Neil Young joined the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969, and the first album he recorded with them was “Déjà Vu” (1970). Although he only appeared on two other studio albums, “American Dream” (1988) and “Looking Forward” (1999), he is fondly remembered by fans as one of the most distinctive and essential elements of the band originally formed by Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and David Crosby.
Over the years, Neil has reflected on the band’s career and mentioned two CSNY songs that he considered to be among their very best.
The 2 CSNY songs Neil Young mentioned as the best
“Teach Your Children”
“For some reason I have a vivid memory of that group of sessions. One day after CSN had cut ‘Teach Your Children,’ which they sang perfectly without me. I was in the control room and Jerry Garcia came in and played a steel guitar part on it. It was actually on a regular guitar with a slide, as I remember it.”
“He just sat down with it on his lap in the control room down under the speakers and put that part on. I remember that every time I hear that song, which is one of CSNY’s greatest. I am proud to have my name on it, although I didn’t play or sing a note,” Neil Young said in his autobiography “Waging Heavy Peace“.
As Graham Nash told Consequence in 2025, Neil and Stephen were the ones who suggested not including any electric guitar parts in the song. So that was the reason why they ended up inviting Jerry Garcia to play. “When we got to the part where there was supposed to be a solo, both Stephen and Neil said: ‘You know what? We’ve played a lot of electric guitar on this album already.”
He continued:
“What can we do to make it different? Crosby came up and he said: ‘Hey, I’ve heard that my friend Jerry Garcia is just learning to play the pedal steel and he’s in the next studio,” Graham Nash said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). The track was written by Graham Nash when he was still a member of The Hollies.
As noted by Neil, Garcia was invited by David Crosby to play pedal steel guitar on the track. The drums were played by the legendary session drummer Dallas Taylor, a frequent collaborator of CSNY. The song was part of their second studio album and became a chart success, peaking at number 16 on the US Hot 100.
“Ohio”
“It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song, it’s ironic that I capitalized on the death of these American students. Probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning. My best CSNY cut. Recorded totally live in Los Angeles. David Crosby cried after this take,” Neil Young said in the liner notes of his compilation album “Decade” (1977).
The track written by Neil himself was released as a single by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1970. It was inspired by the tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio where four students were shot by the authorities. “Time magazine had a picture of the girl, Allison Krause, after the National Guard had killed her and three other victims. We were looking at it together. She was lying there on some pavement with another student kneeling down looking at her, as I remember.”
“These people were our audience. That’s exactly who we were playing for. It was our movement, our culture, our Woodstock generation. We were all one. It was a personal thing, the bond we held between the musicians and the people of the culture: hippies, students, flower children, call them what you will. We were all together.”
He continued:
“The weight of that picture cut us to the quick. We had heard and seen the news on TV, but this picture was the first time we had to stop and reflect. It was different before the Internet, before social networking to say the least. So full of this feeling of disbelief and sadness, I picked up my guitar and started to play some chords. (I) immediately wrote ‘Ohio’; four dead in Ohio,” Neil Young said in his autobiography “Waging Heavy Peace”.
The next day, Neil and his bandmates went into the studio in Los Angeles and recorded the song. In less than a week, the track was already being played all over the radio. It was something remarkably fast for that era before social media. According to Neil, CSNY were speaking for their generation, for themselves, in that song.
In addition to the band members, Calvin Samuels played bass and John Barbata played drums on the track. The song eventually peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100.