Blue Castle RecordsOn Friday, Graham Nash released his latest solo album, This Path Tonight, an introspective and intimate collection of songs that documents the “emotional journey” he’s been going through recently with the dissolution of his 38-year marriage and the start of a new romance.
The 74-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer says he wrote the new tunes with Crosby, Stills & Nash‘s second guitarist, Shane Fontayne, during a monthlong burst a creativity last year.
“In October…we wrote 20 songs together,” Nash tells ABC Radio. “You know, I would vomit onto the page about my feelings and my emotions and the next day Shane would put a beautiful melody to it.” Ten of the tunes made the cut for This Path Tonight, including songs with such evocative titles at “Myself at Last,” “Beneath the Waves” and “Another Broken Heart.”
As fast as the songs were written, Graham says he took even less time to record them, spending only eight days to lay down the tracks.
“I wanted it to be funky, I wanted it to be intimate, I wanted it to be immediate,” explains Nash about his vision for the recording. “I didn’t want it to sound lip-synched or ‘dance girls-ed’ or [with] flashing-light kind of overproduction. I wanted it to be as real as possible.”
Deluxe versions of This Path Tonight include three bonus tunes that Graham says he doesn’t consider part of the main album’s “carefully designed” track list since they feature “pointed” themes about specific issues or events, rather than reflecting his personal life.
“One of them, ‘Watch Out for the Wind,’ [was] written about Michael Brown being killed in Ferguson, Missouri,” he tells ABC Radio. “And the other one, ‘Mississippi Burning,’ [is] about the three college students that were murdered in Mississippi [in 1964] trying to help the black people vote.”
Nash recently revealed that he had a serious falling-out with CSN band mate David Crosby and isn’t sure if he’ll ever play with the trio again. While he didn’t address the rift with ABC Radio, he did say that the changes in his life have inspired him to put a major focus on his solo career.
“I have to look at my future and grab it by the horns and go,” he declares. “I don’t want to settle for anything. I don’t want to put up with anything I don’t want to put up with anymore. I’m on a new path.”
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