Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 4+20 (cover by Luis Gomes)

Hello folks! Before I'll post the last video of this year, I'd like to thank everybody who gave me support subscribing on my You Tube channel, giving likes on my videos and etc. I really appreciate that!

On this next video we're gonna celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of my favourite records ever. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young masterpice Déjà Vu. A perfect album from the beginning to the end! In spite of all that highly-collaborative great tracks, one of them always caught my attention by its simplicity and feeling.

"4+20" was a song composed by Stephen Stills in 1969. The song describes the inner torments and reflections of a man on his past, present and future. In the Crosby, Stills & Nash Box Set, Stills explained: "It's about an 84-year-old poverty stricken man who started and finished with nothing.". However Stills sings that he was born "Four and twenty years ago." Logically, this would mean that he's 24 years old, but there is a bit of poetic license here, as "Sixty-four and twenty years ago" doesn't fit the meter. "Four and Twenty" is a phrase popularized in the children's song "Sing a Song of Sixpence," where four-and-twenty blackbirds are baked in a pie (one of the more disturbing kids' songs). "4+20" is also associated with marijuana, but that doesn't apply here. Another close cousin is "four score and seven years ago," the first line of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Nash once explained in David Browne's 2019 book "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young" that Stills did indeed record an additional take of the song because he wanted to get rid of the light gulp that occurs between the words "I" and "embrace." Nash and Crosby insisted he keep the original "gulp" version - "It was so human, and on such a human song." - Nash says in the book - "We convinced Stephen to use the first take".

Running 2: 10 on the album, the only instrumentation on this track is Stills' acoustic guitar with his famous strange tunning (EEEEBE) which was invented by his old Buffalo Springfield bandmate Bruce Palmer. He recorded the song in one take and planned to use it on his upcoming debut solo album, but when his bandmates heard it, they implored him to use it on the CSN&Y Déjà Vu album. He also planned to have David Crosby and Graham Nash sing harmony parts, but they refused - "They told me they wouldn't touch it." - said Stills - "So it always stood alone.".

On this video I mixed the album's version with his live performance on Dick Cavett Show, just right after their Woodstock concert in 1969.

I hope you enjoy my humble tribute to this great artist and I'd like to thank you once again. Wish everybody a Happy, Healthy and a Better New Year!!! Stay safe and Peace & Love!!!