10 Best Crosby, Stills and Nash Songs to ‘Teach Your Children’

It's time to rediscover the best songs of Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young).

The Best Crosby, Stills and Nash Songs to ‘Teach Your Children’

While Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN) songs didn't chart as singles (for example, "Ohio" was banned from many stations in the U.S. when it came out in 1970), their influence is nevertheless staggering today, as they are now staples in the American songbook.

If you haven't already, now's the perfect time to play some of these songs for future generations, starting with these 10...

10. Woodstock

Year released: 1970

Album: Déjà Vu

Bottom Line: Woodstock

David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills

"Woodstock" is the only song on this not written by any members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). Joni Mitchell wrote it, and it appeared on her album "Ladies of the Canyon," but CSNY released it first. Their version is arguably the most well-known.

Mitchell was dating Graham Nash at the time of the Woodstock Festival, which she didn't attend on the advice of her manager, as she was scheduled on the "Dick Cavett Show" soon after and didn't think she'd make it back to New York City in time. (CSNY played the festival and appeared with her on the show.)

Mitchell based the song on Nash's description of what it was like to be at Woodstock and later said, "I don't know if I would have written the song if I had gone. I was the fan that couldn't go, not the performing animal. So, it afforded me a different perspective."

Crosby agreed, saying she nailed the event's vibe. "She captured the feeling and importance of the Woodstock festival better than anyone who had actually been there."

9. Wooden Ships

Year released: 1969

Album: Crosby, Stills & Nash

Bottom Line: Wooden Ships

David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner wrote "Wooden Ships" at the height of the Vietnam War from the point of view of survivors attempting to escape a nuclear war's aftermath and create a new civilization.

As the group travels, they eat "purple berries" — "Say, can I have some of your purple berries? Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now, Haven't got sick once, Prob'ly keep us both alive" — which are iodine pills to stave off radiation sickness.

Those left behind aren't so lucky: "Horror grips us as we watch you die, All we can do is echo your anguished cries, Stare as all human feelings die, We are leaving, you don't need us."

After the song came out, fellow musician and friend of the band, Jackson Browne, asked Crosby what happened to the people left after the travelers embarked on their journey. Crosby callously responded, "Well, **** ’em."

It was an answer he later regretted. There is, however, a silver lining — Browne was so shocked by Crosby's comment that he penned his classic 1973 "For Everyman" in response.

8. Teach Your Children

Year released: 1970

Album: Déjà Vu

Bottom Line: Teach Your Children

Graham Nash wrote "Teach Your Children" for his former band, The Hollies, but they never ended up recording it because he never finished the song.

Nash, a photographer and collector of images, loaned his image of Diane Arbus' photo, "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park," to a California gallery. The gallery placed it next to a photo of Alfred Krupp, a German arms magnate, who provided his country with arms during the two world wars. While looking at the photos next to each other Nash "realized right there that we had better start teaching our children better; otherwise, civilization was in jeopardy."

It was then that he was able to complete the song. Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead played pedal steel guitar on the song, in turn for vocal harmony help on the Dead's "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" albums.

7. Ohio

Year released: 1970

Album: NA

Bottom Line: Ohio

In May 1970, images from a student protest at Ohio's Kent State rocked the world. Four students died during this demonstration against the Vietnam War when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on protestors.

After seeing the photos in Life magazine, Neil Young was moved to write "Ohio" in just a few hours. While Young takes the lead vocal on the track, it is Crosby's voice you hear at the end of the song singing, "Four!" "Why?" and "How many more?" According to Young, Crosby cried when the recording was finished. The lyric, "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming" was said by Crosby to be "the bravest thing I ever heard."

Nixon came out publicly against the song, and some radio stations banned it, but today, it is regarded as one of CSNY's best.

6. Long Time Gone

Year released: 1969

Album: Crosby, Stills & Nash

Bottom Line: Long Time Gone

"Long Time Gone" opens the "Woodstock" movie (the festival was CSNY's second-ever gig) and is one of Crosby's contributions to the band's self-titled debut LP.

