Woodstock - Matthews Southern Comfort

For a song very much if its era you would have to look hard to find a better candidate than Woodstock, first performed live in 1969. The song was written by Joni Mitchell (and is the B-side of Big Yellow Taxi) but several notable versions immeditately threatened to eclipse the original. In the USA, there was the version by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (which initially had input from Jimi Hendrix) and in the UK, the modified version by the short lived Matthews' Southern Comfort, the most successful commercially. The lyrics reference the famous Woodstock Music and Arts Festival of 1969 and tell the story of a concert-goer on a trek to attend the festival at Max Yasgur's farm. Mitchell was unable to perform at the festival, having been advised that a TV appearance was preferable, but heard all about it through her then boyfriend Graham Nash, who had performed there. She wrote the song in a New York hotel while watching TV reports of the festival. David Crosby for one felt she had captured the feeling and importance of the Woodstock festival better than anyone who had actually been there. Among the most interesting lyrics, apart from the anti-war message, are the references in the chorus to "We are stardust, we are golden/We are billion-year-old carbon" and "and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden". The first picks up on the idea of modern science which teaches that we are largely made up of elements made in the stars billions of years ago. The second phrase references the Eden of the Bible lost in the Fall. Of course, the problem is that we cannot get ourselves back there, we need salvation from God. "We are caught in the devil's bargain" is another lyric worth pondering.