If I Could Only Remember My Name

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Professional reviews
David Crosby

Studio album by David Crosby
Released	February 22, 1971
Recorded	1970-1971
Genre	Rock
Length	37:04
Label	Atlantic
Producer(s)	David Crosby
All Music Guide link
David Crosby chronology
	If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971)	Oh Yes I Can (1989)

If I Could Only Remember My Name is David Crosby's first solo album, and one of four high-profile albums released by each partner of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping Déjà Vu album of 1970. It has been in print continuously since its initial release.

A large grouping of big-name rock stars circa 1970 appear on the record, including members of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. Three of the nine tracks feature vocals without any lyric, and the lyrics of a fourth, "Orléans," consist entirely of a roll call of famous French cathedrals. The song "Cowboy Movie" is Crosby's lengthy shaggy dog story regarding the personalities of CSNY, and another track, "Laughing," received an airing by Crosby accompanied only with his guitar on CSNY's 1970 tour. A live recording of "Laughing" would be added to the 1992 reissue of the document of that tour, Four Way Street.

Aside from "Cowboy Movie," an ambience of ethereal abstraction permeates the record, very much a continuance of qualities exhibited on previous Crosby work both with The Byrds and CSN, such as "Everybody Has Been Burned" from Younger Than Yesterday or "Guinnevere" from the CSN debut. The lyrics parlay concerns typical to the era, "What Are Their Names" the notion of a ruling, invisible elite in America, and "Laughing" the elusiveness of enlightenment and the inherent wisdom of the child. Of the quartet, Crosby along with Nash echoed the Woodstock Nation ethos most strongly in their work. After this record, Crosby would wait eighteen years before releasing his next solo album.

The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, and "Music Is Love," released as a single, peaked at #95 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was released for compact disc on October 25, 1990, having been digitally remastered from the original master tapes, using the equipment and techniques of the day, by original engineer Stephen Barncard.