Long Time Gone - 2005 Remaster

In 1968, David Crosby joined forces with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash to create Crosby, Stills & Nash. Their voices meshed together uncommonly well, but on their own they were all capable songwriters, and each brought in tunes for their first album. "Long Time Gone" was one of Crosby's. In the liner notes for the 1991 box set Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby explained what the song is about: "It was written the night Bobby Kennedy was killed. I believed in him because he said he wanted to make some positive changes in America, and he hadn't been bought and sold like Johnson and Nixon - cats who made their deals years ago with the special interests in this country in order to gain power. I thought Bobby, like his brother, was a leader who had not made those deals. I was already angry about Jack Kennedy getting killed and it boiled over into this song when they got his brother, too."

Crosby, Stills & Nash played "Long Time Gone" at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which was just their second gig. This performance was used to open the Woodstock movie (1970), which shows the workers preparing Max Yasgur's farm for the festival.

Did you know that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young played Altamont, the 1969 concert that turned tragic when a fan was stabbed and killed while The Rolling Stones played? "Long Time Gone" was one of five songs in their set, which most don't remember because they played early and then split because they had a gig that night.