CSNY released Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Released: March 11, 1970 Peak: 11 US, 5 UK, 1 CN, 12 AU, 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 8.0 US, -- UK, 13.5 world (includes US and UK), 24.78 EAS Genre: folk rock/classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Carry On/Questions [4:25] Teach Your Children [2:53] Almost Cut My Hair [4:25] Helpless [3:30] Woodstock [3:52] Déjà Vu [4:10] Our House [2:59] 4 + 20 [1:55] Country Girl [5:05] Everybody I Love You [2:20] Total Running Time: 36:24 Other Songs from This Era: Laughing Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves) The Lee Shore Horses Through a Rainstorm Ohio Find the Cost of Freedom The Players: David Crosby (vocals, guitar) Stephen Stills (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, organ, piano, percussion) Graham Nash (vocals, piano, organ, rhythm guitar, percussion) Neil Young (vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica) Dallas Taylor (drums, tambourine) Greg Reeves (bass)

Rating: 4.529 out of 5.00 (average of 38 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Supergroup + 1 When Crosby, Stills & Nash released their debut album in 1969, they effectively became one of the first supergroups. David Crosby had worked with The Byrds, Stephen Stills had been with Buffalo Springfield, and Graham Nash was previously in The Hollies. After their collaboration proved a success, the follow-up became “one of the most hotly awaited second albums in history.” AM The expectations were ratched up all the more by the addition of Neil Young, who had worked with Stills in Buffalo Springfield and already was off to a great start as a solo artist. He “transformed the folk-rock CSN into a powerhouse;” 500 his presence “added to the level of virtuosity” AM and “a uniquely idiosyncratic songwriter to the fold.” AM Young and Stills rose “to new levels of complexity and volume on their guitars.” AM “CSNY’s unparalleled harmony singing put the shine on a commune-ful of hippie anthems.” EW’93 It is an “intoxicating mixture of folk rock, open-tuned balladry, and spiky electric workouts.” TB The Album’s Place in History “All of this variety made Déjà Vu a rich musical banquet for the most serious and personal listeners, while mass audiences reveled in the glorious harmonies and the thundering electric guitars, which were presented in even more dramatic and expansive fashion on the tour that followed.” AM It was “a career-high for all four men wrapped up in its brilliance.” PM The talents of the collective and “some very skilled production, engineering, and editing” AM made for “one of the greatest folk-rock records ever made.” PM Part of the significance of the album was that it was “both a last reprise of ‘60s idealism and a prayer for inner peace. applies reassuring colorburst harmonies to songs about controlling the few things a rainbow child could.” TM The Recording “With four such accomplished songwriters there was bound to be tensions as each contested space for their songs.” TB With the exception of ‘Carry On’ and…‘Woodstock,’ most of the recording was done in individual sessions. AM ”The moody Young was often absent – and Nash was forced to play peacemaker.” RD “Only when it was time to do vocals did the four come together, and it is those soaring, precision-formation harmonies that remain the focal point.” TM The album took almost 800 hours to record RD thanks to continuous reworking of material. CRS Some members wondered if the album would ever be finished. CRS Christine Hinton, Crosby’s girlfriend, died in September 1969 in a car accident and he “took solace in heroin; cocaine and booze abounded during recording.” RD Notes A 50th anniversary edition added a second disc of demos, a third of outtakes, and a fourth of alternate takes. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

4 + 20 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Stephen Stills Recorded: July 16, 1969 Released: Déjà Vu (1970), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) Peak: 14 CL, 22 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 22.53 streaming About the Song: 4 + 20 “was a gorgeous…blues excursion that was a precursor to the material he would explore on the solo album that followed.” AM Stills said, “I wanted to hold it for my solo album but the guys insisted we use it on Déjà Vu – it means a lot to me – it’s about an eighty-four year old poverty stricken man who started and finished with nothing. I recorded the track in one take. I’d intended for David and Graham to sing harmony and even had the parts worked out, but they told me they wouldn’t dare touch it, so it always stood alone.” LN

