“Southern Cross,” “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Long Time Gone“—the list is undoubtedly long for particular fans’ favorite Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) songs. When Neil Young joined in 1969, the band found even more success and were at the height of their career with back-to-back hit albums, Crosby, Stills & Nash and their No. 1 Déjà Vu in 1979. By the early 1970s, another scene was also brewing in Detroit, Michigan, the anthitesis of CSN’s slower, hippie-ish harmonies.
In the Midwest, The Stooges and MC5 were the forefathers of a protopunk movement seeping out of Motor City. At oppositie ends of the musical spectrum, the punk hatching in Detroit was a response to the more flower child spirit coming out of bands like CSN.
Iggy Pop, for one, was never a fan of Crosby, Stills & Nash and there was one earlier CSN song, in particular, that he never liked.
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[RELATED: The Earthly and Celestial Meaning of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Southern Cross”]
Casablanca to Morocco: Trains, Chickens, and Blue Hair
Released on Crosby, Stills & Nash’s eponymous 1969 debut, “Marrakesh Express” was inspired by a trip Graham Nash took to Morocco in 1966. The Marrakesh Express was the name of the train Nash took traveled on from Casablanca to Marrakesh. On his voyage, Nash started out in first class, which he found “completely f–king boring,” surrounded by women with blue hair, so he moved into other train carriages and saw the country differently with all the ducks, pigs, chickens and carpet of animals along its landscape.
“It wasn’t my scene at all, so I decide I’m going to go and see what the rest of the train is like,” said Nash of the lyrics. “And the rest of the train was fascinating. Just like the song says, there were ducks and pigs and chickens all over the place and people lighting fires. It’s literally the song as it is, what happened to me.”
Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes
Travelling the train through clear Moroccan skies
Ducks and pigs and chickens call
Animal carpet wall-to-wall
American ladies five-foot tall in blue
Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind
Had to get away to see what we could find
Hope the days that lie ahead
Bring us back to where they’ve led
Listen not to what’s been said to you
Nash originally wrote the song during his previous band the Hollies’ tour in Yugoslavia in June 1967. When he presented the song to the band, it became one of many songs that were rejected. “After a couple months of that, a man is liable to go insane,” said Nash said of having his songs turned down the band. “especially being the only one who was smoking grass at the time.”
Shortly after, Nash parted ways with the Hollies and made his move to Los Angeles to join Crosby and Still and revisited “Marrekesh Express.”
“Peace-Loving Acts of California”
Though song marked poignant experience for Nash, Pop never saw “Marrekesh Express” this way, and he didn’t hold back when talking about the CSN track, which peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I mean, ‘Marrakesh Express?’ it may be the worst song ever written,” said Pop in 2005.
Pop added, “There was more ‘American Idol,’ more of the corny talent show, suggested to the American audience at the time than people like to admit. Somebody needs to say that some of the biggest peace-love acts of the California five years of love were created in meetings.”
Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
