Rockin' the Vote

The Kirkland House Junior Common Room last Wednesday evening was carefully arranged for a political event. Students filled couches situated on the oriental rugs; a microphone and two chairs sat beneath the House crest. Within a few minutes, a man emerged to applause and began an informal question-and-answer session, in which he urged students to make the right choice come November.

But for once, the guest speaker was no glad-handing, suited D.C. operative: it was Stephen Stills, the folk-rock icon of the 1960s and 70s. He delayed taking out his guitar in order to first sing the praises of Sen. John F. Kerry—and proved that music and political idealism are still perfect bedmates.

Anyone with a car radio or a baby-boomer parent has likely heard the political platforms of Stephen Stills—they just don’t realize it. His riffs play over and over again on “classic rock” stations, but his name rings bells only when grouped with those of David Crosby, Graham Nash and sometimes Neil Young. And while listeners may whistle the tune from “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the smash single Stills penned, they don’t realize that they’re singing the catch phrases of radical politics. Take another listen: after seven-odd minutes of folky guitar licks, pitch-perfect harmonies and snatches of soul-baring poetry, Stills starts crooning something in Spanish about Cuba.

In 1969, when that song soared to the top of the charts, Fidel was the enemy and the Cold War was getting uncomfortably hot in Vietnam and elsewhere. Ten years later, Stills controversially followed through on the message behind those seemingly carefree words he’d once sung—he rocked Havana’s Karl Marx Theatre in a historic Cuban-American music festival.

For years, as a solo artist and as part of several iconic groups, Stills has mixed politics with rock ‘n’ roll. He electrified Woodstock and lit up the Berlin Wall as it fell. Speaking at Harvard might be a high point for most public speakers, but for Stills it was more like a night off.

Stills has put on some weight since his days as a member of Buffalo Springfield, Manassas and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY), and lost some hearing after decades on the road in front of a stack of amps. Audience members frequently had to repeat their questions as Stills left his seat and approached them, cocking his ear to catch even a snippet of the questions asked. But he has the same sharp intelligence that captivated listeners in the Summer of Love, the same earnest dedication to peace, justice and cool that came through on so many not-quite-protest songs in those years. It took Stills a while to warm to the students gathered in the Kirkland JCR, but by the end of the question-and-answer session—when, he said afterwards, he felt he and the audience “knew each other”—the aging guitar star brought out his acoustic to play two impromptu tunes, stretching his dulled but still bright voice to hit the high notes, entirely solo. If his lively talk had left any doubt about the power Stills has to inspire a crowd, his music quickly dashed it with the first finger-picked chords.

Stills After All These Years

Retreating to the considerably more low-key Senior Common Room, Stills remained a bit ill at ease, preferring not to talk until there was complete silence so he could collect his thoughts. But once he got going, he could hardly stop, holding court with a constant stream of wisecracks, anecdotes and wisdom on music and politics.

Stills said he was convinced, first and foremost, that musicians have a place stumping for a presidential nominee. Asked what power music can hold in this polarized election year, with apocalyptic visions disseminated and dissected by both sides, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer answered immediately: music can “make people feel something besides fear.”

Using music as a kind of window on the soul, Stills began to breathe liberal fire. What kind of music does he think President Bush listens to after a hard day in the situation room? “I don’t think he does,” Stills declared. “I think it’s apparent that he doesn’t—at least, not voluntarily. He may listen to hymns in church.” A few wry seconds later, he is quipping that Bush “probably thought The Beatles were cool at first, until they turned all Commie on him.”

Stills’ candidate of choice, on the other hand, recently professed his fascination with hip-hop music (“There’s a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it,” Kerry told an MTV reporter in March, “and I think you’d better listen to it pretty carefully, ’cause it’s important”), and is known to have played bass with prep-school surf band The Electras. Last year, the Washington Post reported that Kerry was taking classical guitar lessons and slipping in a bit of those same Beatles (“Yesterday,” from a time right before the decidedly-Commie Rubber Soul but not so long after the proud capitalism of With the Beatles). Has Stills, keystone of many a supergroup, ever considered setting up a mean jam session with the man he’s voting for in November?

“‘The artist rolls his eyes,’” he meta-narrated. “There’s a reason John [Kerry] has never taken his guitar out in front of me. He skis with me, because I’m bad,” Stills said.

And what about the prospect of playing with another Democrat whose candidacy Stills vocally supported—Bill Clinton, he of the sunglasses and saxophone?

“I know all about sax players,” the smiling songwriter said. “Sax players are only comfortable in a couple of keys, and those are bad for guitar. You can make a big mistake playing with the horn player.” He added that he preferred literary discussions to musical collaborations when it came to the man from Hope.

Meanwhile, Stills was amused to hear of a pundit’s primary-season analogy comparing Kerry to John Lennon, Sen. John R. Edwards to Paul McCartney and former Vermont Gov. Howard B. Dean to George Harrison—but troubled to hear that commentator’s equation of Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich with final Beatle Ringo Starr.

“Ringo’s much funnier than that,” Stills explained. “Al Sharpton’s Ringo.”

Of course, any aging boomer could spend days playing at matching the Fab Four to his favorite political horses. But only Stills and a few other elite rockers can back up the Starr-Sharpton connection with a quick disclaimer: “I know Ringo very, very well, and they’re a lot alike,” he added.

Stills wasted no time, of course, in denying any political ambitions of his own. “Oh my God, no,” he cried. “And have people dig up all that shit? Unless, of course, I ran into an Arnold Schwarzenegger situation—what celebrity couldn’t win if he only had to run for two months?”

And despite his twin passions for making music and social justice, Stills has no trouble choosing between the two.

“Are you crazy?” he exclaimed upon being asked which kind of performance he preferred. “There’s nothing cooler than getting in front of a lot of people and playing the dogshit out of a guitar.”