Teach Your Children Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Graham Nash Recorded: October 24, 1969 Released: May 1970 (single), Déjà Vu (1970), 4 Way Street (live, 1971), So Far (compilation, 1974), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991), Greatest Hits (compilation, 2005) B-side: “Carry On” Peak: 16 BB, 16 CB, 13 GR, 16 HR, 28 AC, 4 CL, 8 CN, 11 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 25.80 video, 112.64 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: As far as individual achievements, “Teach Your Children, the album’s biggest hit, “is a country-rock staple that paints a deft portrait of CSNY’s harmonizing.” PM It “has to go down as the best vocal harmony sang by any rock group ever. Add to that a great steel guitar played by guest Jerry Garcia and you have one sweet ballad.” KN Lyrically, it “was a reflection of the hippie-era idealism that still filled Graham Nash’s life.” AM Graham Nash: “The idea is that you write something so personal that every single person on the planet can relate to it. Once it’s there on the vinyl it unfolds, outwards, so that it applies to almost any situation. ‘Teach’ started out as a slightly funky English folk song but Stephen put a country beat to it and turned it into a hit record. Jerry Garcia added the pedal steel guitar - which he’d only been playing for two weeks.” LN

Laughing David Crosby

Writer(s): David Crosby Recorded: October 24, 1969 Released: Crosby: If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971); CSNY: 4 Way Street (live, 1971), CSN (box set, 1991) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: David Crosby: “I have fond memories of recording that first solo album. We felt there were people who would understand it, but basically we were thrilling ourselves. Stephen Barncard was my engineer and he did a lot of work to get that acoustic guitar sound. I don't think anybody’s ever gotten a better one, frankly. The key to the whole enterprise was great instruments, incredibly well tuned. You can’t even attempt this music any other way. And Garcia was wonderful because he’s always trying to push the edge of the envelope. He always wants to play something that he hasn’t played before. He’ll take a swing at a song he’s never heard – shooting craps with the music, we loved to do that. He is a truly amazing musician, one of the most articulate and brilliant people who has ever played music.” LN Jerry Garcia: “David is a very giving musician, his songs are special and they’re very different, so it’s always a challenge to work with him. He’s into that loose ‘anything goes’ creative space, which is especially fun when you’re a supporting musician, because of the ‘gameness’ it expresses. And the payoff is when you hear it back. It sounds beautiful. Crosby has never gotten the credit he deserves. He’s an uncanny singer. He has as much control as anybody I’ve seen or worked with. He can do things that are truly astonishing if you give him half a chance and when he has his own head and he’s in good shape, boy, he’s fun to work with. He’s an inspiration. I think some of the finest playing I've done on record is on his solo album. As far as being personally satisfied with my own performances, which I rarely am, he's gotten better out of me than I get out of myself.”

Woodstock Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Joni Mitchell Recorded: November 5, 1969 Released: 3/20/1970 (single), Déjà Vu (1970), So Far (compilation, 1974), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) B-side: “Helpless” Peak: 11 BB, 13 DCB, 13 GR, 10 HR, 3 CL, 3 CN, 19 AU, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, -- video, 33.86 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: While all four members performed on Woodstock, it was Stills who took the lead vocal. It also “comes to life in part thanks to Young's lead guitar, which wails away all over the tune.” KN The song was written by Joni Mitchell, who was dating Graham Nash when the trio performed one of their first gigs at the 1969 Woodstock festival. “This is one excellent cover!” KN Joni Mitchell: “The deprivation of being stuck in a New York hotel room and not being able to go provided me with an intense angle on Woodstock. I was one of the fans. I was put in the position of being a kid who couldn’t make it. So I was glued to the media. And at the time I was going through a kind of born-again Christian trip – not that I went to any church, I’d given up Christianity at a very early age in Sunday school. But suddenly, as performers, we were in the position of having so many people look to us for leadership, and for some unknown reason, I took it seriously and decided I needed a guide and leaned on God. So I was a little ‘God mad’ at the time, for lack of a better term, and I had been saying to myself, ‘Where are the modern miracles?’ Woodstock, for some reason, impressed me as being a modern miracle, like a modern-day fishes-and-loaves story. For a herd of people that large to cooperate so well, it was pretty remarkable and there was tremendous optimism. So I wrote the song ‘Woodstock’ out of these feelings.” LN

