Tag: Graham Nash

Hollies – On a Carousel

A good pop song by the Hollies. They were known mostly for their harmonies but they were a good band…they had a great guitar player and drummer. Tony Hicks is never mentioned much with the guitar players with the other British Invasion bands but he could hold his own with the others. Bobby Elliot was/is a drummer’s drummer.

The Hollies had great harmonies and also a secret weapon in Tony Hicks as a guitar player. He was and still is outstanding but was never as well known as his later neighbor George Harrison and his other peers.

Tony’s son Paul Hicks was in Dhani Harrison’s band and has worked with Giles Martin on Beatle remastering projects. I have a soft spot for the Hollies. They started in the early sixties and continued through the seventies without Graham Nash who quit the Hollies for what he thought was a hipper band…Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Soon to include the elusive Neil Young.

The song peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100, #7 in Canada, and #4 in the UK in 1967. I included a short video of The Hollies recording the song. While they were recording this The Beatles were in the next studio recording as they both recorded at EMI Studios.

Just a little trivia… The earliest known record of a carousel is a Byzantine etching from 500 AD which shows riders swinging in baskets tied to a central pole.

Graham Nash: We really hit the mark when it came to our next record. Tony, Allan, and I wanted desperately to write a monster A-side. So far, our biggest hits were Graham Gouldman songs, and, hey, you take ’em where you can get ’em. But we thought we were good enough writers to land the big fish. We knew the combination, how to come up with a universal theme, the right type of hook. So we went through a shitload of ideas until inspiration struck. I’m not sure which of the three of us came up with fun fairs. We had all been to them as kids: pulling ducks out of the water, a ring around a bottleneck, winning goldfish. We thought a love affair was pretty much like going round and round and round on a carousel. And before we knew it, the song just took shape. It was all there—the words, the tune, there was no stopping it. And Tony and Bobby wrapped it in an exceptional arrangement.

You ask me, “On a Carousel” was one of the Hollies’ best songs. It’s a pop song with an infectious chorus but flirts with gorgeous shifts in rhythmic texture. The transition to “Horses chasing ’cause they’re racing / So near yet so far-r-r-r-r” features a hook that keeps the melody from becoming predictable. Tony’s barb-like accents that echo the phrase “on a carousel” demonstrate his subtle virtuosity. And the lyric captures the essence of young love without the usual moon-and-June clichés. We knew it was a hit from the get-go.

On A Carousel

Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you
Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?

Horses chasing ’cause they’re racing
So they ain’t so far

On a carousel
On a carousel

Nearer and nearer by changing horses,
Still so far away
People fighting for their places just get in my way
Soon you’ll leave and then I’ll lose you
Still we’re going ’round

On a carousel
On a carousel
‘Round and round and round and round
round and round and round and round with you
Up, down, up, down, up, down, too

As she leaves, she drops the presents that she won before
Pulling ducks out of the water, got the highest score
Now’s my chance and I must take it, a case of do-or-die

On a carousel
On a carousel
‘Round and ’round and ’round and ’round
‘Round and ’round and ’round and ’round with you
Up, down, up, down, up, down, too

Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you
Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?

Now we take our ride together
No more chasing her

On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel

Hollies – Carrie Anne

I have a soft spot for the Hollies. They started in the early sixties and continued through the seventies without Graham Nash who quit the Hollies for what he thought was a hipper band…Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Soon to include the elusive Neil Young.

Hollies members Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Graham Nash wrote this song and shared the lead vocals, with each taking a verse (Clarke, then Hicks, then Nash). The Hollies had great harmonies and also a secret weapon in Tony Hicks as a guitar player. He was and still is outstanding but was never as known as his later neighbor George Harrison and his other peers.

Tony’s son Paul Hicks was in Dhani Harrison’s band and has worked with Giles Martin on Beatle remastering projects.

This song is about the British singer and actress Marianne Faithfull, who is well known for her relationship with Mick Jagger. She also had a brief fling with lead singer Alan Clarke. For a short time. “Marianne” was changed to “Carrie-Anne” so it wouldn’t be so obvious.

