“Those precious early years seem oddly clearer to me now, at 70.

“My life has taken me from innocence to rage and back again,” she writes. It is written graciously and poignantly, with a big blue eye toward posterity. Collins has written other books about aspects of her life (among them creativity, dedication to art and a family struggle with addiction), this one is the omnibus, with the big story and the boldface names. More importantly, though, it’s a song that defines the CS&N harmonies perfectly, which is as wonderful a legacy as the trio could hope for.Although Ms. When “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was released, it climbed to #21 on the Billboard Hot 100, which was a few spots higher than Crosby, Stills & Nash’s previous single, “Marrakesh Express,” had made it, so it was definitely a win by those standards.

When one listens to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the four individual sections are easily distinguishable: it’s a pop song for the first second, which lasts just slightly less than three minutes, then the second section – which lasts from 2:56 to 4:43 – is performed in half time relative to the first section, then the third section (4:43 – 6:25) is upbeat again, and then it concludes with the “doo-doo-doo-da-doo” vocalizations that have served as the signature segment of the song. In fact, Collins was actually in the studio when he recorded the original demo of the song…and, as Stills revealed during a 2007 NPR interview, she told him “not to stay all night.” History does not reveal how long his recording session actually lasted, but it does confirm that he and Collins concluded their relationship pretty soon after that, which was pretty well telegraphed within the lyrics of the song. 48 years ago today, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash released the second single from their self-titled debut album, a harmony-laden epic which – just as its title promised – was indeed an actual suite.Ĭomposed by Stills, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” was famously written about singer Judy Collins, who was – at least at the time of its writing – Stills’ girlfriend.

Suite judy blue eyes cover