Our House Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Graham Nash Released: 9/19/1970 (single), Déjà Vu (1970), So Far (compilation, 1974), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991), Greatest Hits (compilation, 2005) B-side: “Déjà Vu” Peak: 30 BB, 20 CB, 32 GR, 20 HR, 20 AC, 9 CL, 13 CN, 51 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.20 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 17.21 video, 225.63 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Our House is a “pure classic ballad.” KN It was Nash’s “stylistic paean to the late-era Beatles” AM and “a generational ode to the ordinary bliss” PM to his domestic life with Joni Mitchell in Laurel Canyon. “Doesn’t everybody wish to live such a life as what is described in this song?” KN Graham Nash: “Written for Joni Mitchell, about her house that we shared in Laurel Canyon, on Lookout Mountain. It was written on her piano. Such a charming house. She had a collection of multicolored glass in the window that would catch the light – like ‘fiery gems.’ There was a fireplace, and two cats in the yard. It was like a family snapshot, a portrait of our life together.” LN

Helpless Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Neil Young Recorded: November 7, 1969 Released: March 1970 (B-side of “Woodstock”), Déjà Vu (1970), So Far (compilation, 1974), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) Peak: 31 CL, 5 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 44.86 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: Young contributed “the exquisitely harmonized” AM and “achingly plaintive” 500 “lost innocence standout,” PM “the majestic, spare Helpless.” RD It “reflects Young’s response to the wide open spaces of his Canadian homeland.” RD Young said, “Recorded in San Francisco about four a.m. when everyone got tired enough to play at my speed.” LN

Déjà Vu Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): David Crosby Recorded: November 17, 1969 Released: September 1970 (B-side of “Our House”), Déjà Vu (1970), So Far (compilation, 1974), CSN (box set, 1991) Peak: 19 CL, 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, -- video, 16.19 streaming About the Song: David Crosby wrote and song lead on the title track, which took some 100 hours to complete. AM He said, “I thought then and still think that there's a good possibility that the people who believe in reincarnation are right. That the law of conservation of energy applies: life force just doesn’t go away. The identity print gets wiped, mostly, but sometimes there’s a ghost print and some stuff hangs around. How else can I explain knowing how to sing harmonies at age six or knowing how to sail a boat the first time I got in one? And having a persistent delusion, all my life, of having been somebody else before.” LN

Song with No Words (Tree with No Leaves) David Crosby

Writer(s): David Crosby Recorded: November 17, 1969 Released: Crosby: If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971); CSNY: CSN (box set, 1991) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: David Crosby: “When I wrote this song it seemed complete, it never asked me for words. I did it, it felt good, so I left it that way. I called it ‘Song with No Words,’ and Nash dubbed it ‘Tree with No Leaves.’ Early on a lot of people made much of my music being strange, because I used a lot of odd tunings, and the fact that my songs often didn’t follow the usual cyclical, short and easy repeat patterns – which is one reason I was thrilled when I met Nash. He understood my stuff the first minute he heard it. Nash has never been puzzled by my music, ever. The farthest out thing I ever tried to do, Nash just went, ‘Yeah, sure.’ The tunings I use I hit on by fooling around with other guitar players, and experimenting.” LN