The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100, #9 in Canada, #3 in the UK, and #2 in New Zealand in 1967. This song was a straight-ahead pop hit, but changes were coming. Sgt Peppers was released so The Hollies, with the urging of Nash, tried going the more psychedelic route. The next single was King Midas In Reverse which only peaked at #18 in the UK and was considered a failure. Personally…it’s my favorite early Hollies song.

A side note…The Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss, best known for playing Trinity in The Matrix, was named after this Hollies hit. The song was on the charts at the time of her birth in August 1967.

From Songfacts

The group didn’t let on that the song was about Faithfull until 1995, when Graham Nash spilled the beans in a documentary.

In the song, the singer recalls the schoolyard days when he and Carrie Anne were friends, but she went for the older boys. Now their older and he tells her that although she’s lost her charm, he’s willing to “be her teacher” and take her on. By the end of the lesson, he’s sure she’ll be his girl.

According to the book Forty Years of Steel by Jeffrey Thomas, this song marks the first use of steel drums in a commercial pop record. Steel drums evoke an island vibe, but there’s nothing tropical about this song and none of The Hollies played the instrument (it’s not clear who played it on the record, but their producer, Ron Richards, apparently arranged it). Still, inserting a steel drum solo where a guitar solo would be certainly made the song stand out. Stephen Stills, Nash’s bandmate in Crosby, Stills & Nash, incorporated steel drums into his 1970 hit “Love The One You’re With.”

The Hollies had a very impressive run of hits starting in 1963, but Graham Nash wanted to put hit-making aside so they could create songs with more weight behind them. He ended up leaving the group in 1968 and forming Crosby, Stills & Nash. In an interview with Bruce Pollock, Nash said listeners “want to hear songs that mean more to them than ‘Hey Carrie Ann, what’s your game.'”

Carrie Anne

Hey, Carrie Anne
Hey, Carrie Anne
When we were at school, our games were simple
I played a janitor, you played a monitor
Then you played with older boys and prefects
What’s the attraction in what they’re doing

Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play
Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play

You were always something special to me
quite independent, never caring
You lost your charm as you were aging
Where is your magic disappearing

Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play
Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play

You’re so, so like a woman to me
(So like a woman to me)
So, so like a woman to me
(Like a woman to me)

Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play
Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play

People live and learn but you’re still learning
You use my mind and I’ll be your teacher
When the lesson’s over, you’ll be with me
Then I’ll hear the other people saying

Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play
Hey, Carrie Anne, what’s your game now
Can anybody play

Carrie Anne, Carrie Anne, Carrie Anne

CSN – Just A Song Before I Go

.This is a laid back 70s pop song. I like their music in the early seventies the best but I won’t turn this off if it comes on the radio.

The song peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100 and #10 in Canada in 1977. Their first album was named Crosby, Stills, and Nash but this one was called CSN which is confusing. The album did well helped by this hit. It peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #10 in Canada, and #23 in the UK in 1977.

After touring in 1977 and 1978, further work as a group was complicated by Crosby’s increasing dependence on cocaine. Nash’s 1980 Earth & Sky was supposed to be another Crosby-Nash album, but Crosby was not in shape to participate

It surprised me but this was the highest charting song by CSN or CSN&Y.  As Nash tells it in his memoir Wild Life, the guy taking him to the airport was his drug dealer, who said, “I’ll bet you can’t write a song before you go.” Nash then thought, “Hmm… just a song before I go,” and composed it on the spot. I have the exact quote below.

Graham Nash: I’d been on vacation in Hawaii. Leslie Morris was with me, and in an effort to score some grass we met up with a dealer named Spider at his house near the beach. This was around one in the afternoon, and I had a four o’clock flight back to Los Angeles. Spider was a cheeky little bastard. He said, “You’re supposed to be some big-shot songwriter. I bet you can’t write a song before you go.”

