I wonder who they are
The men who really run this land
And I wonder why they run it
With such a thoughtless hand
What are their names
And on what streets 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
— David Crosby, singer/songwriter
IT’S FRIDAY and we really should take a break from the usual boring politicians, particularly the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon.”
So President Rodrigo Duterte once more pissed off the padre and madre de cacaos which comes as no surprise as anything he says or do and anything remotely associated with him pisses them off anyway, so really who cares.
Let’s talk about music, real music written, produced and performed by real musicians using real musical instruments, not turntables or computers.
There’s a particular album that epitomizes the dazed and confused era of the 1970s, a time of dreamy LSD/marijuana-infused transcendental trips and let’s talk about it.
From that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
If I Could Only Remember My Name is the debut solo album by David Crosby, released in February 1971 on Atlantic Records. It was one of four high-profile albums released by each member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping Déjà Vu album (along with Stephen Stills, Songs for Beginners, and After the Gold Rush). It peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and earned a RIAA gold certification for selling over 500,000 copies in the United States.
It is supposed to be and billed as a debut solo album of one of the members of that iconic folk-rock group Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young or CSNY as they are more popularly known.
But really, that was not the case. It was more like a collaboration album. Many prominent musicians of that era appear on the record, including Graham Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, members of the Grateful Dead (most notably Jerry Garcia who helped to arrange and produce the album), Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. The ensemble was given the informal moniker “The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra” by Jefferson Airplane bandleader, long-time Crosby associate and fellow science fiction fan Paul Kantner; the core of this agglomeration (including recording engineer Stephen Barncard) also worked on Kantner’s Blows Against the Empire (1970) and the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty (1970), both recorded concurrently with Crosby’s album at San Francisco’s Wally Heider Studios. Indeed, a who’s who of the prominent musicians with the same vibes coming together.
Excerpts from AllMusic Review by Stanton Swihart:
David Crosby’s debut solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name is a one-shot wonder of dreamy but ominous California ambience. The songs range from brief snapshots of inspiration (the angelic chorale-vocal showcase on “Orleans” and the a cappella closer, “Id’ Swear There Was Somebody Here” to the full-blown, rambling western epic “Cowboy Movie”, and there are absolutely no false notes struck or missteps taken. No one before or since has gotten as much mileage out of a wordless vocal as Crosby does on “Tamalpais High” and “Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)”, and because the music is so relaxed, each song turns into its own panoramic vista. Those who don’t go for trippy Aquarian sentiment, however, may be slightly put off by the obscure, cosmic storytelling of the gorgeous “Laughing” or the ambiguous (but pointed) social questioning of “What Are Their Names”, but in actuality it is an incredibly focused album. Even when a song as pretty as “Traction in the Rain” shimmers with its picked guitars and autoharp, the album is coated in a distinct, persistent menace that is impossible to shake. It is a shame that Crosby would continue to descend throughout the remainder of the decade and the beginning of the next into aimless drug addiction, and that he would not issue another solo album until 18 years later. As it is, If I Could Only Remember My Name is a shambolic masterpiece, meandering but transcendentally so, full of frayed threads. Not only is it among the finest splinter albums out of the CSNY diaspora, it is one of the defining moments of hungover spirituality from the era.
The lyrics above are from one of the cuts in that album, What Are Their Names. It was socially and politically correct and relevant then as it is now.
The dreamy transcendental trippy Aquarian sentiments the album projects are an experience still fresh in this ageing hippie’s consciousness after almost 50 years.
Finally, a line from RollingStone Magazine …”By the time it’s over, you may not remember your name, either.” (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
