byrdsongs, lxxi

It is, of course, quite difficult to make a convincing case for CSN in the context of punk and New Wave, and yet their eponymous 1977 album forces the issue with some surprisingly nice results. Perhaps this is merely the soft bigotry of low expectations talking. The record has a definite cocaine-corporate vibe that will remind you of it’s place, ten years removed from the Summer of Love. Whether these ten years were an eternity or the wink of an eye depends on your perspective, I suppose, but one hears the music on this record and pictures LA session players with permed hair, tight trousers, and shiny shirts opened to the fourth button, enough to reveal gold-plated chains burried amidst fulsome thatches of chest hair.  Welcome to the 1970s, in other words. I’m too young to have experienced the 60s firsthand. but not too young to have been profoundly shaped by the long 60s hangover. When I was a kid, radio gave me a gateway out of sadness and confusion. I listened to WPLJ FM, and WNEW FM, and WABC AM in New York City. It’s interesting that the FM stations at this time tried to simultaneously assimilate punk and keep the 60s dream alive. This was before anyone used the term Classic Rock. It was all just rock, so you’d hear Elvis Costello, Marshall Crenshaw, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, the Police, and CSN all in the same ‘block’ of songs. Just a Song Before I Go was played in these types of blocks all the time when I was 9 or 10 years old. There’s something about the song that enchanted me. When you’re that age, the lack of any sweeping perspective means there’s no possibility for ironic distancing, no cynicism, no jadedness, none of those things that eventually come to poison one’s frame of mind.  Music in particular takes on a magical quality.  Everything’s new and dazzling and fresh, especially if you’re wired for music at an especially sensitive psycho-physiological level. Just a Song Before I go hit me at just the right time to send my childlike imagination soaring. I realize now that the song is basically corporate M.O.R., but it retains an emotional resonance for me. Part of this is simply the emotional residue left over from my nine-year-old self. It never completely goes away. But I think there may be more going on here. One of the song’s strengths is that it’s so short. If only corporate rock could have kept things this compact and concise with more regularity! The shortness of the song elevates its tragic vibe. The music arrives with its soothing smoothness and lovely harmonies, and then it’s gone just as quickly, much like the song's protagonist, who's packing bags, navigating the dreariness of an airport, and taking leave of a loved one, possibly for good. I still remember how the song used to touch my soul and fill me with longing. Traveling twice the speed of sound, it’s easy to get burned. What a devastating line to hear when you’re 9…when you’re 39…when you’re 69. The music transcends its time and place. It’s a love song, to be sure, but it’s also a more general ode to something departed, something that was special yet taken for granted when it was still with you, and only now that it’s gone forever do you appreciate how much it should have been cherished, nurtured, and adored...