“Oh, really,” I said. “How much?”

“A hundred bucks.”

I finished “Just a Song Before I Go” in a little under forty minutes. Turned out to be the biggest hit Crosby, Stills & Nash ever had, on the charts for twenty weeks. The original lyric I’d scribbled on school composition-book paper is currently in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

From Songfacts

Graham Nash wrote this song on a bet. David Crosby explained in the liner notes to their 1991 boxed set: “Graham was a home in Hawaii, about to go off on tour. The guy who was going to take him to the airport said, ‘We’ve got 15 minutes, I’ll bet you can’t write a song in that amount of time.’ Well you don’t smart off to Nash like that, he’ll do it. This is the result.”

Going to the airport and his day of travel were on Nash’s mind, so that’s what he wrote about: “driving me to the airport and to the friendly skies.” The “song before I go” was for his friend who made him the bet.

This was the first single released from the re-formed Crosby, Stills & Nash, and in the US it was the highest-charting song of any iteration of the group. The group’s first album came in 1969, and they won the Best New Artist Grammy Award for that year. In 1970, they added Neil Young and released two albums before taking some time off – they didn’t see the Top 40 from 1971-1976. In this period, the members recorded solo, with Graham Nash and David Crosby teaming up for a 1972 album, and Stephen Stills forming the band Manassas. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young got back together for touring in 1974 and released the 1976 album Wind On The Water. The next year, minus Young, they were Crosby, Stills & Nash again for the first time since 1969, and the CSN album was the result. Following more solo efforts from Stills and Nash, they hit the studio again in 1982 for the Daylight Again album, and reunited with Young for the 1988 effort American Dream. They continued to go back and forth with and without Young in the ’90s. Their law firm-style name made for an unwieldy discography, but we always knew who was in the group.

Just a Song Before I Go

Just a song before I go,
To whom it may concern
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

When the shows were over
We had to get back home,
And when we opened up the door
I had to be alone

She helped me with my suitcase,
She stands before my eyes
Driving me to the airport,
And to the friendly skies

Going through security
I held her for so long
She finally looked at me in love,
And she was gone

Just a song before I go,
A lesson to be learned
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

..

Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life

This is Graham Nash’s autobiography.

Graham narrates the audible version and does a good job weaving through his personal history. He starts with his blue-collar family and how Alan Clarke and he knew each other since school and formed The Hollies. The most interesting part to me was the mid-sixties era living in swinging London.

He wrote about his friendship with the Beatles and him getting an advance tape of Sgt Pepper from Brian Epstein. He had a great hi-fi system at his flat and he would show it off to anyone that came over. When the Turtles came over from America they were blown away by Sgt Peppers at top volume. He went on about how Sgt Peppers changed everything and it would eventually lead him to leave the Hollies.

Graham describes being a pop star in the mid-sixties in London. Shouldn’t we all live that life? Paul McCartney calls him up and invites him over to the All You Need Is Love session for the “Our World” program to be broadcast to millions.

He talks about how his friendship with Mama Cass led to meeting David Crosby and eventually CSN being born. Graham covers the CSNY period and his romantic relationships including  Joni Mitchell. He does cover the drama associated with CSNY and the troubled David Crosby. What kind of Rockstar bio would it be without drugs… Graham did his share and Crosby did our share. Graham handled them better than some.

Graham would write simple songs compared to Crosby, Stills, and Young but many times his songs would be the hits that drove some of the later albums…songs like “Just a Song Before I Go” and “Wasted on the Way.”

One thing I can say is he didn’t hold back or pull punches…but he still comes off as a really nice guy but it is his book.

This book helped sever his relationship with Crosby…for now anyway but Nash stressed through the book how much he cared for Crosby.

I would recommend this book to not only Hollies and CSNY fans but fans of 60’s and 70’s music and culture. After reading this I listened to more Hollies songs and I really began to appreciate their psychedelic period with songs like King Midas in Reverse.