As a key figure in the musical landscape during the 1960s with The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, David Crosby saw the rise of The Beatles occur with his own eyes, and their development amazed the late singer-songwriter. However, one song, in particular, stood out to him as a pivotal moment.
Although Crosby was on the different side of the Atlantic to The Beatles, it was impossible not to follow their movements with a keen eye. For him, when it came to the rivalry between the Fab Four and The Rolling Stones, there was no competition, and the Liverpudlians operated at a level significantly ahead of their fierce rivals.
The main reason why The Beatles’ charm enchanted Crosby was the variation of their material and their unparalleled adeptness at evolving with each record. Crosby told Rolling Stone in 2021 about the age-old debate: “Beatles.
Mainly because of the range of stuff that they did, The Stones did have a fairly wide range that they did, but The Beatles had a much wider range of writing that they could do, and The Beatles could sing harmony.”
He continued: “The Stones can’t do that for squat, but The Beatles could do it really well. It’s a matter of personal taste, of course, but for me, The Beatles, no question.”
Another aspect he admired from The Beatles was their use of narratives, such as in ‘Eleanor Rigby’. The late musician named it his favourite song by Paul McCartney and put the track’s brilliance down to the storytelling nature of the lyrics.
“Nobody else wrote about those people,” Crosby told Stereogum. “Nobody else had the heart to write about the lonely, old, frozen-in-place people that are the main part of the population. Nobody writes about them. We write about glorious, brave, bigger-than-life.
We write about people who are in terrible pain. We write about very dramatic things. But we don’t write about small, cold, old, painful, lonely stuff like that, man. It was a very brave piece of writing. It’s a kind song, it’s a song of compassion in a quiet and very beautiful way.”
Crosby then recalled hearing The Beatles for the first time thanks to an English friend, admitting, “It absolutely floored me”.
“It was the first rock’ n’ roll that had that kind of feel to it,” he added. “Paul just wrote differently than other people. He could write ‘Paperback Writer’ and stuff like that without even thinking about it. It was so different”.
Circling back to ‘Eleanor Rigby’, Crosby explained how the track “stunned” him, signifying their development from boys to men. The late CSNY musician believed drugs played an essential role in their musical advancement, noting: “I was stunned, man. I didn’t know they could grow that fast. I didn’t realise what would happen when you gave guys like that acid and pot. They said, ‘Oh, well, look at this’. And they went crazy. They went beautifully fucking nuts.”
Just days before his death, Crosby would once again wax lyrical about ‘Eleanor Rigby’ via his Twitter account, naming it the perfect song by The Beatles for a rainy day. Replying to a fan, he also complimented McCartney’s writing by stating it was “one of his best”.
