Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Quotes

Describing Woodstock as the "big bang," I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played. 
David Crosby 

I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this. 
David Crosby 

My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. 
David Crosby 

Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big. 
David Crosby 

When did I decide to go into business? Well, it wasn't a business, when I decided. It was simply a need to sing. 
David Crosby 

When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music. 
David Crosby 

Being in a different band always brings great musical experiences to be able to draw on. 
Graham Nash 

Generally, my writing is influenced by living, by absorbing everything that happens to me and my actions. 
Graham Nash 

I realized at one point that David and I had not made a record together in almost 26 years and I thought that that was absurd because, first of all it had gone so fast, I didn't really realize, neither did David, that it had been that long. 
Graham Nash 

I think Stills has been playing better than ever. I know a lot of it sounds self-serving, but he truly has. 
Graham Nash 

I wasn't thinking of the longevity of any of my songs, but I am extremely pleased with the lasting effect. 
Graham Nash 

If I read or listened to critics of our music, I'd have been discouraged a long time ago. 
Graham Nash 

It was very important in the beginning, because we'd all come out of bands that were the Buffalo Springfield, the Hollies. 
Graham Nash 

Just with the basic one guitar, one piano and one vocal and an audience, I think that the intimacy comes through more. People feel much more connected to the song because there's nothing in the way, and I actually enjoy doing that. 
Graham Nash 

There are always new things to experience, internalize then write about. This process is ongoing with me. It never stops. The opportunity to reach new audiences with all of the music that we have made is thrilling. 
Graham Nash 

We only had enough money really to cut 10 things and be in there for a month because it's expensive, you know. And, singer/songwriters, today are lucky if they can get a deal, you know. So, we actually worked so fast that we really cut 20 things. 
Graham Nash 

When I was born in 1942, World War II was still going. And I began to realize when I became a young adult that if we don't teach our kids a better way of relating to their fellow human beings, the very future of humanity on the planet is in jeopardy. 
Graham Nash 

With Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young... we're very strong individuals, and we want our lives to be led the way we want them to. 
Graham Nash 


An artist cannot be responsible for what people make of their art. An audience loathe giving up preconceived images of an artist. 
Stephen Stills 

God forbid if David Crosby gets sick again and I can't tour anymore, or something happens where I can't get around, what am I going to live on? I'm going to be living on mechanicals. So I don't want to hear it. 
Stephen Stills 

Once you decide that it is the art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no longer have an albatross. 
Stephen Stills 

There were times I thought I was going to turn to the blues, but then I'd hear better blues players. 
Stephen Stills 

There's some Stills solo blues stuff, some Nash songs, and some material that's obviously all of us, so we're going to keep on going at it like this. 
Stephen Stills 

We certainly weren't a country band; we would take all kinds of influences from all over and blend them together. 
Stephen Stills 

Yeah; I'm a much better blues player than anybody knows, but being in the kind of group I'm in, we were always trying to make popular records. 
Stephen Stills 

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more. 
Neil Young 

Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record. 
Neil Young 

Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They're very annoying. 
Neil Young 

I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of. 
Neil Young 

I just do what I do. I like to make music. 
Neil Young 

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time. 
Neil Young 

I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature. 
Neil Young 

I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing. 
Neil Young 

One new feature or fresh take can change everything. 
Neil Young 

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story. 
Neil Young 

To protect our freedoms, it seems we're going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time. 
Neil Young 

When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near. 
Neil Young