Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

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"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"

Song by Crosby, Stills & Nash
from the album Crosby, Stills & Nash
Released	1969
Genre	Rock
Length	7:28
Label	Atlantic
Writer(s)	Stephen Stills
Producer(s)	Bill Halverson David Crosby Graham Nash Stephen Stills
Crosby, Stills & Nash track listing
	"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" (1)	Marrakesh Express (2)

"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is a song — or rather, a suite of short songs or sections — written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills and Nash, which first appeared on their self-titled debut album in 1969. It was also released as a single, going to #21 on the Billboard Hot 100. While it may not be their biggest hit, it is their signature tune, the one most often associated with them.

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 the strings being tuned to the traditional EADGBE, they are instead tuned to EEEEBE. Stills used this same tuning for "Carry On."

1 History
2 Sections

[edit] 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 breakup. Collins is known for her piercing blue eyes, which are referenced in the title.

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 fell in love with her co-star Stacy Keach. She eventually left Stills for Keach. Stills was devastated by the 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."

[edit] Sections

The song is clearly broken up into 4 main sections.

[edit] First section

The first 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's line.

[edit] Second section

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

[edit] Third section

The third 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 final section.

[edit] Final section

The final section, perhaps the best known, 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 this was deliberate, because he did not want casual listeners to understand this section. This section has also 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..

Because this section is so difficult to make out, even for native Spanish speakers, there have been widely varying transcriptions. One possibility:

Qué lindo será [sería?] traerla a Cuba

La reina de la Mar Caribe

Quiero sólo visitarla allí

Y qué triste que no puedo, ¡vaya! * [1]

A rough translation into English might read:

How nice it will (or would) be to take you to Cuba

The queen of the Caribbean Sea

I only want to visit you there

And how sad that I can't, damn!

Note: On 4 Way Street, the live CSNY album, Stills is heard singing:

Qué lástima que no puedo, ¡vaya!

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
David Crosby \| Stephen Stills \| Graham Nash \| Neil Young
Discography
Crosby, Stills & Nash \| Déjà Vu \| Four Way Street \| So Far \| CSN \| Replay \| Daylight Again \| Allies \| American Dream \| Live It Up \| CSN (box set) \| After The Storm \| Carry On \| Looking Forward \| Greatest Hits
Songs
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes \| Marrakesh Express \| Wooden Ships \| Woodstock \| Helpless \| Ohio \| Just a Song Before I Go \| Southern Cross
Other related bands
The Byrds \| Buffalo Springfield \| The Hollies \| CPR \| Crosby & Nash \| The Stills-Young Band \| Manassas \| Crazy Horse
Other related people
Joni Mitchell \| Judy Collins \| Chris Hillman \| Cass Elliot \| Timothy B. Schmit