The late 1960s were indeed turbulent, and Crosby was simply demonstrating the frustration and disappointment of the chaos that was the time.

He said, "It was written the night Bobby Kennedy was killed. I believed in him because he said he wanted to make some positive changes in America, and he hadn’t been bought and sold like Johnson and Nixon — cats who made their deals years ago with the special interests in this country in order to gain power. I thought Bobby, like his brother, was a leader who had not made those deals. I was already angry about Jack Kennedy getting killed, and it boiled over into this song when they got his brother, too.”

5. Southern Cross

Year released: 1982

Album: Daylight Again

Bottom Line: Southern Cross

"Southern Cross" ushered the band into the MTV arena. It was a heavily rotated video on the channel in 1982.

Written by Stephen Stills, it is based on another song released in 1975 called "Seven League Boots" by Rick and Michael Curtis. Stills took basic parts of the song and added lyrics and a new chorus to "polish it." He based it on a boat trip he took to clear his head after a divorce.

Crosby didn't sing on the song when it was recorded (he wasn't in the band at the time), but he's present in the video and has sung it live.

4. Our House

Year released: 1970

Album: Déjà Vu

Bottom Line: Our House

This simple love song was written by Graham Nash and recalls the time he spent in a relationship with girlfriend Joni Mitchell. The couple lived together in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon.

As he explained it, the song describes just an ordinary morning in the couple's lives: "On Ventura Boulevard in the Valley, there's a very famous deli called Art's Deli. And we'd been to breakfast there. We're going to get into Joni's car, and we pass an antique store. And we're looking in the window, and she saw a very beautiful vase that she wanted to buy. I persuaded her to buy this vase. It wasn't very expensive, and we took it home.

"It was a very grey, kind of sleety, drizzly L.A. morning. And we got to the house in Laurel Canyon, and I got through the front door and I said, 'You know what? I'll light a fire. Why don't you put some flowers in that vase that you just bought?' An hour later, 'Our House' was born, out of an incredibly ordinary moment that many, many people have experienced."

3. Almost Cut My Hair

Year released: 1970

Album: Déjà Vu

Bottom Line: Almost Cut My Hair

David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills

This Crosby-penned tune describes the dilemma of cutting one's hair and leaving the counterculture movement to join normal society. The song was one of a few of the era to popularize "letting your freak flag fly" by growing your hair long.

While Crosby called his lyrics "juvenile" later in life, he also said the song has a "certain emotional impact," as it was likely the most political song he ever wrote. And yes, at one point, he was faced with this decision.

2. Just a Song Before I Go

Year released: 1977

Album: CSN

Bottom Line: Just a Song Before I Go

25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert

"Just a Song Before I Go" was written as the result of a bet between Graham Nash and his drug dealer who was taking Nash to the airport from his home in Hawaii. With 15 minutes to go on the drive, the man challenged Nash to write a song in that time for $100.

Nash composed it on the spot, and it peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard charts.

1. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Year released: 1969

Album: Crosby, Stills & Nash

Bottom Line: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Stephen Stills wrote this song to win the heart of his former girlfriend, folksinger Judy Collins. The couple had dated for about two years, but things weren't working out. She left, but Stills gave their relationship one more college try with the song.

One night, in a Los Angeles hotel room, he sang the song to her. While she was blown away by it, she said, "Oh, Stephen, it’s such a beautiful song. But it’s not winning me back."

Nevertheless, the song went on to be a smash hit for the band and is one of their most well-known to this day. Though the two went on to marry other people, they remained friends and even went out on tour together in 2022. She says, "Stephen and I managed, through all these years, to keep a friendship. Louis [her husband] and Stephen became best buddies [during the tour], which is the tops. Having a friendship that lasts 60 years is pretty awesome and pretty rare."