Times, written by Steve Hawkins.  Covers David in all his facets; the talent, the difficult personality and drug addiction.  Totally worth a click.

      LA Times:
      David Crosby, whose voice soared with the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, dies
      One anecdote.  David wrote a song, Triad, about sexual threesomes, which his Byrds colleagues recorded but did not include on an album.  They chose a song by Carole King and Gerry Goffin instead.

      Bring this up, because the LA Times article is very upfront about what Triad means.

      Not so the Grey Lady (The FTFucking NY Times), which describes it as “an ode to free love.”  OK.  Whatevs.  [Gift link to the NY Times article.]

      Anyway:  incredible that David Crosby had such a successful late life career, and maintained his creativity as well.  That his voice remained pretty good, too.

      The end of the LA Times article:

      In one of his last tweets, sent Wednesday, Crosby joked that heaven was “overrated….cloudy.” But he had been reflecting on his impending mortality for the last few years.

      “It’s hard. Who wants to die? I could use another entire lifetime,” he told The Times. “There’s so many things I still want to learn … so much more music I’d like to make.”

      Reply
    8. 8.

      Elizabelle

      From the LA Times article:

      A guitarist who sang in a crystal-clear middle tenor, Crosby had a voice sometimes described as angelic. He wrote or co-wrote songs with evocative lyrics and unusual tunings, and many of them — “Eight Miles High,” “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone” — continue stirring the hearts of fans who had long since traded their mescaline for Medicare. He was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

      Traded mescaline for Medicare.  It was a fun article.

      Reply
    15. 15.

      Elizabelle

      @Steeplejack:   Thank you for the links.

      I only know the Byrds and CSN/Y stuff, so this is fresh to me, and he is very talented.  (Looking for the lyrics to Triad before I listen to the Airplane’s version.  So far it’s just instrumental …)

      So many times, it’s other tracks on the albums that end up our favorites.

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Elizabelle

      Prior to the LA Times article, had not known that he served a prison sentence.  In Texas.  For drugs and a gun. Guessing that no holds barred, recent documentary film about his life will be streaming broadly soon.  Would like to see it.

      While he was arrested a number of times on charges involving drugs, alcohol and guns, the most consequential bust came at a Dallas nightclub in 1982. Crosby was on a solo tour when police raided his dressing room to find him with a propane torch, a glass pipe containing drug residue, and a loaded .45 in his gym bag.

      Over the next few years, he checked himself into half a dozen rehab programs and bolted from each. When his Dallas appeals finally ran out, he and his girlfriend, Jan Dance, fled to Florida, hoping to sail his boat to some safe Latin American haven. Finding the Mayan in disrepair — many of the fixtures had been sold off — he surrendered to the FBI and started serving his time in Texas.

      “We’re not talking the drunk tank here,” he wrote in “Long Time Gone.” “We’re talking serious business: barbed wire, machine-gun towers and a 300-pound guy with no neck and a cowboy hat saying, ‘Hey rock star, git over here, boy.’”

      After he was paroled in 1986, he recounted the horrors of prison to students at Beverly Hills High School.

      “One of them asked, ‘Were you ever on stage stoned?’” he recalled. “The answer to that is that never once, until I got out of prison, did I ever record, perform, or do anything any way except stoned. I did it all stoned.”

      Reply
    18. 18.

      AliceBlue

      I’m saddened by the passing of Christine McVie and Jeff Beck but losing David Crosby is hitting me hard.  I have a vivid memory of 16 year old me sitting on my bed listening to the first album by CS&N.

      Reply
    19. 19.

      The Moar You Know

      I met Mr. Crosby back in 1994 when he toured my employer’s guitar factory.  He was about three weeks out from getting his new liver.

      I was in my late 20s and it made quite an impression on me.  He was pure, bright yellow, head to toe, from liver failure and had very little idea where he was.

      I have no idea if he was a nice guy or not, and wouldn’t expect to under the circumstances.  All I know is that guy must’ve done a fuckton of booze and hard-ass drugs, and he paid a heavy price for it.  I am amazed he lived as long as he did, considering.

      Reply
    21. 21.

      Steeplejack

      @Elizabelle:

      That version of “Triad” is the full song, with the lyrics capably sung by Grace Slick (of course).

      I highly recommend If I Could Only Remember My Name. The whole album is here. My one (very minor) complaint is that the second song, “Cowboy Movie,” is an outlier from the rest of the album. I might have put it at the end of the album.

      Many A-list people helping out on the album. Wikipedia article here.

      Reply
    23. 23.

      raven

      @Elizabelle:

      • This is about a ménage à trois, otherwise known as a three-way (we heard). Byrds guitarist/vocalist David Crosby wrote the song, but when The Byrds rejected it, he gave it to Jefferson Airplane. Crosby states in interviews that this is not merely “about” three-way relationships, but that the song “happened, several times.” Crosby was involved for some time in the late 1990s-early 2000s with both Melissa Etheridge and her partner, Julie Cypher, and was the biological father of their two children.
      Reply
    25. 25.

      wenchacha

      He seemed unable to keep from saying the wrong thing about his friends. Difficult personality, for sure. But also a real poet and musician.

