Rehearse for ...
Almost Cut My Hair
Great performance at The Mariner Arena in Baltimore on 2 April 2002
Track 3 from "Deja Vu"
"
Almost Cut My Hair" is a song by
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, originally released on the band's 1970 album
Déjà Vu.
[1] It was recorded at
Wally Heider Studios on January 9, 1970.
[2]
The song describes a real-life dilemma faced by many
hippies: whether to cut one's hair to a more practical length, or leave it long as a symbol of rebellion.
[3] It was written by
David Crosby,
and features solo vocals by Crosby, with the rest of the band joining
in on instruments rather than on vocal harmony, as in many of their
other songs. Unlike most of the tracks on
Déja Vu, the quartet and their studio musicians,
Dallas Taylor (drums) and
Greg Reeves (bass), all recorded it at the same place and time.
[1] It was one of only two songs from the album that
Neil Young joined in on, despite not writing.
Although the notion of long hair as a "freak flag" appeared earlier, notably in a 1967
Jimi Hendrix song "
If 6 Was 9",
Crosby's song has been credited with popularizing the idea of long hair
as a deliberate and visible symbol of the wearer's affiliation with the
counterculture,
and opposition to establishment values. The song also writes about the
singer's "paranoia" at seeing the police;
James Perone writes that, "more than any other song of the entire era",
it "captures the extent to which the divisiveness in American society
... had boiled over into violence and terror".
[1]
It became one of Crosby's signature songs,
[5] and "probably his most important political song".
[6]
Crosby himself stated "It was the most juvenile set of lyrics I've ever
written ... but it has a certain emotional impact, there's no question
about that."
[5
