Graham Nash said he often wonders what he did right to achieve his level of success, while others didn’t make it. At 81 he’s set to release a new album, “Now”, which explores a series of reflections about his life, his regrets, his doubts about the present and his optimism for the future.
Asked in a interview if he thought about how he achieved so much success, Nash laughed, “Yeah, because there are so many people that are much better musicians than I am that are nowhere. And I particularly feel it when I go back to Manchester in England. I still see my old friends in there still digging graves, and they still hate their boss and they still hate work. And I go, ‘Why me? Why was it me that left and got rewarded by all this success?’”
He admitted he never came up with an answer, although he kept asking himself. However, he reflected that what he learned over the years was that “life is short.” He argued that “your time goes insanely fast, and we must make the correct choices for our lives. Do I go left? Do I talk to him? Do I do this? That’s all life is: choices that you make. And you have to make the correct choices to get to be 81 and still rocking.”
Remaining hopeful was important, Nash added. “I am, because what else can you do?” he said. “You’ve got to hope it’s going to be better. You’ve got to. You’ve got to reflect the times in which you live. You’ve got to talk about what’s going on politically and environmentally.” He said that’s why he faced some personal demons on “Now”, including the death of former bandmate David Crosby. “I have to be courageous. I have to open up my heart. I have to be courageous enough to put my heart on my sleeve and hope people don’t knock it up with a billy club. … Sometimes you can just hope for the very, very best of what life throws at you. You better deal with it or else you are hopelessly out of tune.”
Graham Nash has released a video for the song “A Better Life.”
The track comes from his latest album “Now”, his first studio release in seven years. He previously revealed the album’s opening track, “Right Now.”
Speaking when the LP was announced, Nash said, “I believe that my new album “Now” is the most personal one I have ever made. At this point in my life, that’s something to say.” “it is the duty of all artists to reflect the times in which they live, which is why there is MAGA stuff on “Now“, and songs such as ‘Stars and Stripes’ that discuss what Trump has done to the truth.”
He recalled that when he “first came to America, I’d already learned to write melodies that you could sing back to me if I played it a couple of times. … [Soon] I knew I had to make an effort to write better lyrics for the melodies I was creating. Thank God that I do live in America – a very beautiful country with many faults, and so much more going for it. I know that here that I have the right to speak my mind, even if people don’t agree with me.”
Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments – from the launch of the British Invasion to the birth of the Laurel Canyon movement a year later. An extraordinary Grammy Award winning renaissance artist – and self-described “simple man” – Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and his work as a solo artist. His latest effort, “Now”, was just released worldwide on May 19th.
Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades.
Graham Nash will be joined on stage by his long time musical partners, Shane Fontayne (guitar and vocals) and Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), performing favourites from across his sixty-year career.
The Fat Angel Sings 