A-side "Big Yellow Taxi" Format 7" single Length 5:25 | Released April 1970 Genre Folk rock | |
Recorded 1970, A&M Studios, Hollywood | ||
"Woodstock" is a popular song written by Joni Mitchell and included on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. The song was notably covered by both Matthews Southern Comfort and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and became a counterculture anthem.
Contents
Lyrics
Joni Mitchell wrote the song from what she had heard from then-boyfriend, Graham Nash, about the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. She had not been there herself, since she was told by a manager that it would be more advantageous for her to appear on The Dick Cavett Show. She wrote it in a hotel room in New York City, watching televised reports of the festival. "The deprivation of not being able to go provided me with an intense angle on Woodstock," she told an interviewer shortly after the event. David Crosby, interviewed for the documentary Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind, stated that Mitchell had captured the feeling and importance of the Woodstock festival better than anyone who had been there.
The lyrics tell a story about a spiritual journey to Max Yasgur's farm, the place of the festival, and makes prominent use of sacred imagery, comparing the festival site with the Garden of Eden ("and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"). The saga commences with the narrator's encounter of a fellow traveler ("Well, I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road") and concludes at their ultimate destination ("by the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong"). There are also references to the Vietnam War ("bombers riding shotgun in the sky...") in combination with the peaceful intent of the festival goers (...turning into butterflies above our nation").
Joni Mitchell
Prior to release on any album, Mitchell performed "Woodstock" at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival, one month after Woodstock. The solo performance can be seen in the festival concert film Celebration at Big Sur (released in 1971). Mitchell had not yet developed her distaste for large festival gigs. Released on Mitchell's third album Ladies of the Canyon in March 1970, "Woodstock" served as B-side for that album's single "Big Yellow Taxi". Mitchell re-recorded "Woodstock" for her two live albums, Miles of Aisles and Shadows and Light. The original track was included on the 1996 compilation Hits. Mitchell's original version featured a stark and haunting arrangement – solo vocal, multi-tracked backing vocals and tremoloed Wurlitzer electric piano, all performed by Mitchell.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
About the same time that Ladies of the Canyon appeared, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's upbeat hard rock arrangement was released as the lead single from their 1970 Déjà Vu album. This version opens with a distinctly staccato lead guitar lick played by Neil Young, who also plays the solo. Stephen Stills sings the lead vocal with backing harmonies from David Crosby and Graham Nash. The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young version of "Woodstock" is also notable for the stop-start instrument-patterns, just prior to the "We are stardust, we are golden..." chorus.
Although Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young learned the song from Joni Mitchell herself, the band's version slightly rearranged the lyrics from her original. They put the line, "we are billion year old carbon"—which only appeared in her final chorus—into each of the first three choruses. Then they replaced that line with "we are caught in the devil's bargain" in the last chorus which was also in Mitchell's final chorus.
"Woodstock" was one of the few Déjà Vu tracks where Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young all performed their parts in the same session. Later the original lead vocal by was partly replaced with a vocal recorded by Stills who recalled: "I replaced one and a half verses that were excruciatingly out of tune." Neil Young disagreed, saying "the track was magic. Then later on [Crosby, Stills & Nash] were in the studio nitpicking [with the result that] Stephen erased the vocal and put another one on that wasn't nearly as good."
The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young version of "Woodstock" peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1970 and #3 in Canada. A different recording of "Woodstock" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was played under the closing credits of the documentary film Woodstock released March 1970.
Matthews Southern Comfort
"Woodstock" became an international hit in 1970–71 via a version by the band Matthews Southern Comfort.
Matthews Southern Comfort had performed "Woodstock" on the Live in Concert program broadcast live by BBC Radio 1 on 28 June 1970: frontman Iain Matthews would recall that the group required an additional song for their set on the scheduled radio session, and that the choice of "Woodstock" was his own suggestion, Matthews having just become familiar with the Joni Mitchell version as he'd purchased her Ladies of the Canyon album earlier that week. Due to the positive response to that song, the BBC contacted Matthews' label Uni Records. According to Matthews, the label "had no idea what the [BBC] were talking about and contacted my management, who asked me about it. Uni suggested that we record the song and add it to the newly recorded Matthews Southern Comfort album: 'Later That Same Year'. I declined to mess with the completed album, but agreed to have them release the song as a single."