Carry On/Questions Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Stephen Stills Recorded: December 28, 1969 Released: May 1970 (B-side of “Teach Your Children”), Déjà Vu (1970), 4 Way Street (live, 1971), Replay (compilation, 1980), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991), Greatest Hits (compilation, 2005) Peak: 5 CL, 15 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 64.78 streaming About the Song: Stills paired Questions with the “vocal-choir gallop” 500 of Carry On to make “it more substantial” AM The “psych-folk album opener” PM “is a shape-shifting beauty featuring spine-tingling harmonies, and is surely one of the best songs to cure a Sunday morning hangover.” RD It “solidified CSNY as a no-nonsense ripper (Stills’ guitar solo lurking in the background is subdued yet fierce, bubbling over into the band’s three-part harmony).” PM “This is the essence of CSNY – impossibly gorgeous cascading vocals that urge everyone leaving the farm to continue in faith.” TM “Next to the Beatles, no other rock group could harmonize better than CSN&Y.” KN Drummer Dallas Taylor: “I’ll never forget the day we cut ‘Carry On’ because I’d just bought a new Porsche and it got stolen that morning. The song was written in the middle of the Deja Vu sessions, when Nash told Stephen they still didn’t have an opener for the album. It was something of a message to the group, since it had become a real struggle to keep the band together at that point. Stephen combined two unfinished songs and stuck them onto a jam we’d had out in the studio a few nights before, me on drums and Stephen on a Hammond B-3 organ. As the track begins I’m playing bass drums and high hat, and Graham is playing congas. Then we go into a 6/8 groove, which is rather obscure – Stephen loved to change gears that way.” “Stephen and I had a telepathic rapport; the fact that he started out as a drummer had a lot to do with that. We could just read each other’s minds, it was spooky. I always knew just when he was about to take some weird left turn. Whatever he’d decide to do, I’d be there. The sessions would go on all night, sometimes three or four days non-stop. The thing I loved about the studio was you could never tell if it was day or night, and we hid all the clocks so no one knew what time it was.”

The Lee Shore Crosby, Stills, & Nash

Writer(s): David Crosby Recorded:December 28, 1969 Released: 4 Way Street (live, 1971), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: David Crosby: “A song about a twenty year love affair with an Alden schooner. Sailing is a mystical experience for me. The Mayan represents everything healthy and positive for me, and has quite literally saved my life on a number of occasions. It gets me out of the whole scene. The ocean doesn’t give a damn; it’s never heard of you.” LN

Horses Through a Rainstorm Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Graham Nash Terry Reid Recorded: December 28, 1969 Released: CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming About the Song: Graham Nash: “Terry Reid was an English bluesman I later produced an album for. This was his song, I rewrote and rearranged it a bit. It's a full CSNY band version, an outtake from the Déjà Vu album. In the end it smacked a little too much of the pop prisons from which we had all just escaped.” LN

Almost Cut My Hair Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): David Crosby Recorded: January 9, 1970 Released: Déjà Vu (1970), CSN (box set, 1991), Carry On (compilation, 1991) Peak: 14 CL, 11 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 70.50 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Almost Cut My Hair is Crosby at his most anti-authoritarian, delivering a throaty vocal at odds with his trademark pure harmonies.” RD It is “a piece of high-energy hippie-era paranoia not too far removed in subject from the Byrds’ ‘Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man.” AM It is “a simple but to the point song about prejudices in society towards longhairs.” KN Neil Young said, “It’s really Crosby at what I think is his best.” LN

Country Girl Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Neil Young Released: Déjà Vu (1970) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 5.92 streaming About the Song: “Country Girl is a stunning piece with an ambitious arrangement.” RD It consists of three parts: a) Whiskey Boot Hill, b) Down, Down, Down, and c) Country Girl (I Think You Are Prtetty)

Everybody I Love You Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Stephen Stills, Neil Young Released: Déjà Vu (1970) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.89 streaming About the Song: The “seeming throwaway finale, Everybody I Love You, was a bone thrown to longtime fans as perhaps the greatest Buffalo Springfield song that they didn’t record.” AM

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Bruce Eder RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 201. EW’93 Entertainment Weekly (10/29/1993). “100 Greatest CDs: A Love-It-Or-Loathe It Guide to the Essential Disc Library” KN Keno’s Classic Rock Album Reviews LN liner notes from CSN box set TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Pages 195-6. CRS Tim Morse (1998). Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. Pages 181-195. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RH Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 113. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/2/2008; last updated 3/21/2026.