| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Helplessly Hoping Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Remember, guys, it's all about Judy Collins. Think "Judy Blue Eyes" "Bluebird" etc. This is one of the songs Stills spat out during his "PLEEEZE marry me, Judy!" period. Harlequin was a Commedia dell'arte character of lowly rank, often shown with a lute, who sometimes pursued ladies above his class. Believe it or not, that would have been a fitting alter ego for Stephen in 1968, when he was far from being a superstar. Buffalo Springfield was coming apart, CSN was not on the radar yet, and he was making ends meet as a session guitarist for, among others, Judy the reigning queen of folk music. He falls for her "true gentle spirit", she says the word he's waiting for, and they begin a torrid affair. He decides that she's the one, endears himself to her son Clark (yes, I think that's the "three") and hopes for a future together. Judy's not so sure, however. The rest of the lyrics suggest Judy is doing a variant on the whole "it's not you, it's ME" thing (she is going through therapy around this time, and he thinks it's a bunch of BS). He wonders if she's about to dump him, or if he ever even had a chance with her in the first place. She eventually hooks up with Stacy Keach (Stills and Keach probably didn't meet in the stairwell, but that's a good metaphor for seeing that you have competition). Keach apparently gets along great with the kid, too, and poor Stephen is out of the picture. | |
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