According to Matthews his band's BBC Radio performance of "Woodstock" echoed the Joni Mitchell original: however for their studio recording of the song - made at the Willesden Green studio Morgan Sound - the band radically customized the song's arrangement. Matthews would later admit to unease upon eventually meeting Joni Mitchell because he had changed the melody - (Ian Matthews quote:)"I couldn't reach [her] high notes" - but Mitchell replied that she preferred his arrangement. Matthews Southern Comfort bassist Andy Leigh would recall: "We took [the song] apart and reassembled it and we knew we had something. We were an album band. We didn't do singles" - in fact Uni had issued one single off each of the first two of the three Matthews Southern Comfort albums - "But we knew this [track]...was something special".
MCA only agreed to release the song after Crosby Stills Nash & Young's failed to chart in the United Kingdom; according to Leigh, they "reluctantly released ours because of that agreement but they wouldn't spend a penny on promotion ... But our managers, who were excellent, hired a PR, a songplugger. Tony Blackburn, who had the breakfast show on Radio 1, played 'Woodstock' and kept playing it and other DJs started doing the same." Matthews would recall that once Tony Blackburn made "Woodstock" by Matthews Southern Comfort his record of the week, "it began to sell 30,000 copies a day, eventually going from #10 to #1 in a week." Issued 24 July 1970, "Woodstock" debuted on the UK Top 50 on 26 September 1970 and reached #1 on 31 October 1970 remaining there for two additional weeks: a #2 hit in Ireland, "Woodstock" also had widespread success on the European continent, charting in Austria (#15), Denmark (#9), Finland (#23), Germany (#27), the Netherlands (#17), Norway (#2), Poland (#2), and Sweden (#2). In early 1971, the track also reached #3 in South Africa, #4 in New Zealand, and was a minor hit in Australia (#55).
In November 1970 "Woodstock" by Matthews Southern Comfort had its US single release on the group's regular US label: MCA affiliate Decca Records. Initially the single's US release had only marginal impact, with "Woodstock" by Matthews Southern Comfort spending six weeks on the 101-150 singles chart in Record World in December 1970 - January 1971 and then dropping off having peaked at #110. However upon "Woodstock"'s January 1970 single release in Canada - where a 30% Canadian Content radio airplay quota was being phased in - the track received airplay at least partially because of its Canadian authorship, and assisted by airplay on Canadian radio stations with US listeners - notably CKLW, the Windsor ON station credited with the track's Canadian "breakout"- "Woodstock" accrued newfound US interest, debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 dated 6 March 1971 at #83 to rise to a #23 Hot 100 that May. In Canada "Woodstock" reached a #5 peak on the RPM 100 singles chart.
By the time of the North American success of Matthews Southern Comfort's "Woodstock", the band was no more: an October 1970 shake-up at MCA Records (UK) had resulted in Matthews Southern Comfort splitting with MCA - with the resultant cancellation of a US tour set to begin that November, the month of "Woodstock"'s US single release - and in December 1970 Matthews had abruptly quit. Matthews would attribute his departure to the demands incumbent on his band's success with "Woodstock": (Ian Matthews quote:)"It created all this peripheral stuff that took up my time. What would've been time learning to be a songwriter, it became time spent doing interviews, photographs, tours and appearances"; "It all came to a head after a dreadful soundcheck at Birmingham town hall. I left the building, walked down to the station, got on a train home and locked my door for a week." Matthews' debut solo album If You Saw Thro' My Eyes was a Vertigo Records release of 1 May 1971 while his former co-members would have three Harvest Records album releases before disbanding in 1972.
In the British Isles, "Woodstock" would be the final single release by Matthews Southern Comfort - who had had two precedent non-charting UK singles - and "Woodstock" would remain Matthews' sole UK charting single: although previously a member of Fairport Convention Matthews had not been featured on their one charting single: "Si tu dois partir", and Matthews would never rank in the UK charts as a solo artist. In other territories two further tracks were issued as singles from the third and final Matthews Southern Comfort album Later That Same Year - which outside the British Isles included "Woodstock" - : "Mare, Take Me Home" and "Tell Me Why" both of which just made the Billboard Hot 100 at respectively #96 and #98, while "Mare, Take Me Home" peaked at #86 in Canada (Matthews Southern Comfort had a total of four US single releases, having had one non-charting US single: "Colorado Springs Eternal", in April 1970). Iain Matthews - as Ian Matthews - would as a solo act place three singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and also the Canadian charts, one of which: the November 1978 release "Shake It", would become a major hit, reaching a Billboard Hot 100 peak of #13 in April 1979, also reaching #6 in Canada.