Song of the Day 8/31: Graham Nash and David Crosby, “Frozen Smiles”

Mitch McConnell’s freeze-up yesterday seems like a gift for all those people who wished something would shut him up, but it’s also a reminder – and old people need them often – of what you get with a Government of Grandpas.

When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young broke up in 1971, each of the quartet released either a solo album or one with a new band, but Crosby and Nash went on tour together to support their LPs. They each played a handful of new songs in the concerts, and though neither had enough material for a full album, together they had a best-seller – it reached No. 4 on the Billboard album chart.

Nash’s pop-oriented tunes lent themselves to radio airplay, but this one was never released as a single (Nash’s “Immigration Man” was, but it stalled at No. 36). Perhaps its lyrics were too personal. The rumor back in the day tabbed a reclusive Stephen Stills as the friend being addressed, supposedly after turning away a visiting Nash, but I couldn’t find any supporting evidence for that, and as we all know, if it’s not on the internet it can’t be true. The duo is backed by those Southern California masters of mellow, the Section – Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar and Danny Kortchmar.