      Reply
    26. 26.

      raven

      I wonder who they are
      The men who really run this land
      And I wonder why they run it
      With such a thoughtless hand
      Tell me what are their names
      And on what street do they live?
      I’d like to ride right over
      This afternoon and give
      Them a piece of my mind
      About peace for mankind
      Peace is not
      An awful lot
      To ask

      Reply
    27. 27.

      Almost Retired

      I met him (sort of) briefly at the old Cat and Fiddle Pub in the 80’s – for LA folks, the original one in Laurel Canyon and not the later version on Sunset Boulevard.  I said something gushy about being a fan.  He nodded and then tried very hard to disengage from having any further conversation with me.  Quite rightly.  He had better things to do then tolerate an interruption from a dumbshit 20 year old with a fake ID.  Masterful musician!

      Reply
    29. 29.

      Leslie

      My favorite concert ever was CS&N at the Hollywood Bowl. Perfect fit between venue and performer. Glorious sound.

      Reply
    30. 30.

      sxjames

      Yes, this one hurts.  I’ve learned a couple of his tunes on guitar (Guinevere with its really odd open tuning, and Wooden Ships with those high neck cords) and what blew me away was the shear innovation and creativity of his music.  No one voiced or composed songs like he did….you can instantly recognize a David Crosby tune.

      God Speed my man.

      Reply
    31. 31.

      karen marie

      Dear Tom Levenson:  Did you LISTEN to that Tiny Desk video before you posted it?

      It made my cat flee the room and I had to quickly remove my headphones.

      What a stinker!

      If that Tiny Desk concert is representative of his current work, his timely death has saved him embarrassing himself further.  I have very fond memories of ’60s and ’70s Crosby music, and I’m grateful that he existed, but his antics on twitter (his unnecessary, nasty remarks about fan art shown to him, sneering at perfectly fine joints, etc.) made me block him.  His music will live on for people to enjoy, ignoring that he was an asshole.

      Reply
    35. 35.

      OzarkHillbilly

      @Spanky: ​It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage. I’ve got a lot of mileage.
      @Elizabelle: So do I, I’m not pushing it, but… (who knows, I might live to 92 like my grandfather…. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. gasp…. wheeze…

      Seriously tho, I have danced with death more than a few times and have watched too many others take that last tango. I know I am closer to the end than I am the beginning but surely can’t say how close. One thing I can say, 20 years? It’s the blink of an eye. I am far away from where I was at 44 and can’t even imagine 84.

      Life is good, there is much I still want to experience and know that there is several life time’s worth I am no longer capable of experiencing. That’s OK, I’ll take what I can get.

      And when I know longer can? It’s not a sad end. It’s the beginning of a whole new adventure.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      lowtechcyclist

      @Elizabelle: ​
       

      David wrote a song, Triad, about sexual threesomes

      Huh? To me, it’s a song about him being a jerk.

      He’s cheating on each of these women with the other one, and when they find out and confront him, he suggests that they become a threesome. Woohoo, a solution combining absolution and male fantasy time! And let’s all just forget about the fact that he’s given both of them ample reason not to trust him.

      I always skip past this song, just so I don’t have to actively despise him.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      HinTN

      @Steeplejack: Who knows what goes on in the male late-teen emotional, hormonal, intellectual chaos but I do know that I was a Jefferson Airplane rock and roller and yet I bought and was transfixed by this record and, at the same time, was captured by Coltrane’s Africa Brass. Ain’t life grand?

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Omnes Omnibus

      RIP.  Always thought CSN was at their best when they worked with Neil Young.  He provided them with a needed edge.  That being said, Crosby was one hell of a talent and had one hell of a life.

      Reply
    49. 49.

      Raoul Paste

      @Hungry Joe: You can hear that same, perfect blending of voices on the DVD: David Gilmour, Live at the Royal Albert Hall

      Crosby and Nash are guest artists, and it is extraordinary

      Reply
    54. 54.

      HinTN

      @Steeplejack: Wes Montgomery came much later to me. Frank Zappa on the other hand… Uncle Meat was ridiculous and yet…

      Brown shoes don’t make it.

      Quit school, why take it?

      Be a jerk and go to work.

      Do you love it do you hate it?

      There it is, the way you made it.

      Memory may also be underserving my purpose.. (fixed)

      ETA – Yes, I know that’s from Freak Out, not Uncle Meat.

      Reply
    58. 58.

      Barbara

      @Elizabelle: ​Read all the way through to discover that Crosby and Nash nearly got into a fist fight backstage at a White House Christmas performance after botching Silent Night (during Obama presidency). Not hampered by convention seems to have been his motto for living. CSN and Deja Vu were among the first albums I ever bought.

      Reply
    59. 59.

      Elizabelle

      @Barbara:  Yes.  Fisticuffs over Silent Night.  OK, David.

