Song of the Day: Suite Judy Blue Eyes

A Crosby, Stills, and Nash classic. And in case you don't know the backstory, wiki supplies it.

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."