Crosby, Stills & Nash - Just A Song Before I Go / Dark Star - Houston, TX, 1977

"Just a Song Before I Go" is a song from Crosby, Stills and Nash that appeared on the 1977 album CSN. It was also released as a single and made it to number seven on the Billboard singles charts and ended up being the band's highest climbing hit.

The song was written by Graham Nash about leaving loved ones behind before going on a concert tour. It was written in Hawaii in about 20 minutes at the piano while Nash and Leslie Morris were staying with a friend, waiting for the rain to stop before leaving the house. The opening line came from the question: "You've got half an hour, why don't you just write a song before you go?"[1]

"Just a Song Before I Go" is lyrically straightforward about the situation Nash was in at the moment he wrote it, and there is also an undercurrent of regret towards rootlessness, a feeling that Nash — born and raised in England, a resident of the United States who had lived in California and was now living in Hawaii — might very well have had at the time.

Crosby, Stills and Nash arranged "Just a Song Before I Go" as a straight ballad, with mostly acoustic textures anchored by two electric guitar solos from Stephen Stills.

In 2008, drummer Russ Kunkel and the group Chateau Beach covered the song from their album "Rivage."[2]