      Yes.  Played Deja Vu constantly one summer.  Never saw CSN, but did see Neil Young in concert a few times.

      Reply
    63. 63.

      Elizabelle

      NY Times reader comment:

      The part about his weapons offenses reminds me of when I worked at a museum store in Philadelphia. One evening in the mid aughts Mr. Crosby came in to browse. I said it’s nice that he was able to get out and do things like visit museums while touring. He said that if he didn’t do such things he’d find himself sitting in his hotel room making pipe bombs. He was clearly, of course, joking.

      Reply
    64. 64.

      J R in WV

      So many songs.?.

      Don’t I recall one about the constellation Southern Cross?

      Never saw/heard him in concert,  but loved his music…

      Reply
    65. 65.

      Steeplejack

      I saw CSN&Y once, in Atlanta in the early or mid-’90s. An old friend from my newspaper days had tickets and took me and a couple of other friends. I thought, “Okay, icons of the golden age, past their prime, we’ll get a tour of the hits, nice to put on my list.” Holy shnikeys, it was one of the best concerts I ever saw—definitely top five. It was long, almost four hours, no opening act, and they were really on. They did a lot of their hits, also a lot of deep cuts, and they traded in and out in different configurations. Stills and Young both did some separate acoustic stuff, and Nash and Crosby did a whole mini-set by themselves. An amazing night that I’m glad I experienced.

      Reply
    66. 66.

      Anotherlurker

      @HinTN: I saw C, S & N at Woodstock.  What a transformative musical experience!

      You mentioned Zappa.  Give a listen to “Trouble Coming Everyday” from the “Freak Out” album.  Social conscience meets commentary in mid mid-60s USA.  Wow, Frank could write some powerful lyrics that are very relevant today!

      Reply
    70. 70.

      Barbara

      @Steeplejack: ​I saw Paul Simon a few years ago and had the same kind of expectations, and ended up seeing a fantastic, energetic concert with incredible musicians. I felt like he loved us as much as we loved him.​

      Reply
    75. 75.

      Ruckus

      @Steeplejack:

      Without a word you still know who that is even if you’d never heard it before.

      Did they ever create a song that wasn’t good? I can’t think of one. One of the best groups of their very long and very good era.

      Reply
    76. 76.

      Steeplejack

      @Ruckus:

      I’ve been going through comments on Twitter and elsewhere and saw an interesting item: Roger McGuinn said that David Crosby was the best harmony singer ever. High praise indeed.

      Reply
    77. 77.

      lowtechcyclist

      @Ruckus: ​
       

      Did they ever create a song that wasn’t good? I can’t think of one.

      I’m gonna say, sure they did. Crosby had an amazing voice, but most of the songs he wrote fall flat with me. Their tunes kinda wander (“Triad,” “Almost Cut My Hair” come to mind) without really seeming to have any idea where they’re going, and the first time I heard “Almost Cut My Hair” back in 1971, the lyrics made my eyes roll so far back in my head I should have been able to see behind me.

      I’m sure there were still places then where keeping one’s hair long was still some sort of defiant gesture, but that moment had passed years earlier where I was growing up. A few years more, and even the rednecks in the small town in Kansas where my relatives lived were sporting shoulder-length hair.

      Reply
    79. 79.

      JML

      @Steeplejack: Crosby is the best harmony singer in rock & roll, IMHO. His voice was absolutely a marvel and he was just as skilled at using it to support and uplift another’s voice as to take the spotlight. He’s truly one of the great singers in rock history, and his voice remarkably stayed strong and vibrant for so long, even with all of the very hard living he did.

      He was never the songwriter his partners in CSNY or The Byrds were, and he was always at his best when he had a true singing partner which limited his solo work I think. But it’s also why he was such a welcome present doing guest vocal on some many tracks on other people’s albums of the years. Brilliant voice and remarkable performer.

      Reply
    81. 81.

      Uncle Cosmo

      IIRC he was the one who said,

      If you remember the Sixties, you weren’t there.

      I think I wasn’t there enough not to have to spend 10-15 years finding my way back from wherever there was.For all the good that did me…

      Back in the daze I loaned my GF two hot off the disc-press albums – Sweet Baby James and Deja Vu – saying, See what you think. I figured she’d prefer the former. Hah! Who is this James Taylor when you have CSN&Y? Shows how well I knew her. And probably why she dumped me a couple years later for one of her med-school instructors. (Funny thing, we all ended up friends. Sharp person, left this plane way too soon.)​​
      ​
      ​

      Reply
    82. 82.

      Paul in KY

      @Hungry Joe: Saw CSN at Riverbend back in 90 or so. Did their usual great set and then for encore (cause he had a show the next night), Neil came out and joined them for ‘Ohio’.

      Was pretty killer!

      Reply

    Leave a Comment

    Your email address will not be published.

    If you don't see both the Visual and the Text tab on the editor, click here to refresh.

    Clear Comment

    To reply to more than one person, click the X to save & close the box.