100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #63 Crosby, Stills & Nash – Long Time Gone

Released: 1968

At the time David Crosby had one request: don’t call it a supergroup. It was hard to think of many other more appropriate handles to describe his work with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash however, what with Crosby himself being previously the driving force in The Byrds, Stills having been something comparable for Buffalo Springfield whilst Nash was ex of The Hollies, from whom he’d drifted amicably.

Crosby’s preference was for the enterprise to be described in casual terms as ‘Just one aggregate of friends’ whilst Nash was similarly erudite in using ‘three people who get together to stress their individuality’. Whatever it was in their heads the trio’s self titled debut album was one of 1969’s most anticipated and delivered wonderfully; an amalgam of their mutual and exclusive strengths, it helped to usher in a new era in rock.

Crosby, Stills & Nash opened with the four part, seven minute epic Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, by which it became most commonly recognised. But in amongst a batch of material most outfits would’ve been content to manage one of, Long Time Gone was Crosby’s finest moment, a song penned in the immediate aftermath of Robert Kennedy’s assassination in Los Angeles. With it’s understated organ and exquisite, yet to be trademark harmonies it was one of the most compelling protest songs of the time, anger transformed into something beautiful. They weren’t a band. But they were super.