B-side "Dark Star" Genre Folk rock, Soft rock Label Atlantic | Released June 17, 1977 Length 2:14 Writer(s) Graham Nash | |
"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, becoming the band's highest charting hit. It is also one of the band's shortest songs, with a running time of only 2:14.
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?"
In a February 25, 2016 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Nash stated that the homeowner bet him $500 that he couldn't write a song before he left. Nash said he still has that $500.
"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 on their album "Rivage."