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''Songs for Beginners'' is the debut solo studio album by English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. Released in May 1971, it was one of four high-profile albums (all charting within the top fifteen) released by each member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping ''
Déjà Vu ''Déjà vu'' ( , ; "already seen") is the phenomenon of feeling like one has lived through the present situation in the past.Schnider, Armin. (2008). ''The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality''. Oxford University Press. pp. 167–1 ...
'' album of 1970, along with '' After the Gold Rush'' (
Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
, September 1970), '' Stephen Stills'' ( Stephen Stills, November 1970) and ''
If I Could Only Remember My Name ''If I Could Only Remember My Name'' is the debut solo album by the American singer-songwriter David Crosby, released on February 22, 1971, by Atlantic Records. It was one of four high-profile albums released by each member of Crosby, Stills, Nas ...
'' ( David Crosby, February 1971). ''Songs for Beginners'' peaked at No. 15 on the '' Billboard'' Top Pop Albums chart, and the single "
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
" made it to #35 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. A second single "Military Madness" was a hit in Australia, reaching #8 on its chart. The album has been certified a gold record by the
RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
.


History

Nash brought in an impressive group of guests to assist in the recording, including David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Dave Mason, David Lindley, Rita Coolidge, and
Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
(under Young's early 1970s pseudonym Joe Yankee). The making of this album directly followed Nash's break-up with longtime girlfriend
Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan Mitchell (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitch ...
. Many of the songs are about their time together. The
Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...
track "Chicago" concerned both the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the trial of the Chicago Eight, articulating the outrage Nash felt concerning those proceedings. "Wounded Bird" was written for Stephen Stills, about the pains he was going through in his relationship with Judy Collins. "Better Days" was also written for Stills, after Rita Coolidge left him for Nash. A first-generation compact disc was released in the late 1980s, and reissued in 2011. A remixed version supervised by Nash was issued on 180-gram vinyl only by Classic Records in 2001. A deluxe edition of ''Songs for Beginners'' was released on 23 September 2008 as a CD+ DVD-Audio pack, featuring a bonus multichannel high resolution audio, all new 2008 video interview with Nash, plus a photo gallery and complete lyrics along with the 11-track CD album remastered. The song "Simple Man" features in the opening sequence of the 2007 film '' Reign Over Me'', and a copy of the album appears in it. The same song was also used in the final minutes of the finale of the
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
series '' Looking''. The song "Better Days" appears in episode 2 of Fox TV's '' The Passage'', released in 2019. A demo version of "Be Yourself" plays during the closing credits of the film '' Up in the Air''. "Military Madness" has been covered live by Death Cab For Cutie, and was covered by indie-rock band Woods on their 2009 album '' Songs of Shame''. "I Used to be a King" was covered by Shawn Colvin on her 2015 album '' Uncovered''. In 2018, the song "Better Days" was used as the closing credit song in the Showtime miniseries '' Escape at Dannemora'', Episode 7. In 2021, "Better Days" was played over the closing credits of the HBO Max series '' Hacks'', Episode 6.


Track listing


Personnel

* Graham Nash — vocals; acoustic guitar all tracks except "Simple Man"; piano on "Better Days", "Simple Man", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World"; organ on "Better Days", "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World"; paper and comb on "Sleep Song" tambourine on "Chicago" Additional Personnel * Dave Mason — electric guitar on "Military Madness" * David Crosby — electric guitar on "I Used to Be a King" * Jerry Garciapedal steel guitar on "I Used to Be a King" and "Man in the Mirror" * Rita Coolidge — piano on "Be Yourself" and "There's Only One"; electric piano on "Be Yourself"; backing vocals on "Military Madness", "Better Days", "Simple Man", "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World" *
Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
— piano on "Better Days", "I Used to Be a King" and "Man in the Mirror" * Joel Bernstein — piano on "Military Madness" * Chris Ethridge — bass guitar on "Man in the Mirror", "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World" * Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuel — bass guitar on "Military Madness", "Better Days" and "Be Yourself" * Phil Lesh — bass guitar on "I Used to Be a King" * John Barbata — drums all tracks except "Better Days", "Wounded Bird", "Simple Man" and "Sleep Song"; tambourine on "Chicago" * Dallas Taylor — drums on "Better Days" * Dorian Rudnytsky — cello on "Simple Man" and "Sleep Song" * David Lindley
fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...
on "Simple Man" * Bobby Keys — saxophone on "There's Only One" * Simon Posthuma —
bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...
on "Better Days" * P.P. Arnold — backing vocals on "Military Madness" * Venetta Fields — backing vocals on "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World" * Sherlie Matthews — backing vocals on "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World" * Clydie King — backing vocals on "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World" * Dorothy Morrison — backing vocals on "There's Only One", "Chicago" and "We Can Change the World"


Production personnel

* Graham Nash – producer * Bill Halverson, Russ Gary, Larry Cox — recording engineers * Glyn Johns – Mixing * Doug Sax – mastering * Gary Burden — art direction * Joel Bernstein, Graham Nash – photography


Charts

Singles


Certification


References

{{Authority control 1971 debut albums Atlantic Records albums Graham Nash albums Albums produced by Graham Nash