A Country-Pop Symphony

The Beach Boys inspired everyone else to come up with pop symphonies. I love that this one from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is so thoroughly country – not that Stills and Young hadn’t been doing this sort of thing during their time with The Buffalo Springfield.

The other thing I love is how Neil Young seems like your average hitting-on-the-waitress creep until he unleashes these two verses:

Find out that now was the answer to answers
That you gave later
She did the things that we both did before now
But who forgave her?

If I could stand to see her crying
I would tell her not to care
When she learns of all your lying
Will she join you there?

It seems that he’s fighting some genuine scumbag, trying to get the woman out of a dangerously-toxic relationship. That business where the scumbag refuses to forgive the woman for cheating on him after he cheats on her? The pathological lying? Straight-up emotional abuse.

This is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with “Country Girl”.