Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is a suite of short songs written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash. It appeared on the group's self-titled debut album in 1969. It was also released as a single (edited and in mono), going to #21 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. The song is ranked #418 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The group has performed this song many times, most famously at the Woodstock and Live Aid festivals. The title is presumably a play on words for "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes".

The acoustic guitar for the song is tuned to a very unusual tuning. Rather than being tuned to the traditional EADGBE, it is tuned to EEEEBE, which is also known as "Bruce Palmer Modal Tuning". Stills used this same tuning for "4+20". He uses a similar tuning for "Carry On" but drops the notes a half step. The fifth string is tuned down to the same note as the sixth string, and the third string is tuned down to the same note as the fourth string.

History

The title refers to Stephen Stills' former girlfriend, singer/songwriter Judy Collins and the lyrics to most of the suite's sections consist of his thoughts about her and their imminent breakup. Collins is known for her piercing blue eyes, which are referenced in the title. Stephen Stills on NPR, 15 July 2007, in talking about the release of demo tapes he made in 1968, called Just Roll Tape reveals that Judy Collins was with him in the studio when these tapes were recorded. She told him "not to stay [at the studio] all night", Stephen said. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is one of the demo songs. When the interviewer asked if he and Judy were still a couple then, because the interviewer had always thought the song was a breakup song, Stephen, after deferring an answer, went on to say that "the breakup was imminent." "We were both too large for one house." Stills said that he liked parts of this demo version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" better than the released version.

Collins and Stills had met in 1967 and began a relationship that lasted for two years. In 1969, she was appearing in the New York Shakespeare Festival musical production of Peer Gynt and had fallen in love with her co-star Stacy Keach. She eventually left Stills for Keach. Stills was devastated by the possible breakup and wrote the song as a response to his sadness. In a 2000 interview, Collins gave her impressions of when she first heard the song:

"[Stephen] came to where I was singing one night on the West Coast and brought his guitar to the hotel and he sang me “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the whole song. And of course it has lines in it that referred to my therapy. And so he wove that all together in this magnificent creation. So the legacy of our relationship is certainly in that song."

The group Crosby, Stills and Nash was created because of this song. Stephen Stills and David Crosby had been toying around with the idea of creating a three-man vocal group for some time, but had been unable to find a suitable third partner. Among those seriously considered was John Sebastian of The Lovin' Spoonful. One evening, the two of them were at an informal gathering - and here everybody's memory gets hazy about exactly where; some say it was at Mama Cass Elliot's, but most versions seem to lean towards it being Joni Mitchell's pad in Laurel Canyon. Wherever it was, Stills and Crosby ended up performing a two-voice version of the new song they'd been rehearsing, called "You Don't Have to Cry". When they finished, one of the other guests, Graham Nash, who had met Crosby when each were still in their respective former bands, asked them to perform it again. They did, as he listened intently. After which he asked them to do it yet another time, and again he listened very intently. After several such iterations, Nash unexpectedly joined in, adding a third high vocal harmony part that stunned everybody present. Crosby and Stills had found their third partner.

Sections

The song has four main sections.

First section

This section of the song is a traditional pop song. It has the chorus "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are." It runs for approximately 2:55. It features a solo sung by Stephen Stills. David Crosby and Graham Nash, meanwhile, sing delicately interwoven harmonies that dance around Stills' line.

Second section

This section is much slower and features a solo sung by Stephen Stills. It runs from 2:55 to 4:43.

Third section

This section becomes more upbeat and features more poetic lyrics. It starts at about 4:43 and runs until 6:25. It leads directly into the fourth and final section.

Final section

The final section (the coda) is sung in broken Spanish. The section starts at about 6:34 and runs until the end of the song. The "doo-doo-doot" backing vocals make the lyrics difficult to make out for some listeners. Stills has been cited, perhaps apocryphally, as saying that he intentionally made the final stanzas unexpected and difficult, even using a foreign language for the lyrics, "just to make sure nobody would understand it".

This section has been parodied many times, notably in Frank Zappa's compositions Billy the Mountain and "Magdalena" on The Mothers of Invention's album Just Another Band From L.A.

In the mid 1960s, Stephen Stills attended Lincoln School in San Jose, Costa Rica. The private school was attended mainly by upper-class Costa Ricans and had many foreign teachers and students. Stills's longtime musical collaborator, the Cuban percussionist Joe Lala, plays on the recording of the song.

The lines might be transcribed as follows:

Que linda me la traiga Cuba

La reina de la Mar Caribe

Quiero solo visitarla allí

Y que triste que no puedo vaya

O, va! O, va!

A rough translation into English might read:

How happy it makes me to think of Cuba

The queen of the Caribbean Sea

I only want to visit her there

And how sad that I cannot go.

Oh, go! Oh, go!

A variation of this occurs on the album 4 Way Street, the live CSNY album, where Stills is heard singing:

Que lástima que no puedo vaya! ("It's a pity that I cannot go")

References