The 500 - #262 - Self-Titled Debut - Crosby, Stills & Nash

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #262
Album Title: Self-Titled Debut
Artist: Crosby, Stills & Nash
Genre: Folk Rock, 
Recorded: Wally Heider Studios, Hollywood, California, U.S.A.
Released: May, 1969
My age at release: 3
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #161, moving up 101 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Sometimes, late at night when my "old man bladder" rouses me from slumber, my thoughts drift toward the negative and I am filled with overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, failure and existential dread.

Sometimes, horrifyingly, this is coupled with sleep paralysis -- I am "conscious" but unable to move, with an intense pressure on my chest that restricts my breathing and holds me in place. As my students would say ... "Pure Nightmare Fuel".

There is no logical reason for any feelings of dread. I live a wonderful life with a beautiful wife, good health, a purposeful job I love and enough money to be comfortable.

I'm not alone, researchers say about 11% of the North American population suffer nocturnal anxiety, parasomnia and disruptive sleep disorders. Consequently, I sought help from professionals. My family doctor prescribed a low dose of mirtazapine, a mild, anti-anxiety medication with sleep promoting benefits. He also directed me to a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) clinician.

Unlike psychoanalysis or interpersonal therapy, CBT is a time-limited, problem-focused and goal-oriented form of psychological treatment. I attended only three sessions and the strategies I learned made a world of difference. I get to sleep more easily. More importantly, I stay in the deeply resting phase of "low wave sleep" (N3) more often and, if I wake prematurely, I am able to drift off again with fewer incidents of dread creeping into my psyche. More importantly, sleep paralysis is now an annual event, rather than a monthly one.

I'm a realist, I suspect the mirtazapine is doing the heavy lifting with my treatment. However, the CBT strategies are not without merit. These are particularly effective when those clouds of dread permeate my psyche, on any occasion. Often, it is the specter of mistakes, indiscretions and the reckless misjudgments from my past that persist and haunt me most. Bad decisions I made, sometimes many years earlier. Their gloomy voices echoing through my mind, reamplifying embarrassment and shame:

• Why did you do that?
• Why would you say that?
• Why weren't you smarter? more patient? kinder? more respectful? less-judgmental?

During these times, it is a single lyric from the opening track, on the debut record from Crosby, Stills & Nash that has served as a mantra while I allow those thoughts, like a cloud in the sky, to pass over my mental horizon -- granted, with a small pronoun variation.

"Don't let the past remind you of what you are not now."

The lyric is from the song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, penned by Stephen Stills, one-third of the aforementioned Crosby (David), Stills, and Nash (Graham). It appears on their self-titled record from 1969, an album that was introduced to me in high-school by my friend Don Robertson. It, along with the group's second record, Deja Vu (#220 on The 500), played frequently when the two of us lived together in a London, Ontario townhouse in 1993.

My 1993 roommates - Don (left) and Steve Mackison.

Stills wrote the song about his then girlfriend, singer, song-writer, and actor Judy Collins. The title is a play on words "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes" but is composed in four sections or movements, imitating a classical music suite - hence the double entendre.

Stills and Collins (1968).

The lyrics reflect on Stills' thoughts about Collins as he prepared himself for the couple's imminent break-up. Stills and Collins, who met in 1967, had dated for two years. In the summer of 1969, Collins was appearing in the New York Shakespeare Festival in a musical production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt and had fallen in love with her co-star, Stacey Keach.

Collins and Keach in costume for a promotional
photograph from Peer Gynt.

Stills has, in subsequent interviews, made it clear that he knew their break-up was "imminent", saying, "we were just a little too big for one house". However, the lyrics, particularly in verse 9, petition Collins to save the relationship.

"Change my life, make it right

Be my lady."

Prior to the release of the record, he brought his guitar to Collins' hotel room to play the song for her. In a 2007 interview, Collins recounted the event, saying,

"I told him, 'Oh, Stephen, it’s such a beautiful song. But it’s not winning me back.'  I’ve always understood that people have to write about their lives. Most of all, I felt the song was flattering and heartbreaking – for both of us. Neither one of us walked away from that relationship relieved."

And, of course, there is that lyric that has stuck with me for decades and eventually became a consequential mantra

"Don't let the past remind us of what we are right now".

In context of his song, Stills is attempting to ease the pain of separation. He may be addressing Collins (or, perhaps, himself) about letting go of the great love they once had in order to accept the new reality of a life without each other.

Cover for the single release of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.

Unlike Stills, I am not lamenting an unrequited love, but that short lyric is also a way of moving me forward. Psychologically, I am letting go of the worst version of the man, and sometimes the boy, I used to be. It is a way of forgiving myself the regrets of my past, in order to embrace the person I am now. A better man...who needs a good night's sleep, free of anxiety and dread.