The 1977 ‘CSN’ Hit Graham Nash Wrote After a $500 Bet With a Drug Dealer

While heading home to Los Angeles from Maui in 1976, Graham Nash had some time to kill before a flight back, sat at the piano, and wrote a song after someone bet him he couldn’t. Nash met the dare by his friend he was staying with, who he called a “low-level drug dealer,” and wrote “Just a Song Before I Go” within 20 minutes.

“‘Just A Song Before I Go’ was one of the fastest songs I’ve ever written,” remembered Nash. “I was in Maui and had a couple of hours to kill before I had to catch a plane. I was at the house of a friend of mine—and even though he was a friend of mine, he had no respect for me. As I stood up to leave he said, ‘Hey I bet you $500 you can’t write a song just before you go.’ And he had no idea that he had given me the title for the song in the question.”

Nash wrote the song in the nick of time, caught his flight, and left Maui before a massive hurricane hit the island.

[RELATED: Graham Nash Surprises Audience at New York City Tribute to Crosby, Stills & Nash, Remembers Late Bandmate David Crosby]

Driving to the Airport and the Motions of Travel

Nash’s lyrics run through the aches of leaving behind a loved one to go on tour and goes through all the motions of travel—packing, driving to the airport, and going to through security—before saying goodbye.

Just a song before I go
To whom it may concern
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

When the shows were over
We had to get back home
And when we opened up the door
I had to be alone

She helped me with my suitcase
She stands before my eyes
Driving me to the airport
And to the friendly skies

Going through security
I held her for so long
She finally looked at me in love
And she was gone

CSN’s Highest Charting Single

Released on Crosby, Stills & Nash‘s 1977 album CSN, “Just a Song Before I Go” was also the first single the band released after reforming in the late ’70s after splitting post-Deja Vu. Though it’s one of the shortest tracks on the album—running two minutes, 14 seconds—”Just a Song Before I Go” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became CSN’s highest charting single since “Our House” in 1970.

Remembering the origins of the song, David Crosby said, “Graham was at home in Hawaii, about to go off on tour. The guy who was going to take him to the airport said, ‘We’ve got 15 minutes, I’ll bet you can’t write a song in that amount of time.’ Well, you don’t smart off to Nash like that, he’ll do it. This is the result.”

Nash shared the original demo of “Just a Song Before I Go” from November 1976 on his album Over The Years… in 2018.

During a February 25, 2016, interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Nash revealed that he still had the $500 he won that day.

Photo: Graham Nash, 1974, by Alan Messer/Shutterstock