In other words: 'no hard feelings, sweetie. The poppy guitar helps mask the inherent sadness of the ordeal - but the text (much like Shakira's hips) don't lie. It's structured around a simple, repeating chorus, written from the perspective of the soon-to-be-used-to-be-boyfriend, and it recalls just how stale things have gotten between the couple ('It's getting to the point / where I'm no fun anymore') in spite of their best efforts. This first section is the most conventionally 'pop' of the whole lot. MINI SONG NUMERO UNO: 'I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are.' Accordingly, we'll proceed to the sub-song(s), in order: Now then, let's see just how broad this spectrum of subtext can be. Heck, when your emotions are all over the map - four songs might even fall short of covering the full gamut, right?

And Judy Collins was quite a catch (well, I mean, at the time). Basically, he knew that a breakup was imminent, and so he sat down and banged out four demo songs in quick succession to tell her how he was feeling about the whole thing.Īnd when you think about just about any breakup you've ever had (especially the really complicated ones), it's kinda' hard to fault the guy for churning out multiple musings on the exact same event. Our boy Steven Stills reportedly penned this not-so-little-ditty just as his relationship with the venerable Judy Collins was hitting the skids. Or perhaps we'd lump it in with the lesser-known subgenre of the sonnet crown: a seven-poem set written on a single subject (usually, a lover) where each new sonnet borrows a line or two from the last one in order to explore a different aspect of the original topic.īut anyway - getting back to good old 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'. Now if this was a strict poem, we'd probably group this under the same 'theme with variations' category as Yeats' 'Crazy Jane' writings (which we talked about here). But yeah, four-in-one - such is the beauty of a 'suite:' a collection of loosely affiliated sub-portions of one, larger whole. Rolling Stone seems to agree - they named it as one of the top 500 songs in all of rock and roll history.Īlthough, if you wanna' get technical - it's actually more like *four* miniature songs in one (needless to say, today's post will be a bit longer than most). Has there ever been a more well-conceived and well-concealed breakup song than Steven Stills' 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes?' For my money, this soaring seven-minute epic is quite possibly one of the smartest pop songs ever written. 'Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now.'

Lyrics to suite judy blue eyes