Nash was born in Blackpool, England, during World War II. His mother was evacuated from the Nashes' hometown of Salford (now in Greater Manchester ), where Graham grew up. In the early 1960s he was a leading member of The Hollies, one of the UK's most successful pop groups ever. Although recognised as a key member of the group, he seldom sang lead vocals, although he did write many of the band's songs, most often in collaboration with Allan Clarke. Best known in the US for their 1965 hit "Bus Stop", the Hollies also scored with "Look Through Any Window" in 1965, "Stop, Stop, Stop" in 1966, "Carrianne", and "On a Carousel " in 1967, among others. Nash was pivotal in the forging of a sound and lyrics showing an obvious hippie influence on The Hollies' album Butterfly, a collection that brought differing opinions on the band's musical direction to the fore.
In 1968, after a visit to the US during which he met David Crosby in Laurel Canyon and began recreational drug use, Nash left The Hollies at the height of their fame to form a new group with Crosby and Stephen Stills. A threesome at first, Crosby, Stills & Nash later became a foursome with Neil Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). With them, Nash went on to even greater worldwide success. Nash, nicknamed "Willy" by his band mates in CSNY, has been described as the glue that keeps their often fragile alliances together. A mark of this is the loyalty and support Nash showed to his best friend, Crosby, during Crosby's well-documented period of drug addiction ending in the mid 1980s. Nash's solo career has often been shelved in favour of reunions on stage and in the studio with either Crosby and Stills or Crosby, Stills and Young. His own solo work shows a love of melody and ballads. His solo recordings have experimented with jazz and electronic percussion but tend not to stray too far from a pop format with well-defined hook lines.
Nash became very politically active after moving to California to join with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, as reflected such in Nash songs as "Military Madness" and "Chicago (We Can Change the World)". His song "Immigration Man", Crosby and Nash's biggest hit as a duo (see below), arose from a tiff he had with a US Customs official while trying to enter the country. Nash became an American citizen on August 14, 1978.
Starting in 1972, Nash teamed with Crosby, the two continuing as a successful recording and performing duo until the more or less permanent reformation with Stills for the CSN album of 1977. The pair reunited for another Crosby & Nash studio album in 2004, and a legitimate release of music from a 1970s Crosby-Nash tour as on a widely circulated bootleg appeared in 1998.
In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy.
In 2005, Nash collaborated with Norwegian musicians a-ha on the songs "Over the Treetops" (penned by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) and "Cosy Prisons" (penned by Magne Furuholmen) for the Analogue recording.
In 2006, Nash worked with David Gilmour and David Crosby on the title track of David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. In March of 2006, the album was released and quickly reached #1 on the UK charts. Nash and Crosby subsequently toured the UK with Gilmour, singing backup on "On an Island", "The Blue", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and "Find the Cost of Freedom".
Nash is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power. In 2007 the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".
Graham Nash has been putting the finishing touches on a 65-song career-retrospective box set, Reflection, due in February 2008.
Nash became an early collector of photographs beginning in the 1970s. The sale of his collection in 1990 by Sotheby's became an important milestone in establishing the market for fine-art photography. Proceeds of the sale funded charitable causes and provide the means for Nash to co-found Nash Editions, a digital fine-arts printmaking firm that used some of the most advanced scanning and printing equipment in early days. The company continues to operate today. Starting with an IRIS printer, a device initially designed for color-proofing for commercial printing, Nash experimented in the late 1980s with creating large-scale digital photos. Using image management software written by Nash and Holbert, a hand-built scanner, and an IRIS Graphics IRIS 3047 printer, they developed methods to adapt the printer's output to the fine-arts printing of black-and-white photographs on archival-paper substrates. In August 2005, Nash and colleague Mac Holbert donated that IRIS 3047 printer to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
Nash has also exhibited a collection of his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and elsewhere. In 2004, he released a catalog of his photography as a book entitled Eye to Eye.
Bittersweet
Graham Nash Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
On the other side, love dangles by a thread
And here is a climber who cannot find his eyes
And a falling woman wishing she was dead
Both sides, why is it always bittersweet?
and the broken cloudy days
when I need the sun's heat
I need the heat, oh both way
Why is it always bittersweet
And the broken cloudy days
When I need the sun's heat
Oh, I need the heat
Why, why is it bittersweet?
And the broken cloudy days
Is when I need the sun's heat
I need the heat
The lyrics to Graham Nash's song Bittersweet, from his 1974 album Wild Tales, evoke a sense of struggle between two powerful forces – truth and love. On one side, the truth is rigid, unyielding, and tower-like, while love dangles by a thin thread on the other side. The singer describes a climber who "cannot find his eyes," suggesting a loss of direction and clarity, and a woman who is falling and wishes for death, pointing to the fragility and uncertain nature of love. The refrain, "Both sides, why is it always bittersweet," highlights the tension and the bittersweet nature of this struggle between truth and love. The broken, cloudy days deepen the singer's feeling of longing for warmth, light, and clarity.
Line by Line Meaning
On the one side, truth towers like a cliff
The concept of truth is self-standing and sturdy like a large structure that towers over everything else.
On the other side, love dangles by a thread
Love is fragile and hangs by a thin string, easily broken if not handled with care.
And here is a climber who cannot find his eyes
The singer is lost and unsure of his path, unable to clearly see his way forward.
And a falling woman wishing she was dead
There is a woman in despair, possibly in a downward spiral, who can see no hope for the future.
Both sides, why is it always bittersweet?
The contrasts between truth and love create a mix of emotions, often leaving one with conflicting feelings.
And the broken cloudy days
The singer references a time of sadness or darkness in their life.
when I need the sun's heat
The singer needs a source of light or positivity in their life.
I need the heat, oh both way
The artist needs a positive force in both the aspects of truth and love.
Why, why is it bittersweet?
The artist is still struggling to come to terms with the mix of emotions that arise from the opposing concepts of truth and love.
And the broken cloudy days
The artist references a time of sadness or darkness in their past.
Is when I need the sun's heat
The singer craves positivity and warmth during times of sadness.
I need the heat
The artist desires a source of energy and positivity.
Lyrics © Spirit Music Group
Written by: CROSBY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind