The 500 - #147 - Deja Vu - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-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: #148
Album Title: Deja Vu

Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Genre: Folk Rock 

Recorded: Wally Heider Studios, California, USA

Released: March, 1970

My age at release: 4
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #220, dropping 72 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Helpless

There was a time when a weekday road trip from London, Ontario, to Toronto, just 190 kilometres away, felt like a perfectly reasonable idea. Back in the late ‘90s, my friends and I would clock out at 4:00 in the afternoon, pile into someone’s marginally reliable vehicle, and cruise down the 401 highway with just enough time to grab a bite before a concert or sporting event. The show would wrap up around 11:00, and we’d be back in London by 1:00 a.m., tucked into bed with the satisfied glow reserved for road trip champions.

Fast-forward to today, and that same journey feels like a test of patience, endurance, and bladder control. Urban sprawl has turned the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) into one giant traffic jam and a brake light testing arena. Construction zones result in more bottlenecks than a brewery assembly line and a pre-show dinner is a bottle of lukewarm water and a slightly crushed granola bar.

On August 25, 2010, my friend Bill Gudgeon and I decided to take a different approach to attending a concert. We had scored two tickets to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers on their Mojo Tour at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre. It was a show made even more memorable because the opening act was the legendary Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN).

Rather than drive directly into the city and battle the inevitable traffic, Bill and I opted to park in Aldershot, about sixty kilometers southwest of Toronto, and take the GO Train the rest of the way. We figured this would spare us the stress of downtown congestion and make for a smoother, more relaxed journey to and from the venue.

We arrived in enough time to grab a quick bite and then see Crosby, Stills and Nash take the stage alongside four supporting musicians. Their 15-song set included five songs from this week’s groundbreaking record, Déjà Vu.

CSNY (l-r) Neil Young, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills.

Released in 1970, Déjà Vu was the trio's second studio release. However, it was the first with the inclusion of Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Neil Young. Consequently, the initialism CSN became CSNY (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) – as it would on seven other occasions between 1969 and 2013.

The addition of Young added a new layer of songwriting depth and musical texture to an already formidable trio. Indeed, all four singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalists have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice:

• David Crosby as a member of CSN and The Byrds.
• Stephen Stills as a member of CSN and Buffalo Springfield.
• Graham Nash as a member of CSN and The Hollies.
• Neil Young as a solo performer and as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

Déjà Vu is considered by most fans and critics to be the highwater mark for the quartet. Released in the wake of the Woodstock Music Festival and the political and social upheaval of the time, the album’s themes of introspection, rebellion and life resonated deeply with listeners. It combined folk rock with influences from country, jazz and Latin music, as well as pop sensibilities with the closing track Teach Your Children – a song that also closed the CSN performance Bill and I attended in 2010.

Tom Petty also delivered a phenomenal performance that night. It is one I’ll never forget and I feel fortunate to have seen him live, especially knowing now that it would be just seven years before his untimely passing at age 66 from an accidental drug overdose. His music, energy and presence were unforgettable.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers performing live in 2010.

After the show, Bill and I floated out of the Air Canada Centre on a musical high, making our way to Union Station a few blocks away to catch the GO Train back to Aldershot. Unfortunately, the journey home proved more challenging than expected. Multiple events had just let out, including a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome) and a concert by progressive metal band Avenged Sevenfold at the Molson Amphitheatre. The surge of people meant we had to wait for space on a second train, and each stop along the route was agonizingly slow as passengers loaded and unloaded in waves. What followed was a tightly packed, grueling odyssey. It was a humid, chaotic crawl along through the GTA, steeped in a pungent cocktail of marijuana sweat, spilled beer, and hot dog breath. It was the kind of ride that tests your patience and your nostrils in equal measure.

Still, I doubt driving would have been any faster. In the end, as my head hit the pillow at 2:30 early Thursday morning, I couldn’t help but borrow from baseball legend Yogi Berra’s amusingly illogical lexicon, “It was déjà vu all over again.” Needless to say, I am hesitant nowadays to accept an invitation to visit Toronto for a show or game -- doubly so on weeknights.

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.