Our House

Graham Nash wrote this sentimental tune about the house he shared with Joni Mitchell in LA's Laurel Canyon from 1968-1970. It's not often you hear a young rock star celebrating domestic bliss, but Nash was very happy living with Mitchell, who often served as his muse. Mitchell inspired songs not just by Nash, but also by his bandmate David Crosby, her lover from a few years earlier. Mitchell also wrote the CSN song "Woodstock" and created the painting used on their 1974 compilation album So Far. During the time when Nash was working on this song and others for the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album Deja Vu, Mitchell was working on her seminal Ladies Of The Canyon. Both albums were released in 1970.

According to Nash, the lyrics are true to life and a "portrait of our life together." They really did have two cats in the yard along with a fireplace.

Biographer Dave Zimmer shared what Graham Nash told him about the song in the 2007 CSN&Y Historian's interview: "He once told me: 'The time that Joni and I were living together was really interesting, because I had left my band [The Hollies] successfully, I had left my country [England] successfully, I had been accepted here [Los Angeles, California], and I was feeling great. And Joni was feeling great, too; she had started to realize who she was and the fantastic work she was doing. She was painting and designing her second album cover, doing that self-portrait. And I remember being totally in awe of her. She'd go and make some supper and come down and we'd be eating, then she'd all of a sudden space out, go to the piano ... to see her sit down and write 'Rainy Night House' and all those other things was just mind blowing.'"