Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young charted with “Our House”

Our House Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Writer(s): Graham Nash (see lyrics here) Released: September 1970 First Charted: September 19, 1970 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): -- US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 17.21 video, 160.07 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Rewind to 1968. Graham Nash was still a member of the British rock group the Hollies. Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell had released one album, which was produced by David Crosby, one of the original members of the Byrds. While the Hollies were on tour in Canada, Nash and Mitchell spotted each other at a radio station party and she asked the band’s manager to introduce them. SJ By year’s end, the two were living together in her home in Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon is an area of Los Angeles that became celebrated in the mid’-60s through the mid-‘70s for its music and counterculture scene. Mitchell’s home arguably became Laurel Canyon’s epicenter. She said it was “a little house, kind of like a treehouse…It was a charmed little place…It had a kind of soulfulness…[It] was hippie heaven.” SJ Nash would also leave the Hollies and form a supergroup with Crosby and Stephen Stills, formerly of Buffalo Springfield. One of the trio’s first gigs was a performance at the now-legendary Woodstock festival in 1969. They also released a self-titled album that year that went top-ten and achieved multi-platinum status. Their next outing was even bigger. 1970’s Déjà Vu saw Neil Young, Stills’ former bandmate in Buffalo Springfield, join the fold. The quartet produced an album’s worth of folk-rock gems, including “Our House,” which was Nash’s “ode to countercultural domestic bliss,” WK inspired by what he called “an ordinary moment.” WK They went to breakfast on Ventura Boulevard and bought a vase in an antique store afterward. He said it “was a very grey, kind of sleetly, drizzly L.A. morning” WK and when they got home he lit a fire in the fireplace while she got some flowers for the vase. He sat down at her piano and, an hour later, had written “Our House.” WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Crosby, Stills & Nash DMDB encyclopedia entry for Neil Young SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Warner Books, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 154. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/25/2024.