On the bonus DVD included with the new reissue of Graham Nash’s Songs for Beginners, there is a gallery of the artist’s photography. One of the photos is of an old car, trundling down a rural one-lane road towards foggy pines in the distance. The caption reads, “Neil (Young) going home to Broken Arrow Ranch, Northern California.”

I know the landscape where the photo was taken, in the rolling Santa Cruz Mountains, somewhere off of Skyline Boulevard, along the Pacific Ocean. Neil Young lives in Woodside, California, an affluent mountain town with Skyline as its main thoroughfare. A two-lane mountain road that I drove back and forth from the San Lorenzo Valley to work in San Francisco — and where I rolled my car in an icy morning frost. I was upside down and crawled out the passenger side door. I still have the ambulance bill hanging over my head. It’s an interesting personal footnote to what originally seemed a trivial bonus. The rest of the photo gallery features portraits of the likes of a jolly David Crosby, a pensive Stephen Stills, and a glowering Neil Young. But to the music: This album, Graham Nash’s first and, arguably, finest, sounds brilliant in its Rhino two-disc reissued form. The DVD features the album in 5.1 stereo, but the main disc sounds just as good. (more…)

This song is Spring.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Helplessly Hoping” (download)

It’s easy enough to point to nearly any Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and say that — “Judy: Blue Eyes,” certainly. “Guinnevere,” absolutely. “Our House,” you bet.

But “Helplessly Hoping” is it, the most Spring of any of their songs. This is it.

The opening guitar could be anything, it could be Spring showers, blossoms sprouting, skipping down the street, a gentle breeze, sunshine peeking through clouds.

It’s hope, the kind that comes from feeling warm air on your skin, packing away heavy clothes, letting your body relax after bracing against cold, being out among people again, being free from the doldrums of Winter.

“…gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit he runs / wishing he could fly…”

It’s meeting people for the first time and seeing old friends in a new light. It’s the excitement, confusion and frustration that comes from new beginnings. It’s the senseless equations that form chemistry.

“…they are one person / they are two alone / they are three together / they are for each other…”

It’s taking chances, letting things go, daring to live.

“…love isn’t lying it’s loose in a lady who lingers / saying she is lost / and choking on hello…”

And it’s far too short, requiring your attention almost immediately before it threatens to slip into yesterday.