Guinnevere
Crosby's 1968 song in an unusual tuning, sung with Graham Nash on the first Crosby, Stills & Nash album.
David Crosby, from Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969)
- Written by
- David Crosby
- Released
- 1969
- Album
- Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby wrote Guinnevere in 1968, and it appears on Crosby, Stills & Nash at 4:40, with Crosby on lead vocals and guitar and Nash singing with him. Stills does not play on it. Crosby told Rolling Stone that the song is in a very strange tuning, EBDGAD, with strange time signatures, and that it is about three women he loved, one of whom he named as Joni Mitchell. He added that it might be his best song. Robert Christgau has said it is based on a three-note motif from Miles Davis's 1960 album Sketches of Spain.
The lyric casts Queen Guinevere from the point of view of Sir Lancelot, with the refrain "we shall be free". In the liner notes to the CSN box set, which includes a demo with Jack Casady on bass and Cyrus Faryar on bouzouki, Crosby said that the song combines the West Coast jazz he heard growing up with the folk music he came to later.
Covers and versions
- Miles Davis (1970) Recorded with his electric-era band on January 27, 1970 and first released, in edited form, on the 1979 compilation Circle in the Round. Crosby said in 2017 that he had finally come to understand the recording.
More songs by David Crosby
Laughing, Cowboy Movie, Wooden Ships, Almost Cut My Hair, Eight Miles High
Sources
- Guinnevere, Wikipedia
- Crosby, Stills & Nash (album), Wikipedia
- David Crosby (A-Side), BBC Radio 4, Mastertapes (2013-11)