The song Graham Nash wrote to insult David Crosby

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Mon 6 October 2025 18:00, UK

It doesn’t take long for bandmates to forge a sibling-like relationship. Hours spent in the studio and in the tightly designed quarters of a tour bus are likely to test the boundaries of any friendship, let alone one of ego-fuelled musicians, especially when the band is a supergroup, like Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Of course, I understand some critics would label the term supergroup as somewhat of a stretch. It’s not individual icons that were put together like The Traveling Wilbury’s but David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash all had their own successful careers prior to the forming of the band. But in the quiet gardens of Laurel Canyon, these three men from either corners of the pond realised that their individual differences were overshadowed by one common strength: their voices.

It was an unlikely union for three men who shared different outlooks on life and for a band that had David Crosby at the very heart of it. The profound songwriter was famously gruff and erratic, and so his position at the heart of one of music’s most generous and delicate three-part harmonies was somewhat of an interesting contradiction.

But behind the songs were relationships that veered into the sibling-like, with Crosby’s somewhat difficult nature being called out regularly by his bandmates, namely Nash. But he was also quick to have his bandmates back, being there in times of desperate need, which can be revisited in the epic Crosby, Stills and Nash track ‘Delta’. One that was written by Crosby, with the help of Nash, in a manic depressive episode that only the British songwriter was there to aid in.

But like the musical siblings they were, the pair continued to squabble as the decades rolled on. But when Crosby’s mischievousness turned into outright disrespect, dragging the name of Neil Young’s girlfriend Daryl Hannah, publicly, through the mud, Nash wrote a song to put his bandmate back in his place.

The 2016 track ‘Encore’ was a scathing take on Crosby’s behaviour and served as a warning of how this continued behaviour would result in loneliness. “I wrote that for David Crosby. Basically, the song is about ‘Who are you when you’re not famous? Who are you when the lights have gone out and the audience has left? Are you a decent person or are you a fucking asshole?’ I’m not sure I have the complete answer yet,” he explained.

He continued, outlining how his loyalty to Crosby through the toughest times had been overlooked: “I’ve been there and saved his fucking ass for 45 years, and he treated me like shit. You can’t do that to me. You can do it for a day or so, until I think you’re going to come around. When it goes on longer, and I keep getting nasty emails from him, I’m done.”

It felt like a sad and bitter end to a friendship that has been at the very heart of music’s rich history. But when David Crosby died in 2023, it gave Nash and the rest of the music community a healthy dose of perspective and a chance to remember Crosby as more than just a goddamn antagonist.

He concluded, “I think one of the only things that we can do, particularly me, is only try to remember the good times. Try to remember the great music that we made. I’m only going to be interested in the good times, because if I concentrate on the bad times, it gets too weird for me.”