If I Could Only Remember My Name
David Crosby
Atlantic Records SD 7203
1971
I picked this up in a thrift store many years ago in order to hear how awful it was. When I gave it a spin however I was pleasantly surprised, astonished even, to find that I enjoyed it. I am far from a Crosby fan (I've mocked him in the past on this very blog) but I find this album consistently entertaining. Given how little use I have for his recordings with Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young) I suspect the big reason for this is evident in the photos in the gatefold. I imagine if you or I went into a studio with most of the Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead along with Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and a couple of guys from Santana we would probably come up with a listenable album too. I may be a little prejudiced against Crosby, but I don't think this is an unfair assessment. The songs he contributes to the album are mostly slight, lyrically they make "Almost Cut My Hair" sound like poetry in comparison and musically they mostly sound like unfinished demos or jams. The album opens with "Music Is Love" which is credited to Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young which seems like overkill for a song that mostly consists of the phrase "everybody's saying that music is love" sung over and over. "Cowboy Movie" sounds like an outtake from "Déjà Vu." It is one of the few fully formed songs on the album and recounts a misogynistic tale of outlaws in the old west. I find Crosby's vocal overwrought and annoying but since he is backed by the Grateful Dead on the song it still has a lot of power with a hypnotic bass riff from Phil Lesh and very tasty guitar licks from Jerry Garcia. If I don't pay close attention to Crosby's singing I find it one of the most compelling songs on the album. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that "Tamalpais High (At About 3)" is not about the high school in Mill Valley but rather about a place where Crosby liked to do drugs. Hard to say for sure since the song has no lyrics consisting instead of Nash and Crosby crooning wordlessly in their inimitable manner. It sounds very mellow as we used to say although Jorma Kaukonen and Jerry Garcia briefly energize the song with some trippy guitar runs over Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann's rumbling rhythm track. This is the part of the song that most appeals to me. "Laughing" is my favorite track on the album. The lyrics are hippie hogwash with Crosby looking for enlightenment and finding confusion and disappointment instead. I find Crosby's vocal engaging and subtly emotional and I consider it one of his best post-Byrds performances. The song was written while Crosby was in CSN&Y but it reminds me of the music he was making during his final year with the Byrds. It has an ethereal yet slightly country sound to it with psychedelic overtones and I particularly enjoy Garcia's steel guitar licks. Side two opens with "What Are Their Names" which is credited to Crosby, Garcia, Lesh, Young and Michael Shrieve of Santana. Given that it is an inane song about Crosby trying to find who is in charge of the world and wanting peace, I'm guessing that the song emerged from a jam with the five songwriters and nobody was too concerned about the lyrics. The song sounds a lot like Paul Kantner's "Blows Against the Empire" album, perhaps because Kantner, Grace Slick and David Freiberg are singing on it (although half the musicians in San Francisco are apparently singing too along with Young, Nash and Joni Mitchell.) Obviously with that kind of firepower the vocal is extremely dynamic, arguably far more powerful than this silly song deserves. For me the best part of the song is listening to Garcia and Lesh do their thing which sounds very much like vintage Grateful Dead. "Traction in the Rain" is laid back psych-folk with very trippy lyrics from Crosby that sound like he really put some effort into composing for once. Laura Allan enriches the song with her autoharp strumming and gentle background vocal. The aptly named "Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)" features Nash and Crosby wordlessly crooning in a lovely manner although the real action in the song comes from Kaukonen and Garcia along with Gregg Rolie on piano who easily blow away Nash and Crosby's contribution. Crosby is on his own for "Orleans" which is an excerpt from an old French children's song. Crosby's vocal is multi-tracked to give it a richer sound. It is very pretty but I'm happy it is also very short. "I'd Swear There Was Somebody Here" is Crosby's own song but it sounds just as old as "Orleans." It has no words that I can decipher and is delivered acapella with Crosby multi-tracking his vocal creating a rich polyphonic sound reminiscent of medieval church music. It gives the record a spiritual conclusion which is not what I would be expecting from Crosby. This album is pretty much as stupid as I anticipated when I bought it, but it is never boring and rarely annoying which I was definitely not anticipating. I am not going to say that this is more to Lesh and Garcia's credit than Crosby's although I might be secretly thinking that. Actually aside from "Cowboy Movie" I find Crosby's singing appealing throughout the album, although not appealing enough for me to keep the record if it didn't feature his heavy friends. The music may be underdeveloped if not outright lazy, but with Crosby I'm not sure that is a fault. I prefer most of this to his more fully developed music on "Crosby Stills and Nash" or "Déjà Vu." It leaves a lot of space for his collaborators and since I generally do not dig his lyric writing, wordless crooning suits me fine. The album sounds wonderful late at night and I imagine it sounds even better if you are high. I have to admit that when I first heard this album I had to reassess my opinion of Crosby and it certainly provides some context for his generally admirable recent records. I'm never going to be a fan, but I do respect him more. Along with his work with the Byrds, I consider this the highlight of his career although admittedly I have not done a deep dive into his solo work and never will. I bought this album for all the wrong reasons, but Crosby decisively proved me wrong. I can't recall ever being so surprised by a record and I'm grateful to him for that. Recommended to fans of "Workingman's Dead" who wish it had less words and more jams.
