Crosby, Stills & Nash: “Fair Game” (1977)
A song about the sexual revolution of the 70s served with some south-of-the-border sauce.
Kronomyth 4.2: Just relax and enjoy the rhyme.
Welcome to the Hall of Human Achievement, don’t mind the dust. It almost seems quaint that people would bother to play instruments and create human harmonies. Not that there wasn’t some artifice in the mix even then, but too much of today’s music is generated by computer. I understand that it’s more efficient to produce plates and bowls with machines, for example, but the result is that we have too many plates and bowls and cups that have no intrinsic value (assuming you value beauty and craft) while robbing human beings who might otherwise be potters instead of production line workers of what is clearly an innate human desire for creative expression. Anyway, Stephen Stills’ Fair Game wouldn’t be exhibit A in the case for human creativity. “Dark Star,” now there’s a great Stills song. “Fair Game” is just a basic Latin melody with nice harmonies and lyrics about a woman as the hunter in the sport of sexual conquest. There’s not much holding together David Crosby’s Anything at All (the same might have been said for Crosby himself), although there is something very human and personal about his writing that I enjoy. I don’t remember hearing “Fair Game” on the radio, yet it appears that Crosby, Stills & Nash may have caved into radio censorship by removing the last verse from the single version of “Fair Game” that contained the line “staring at your crotch.” Like I said, it almost seems quaint nowadays.
Original 7-inch single version
A1. Fair Game (Stephen Stills) (2:46)
B1. Anything at All (David Crosby) (3:02)
The Plastic
Released on 7-inch single in September 1977 in the US (Atlantic, 3432), the UK (Atlantic, K 11024), Japan (Atlantic, P-242A) and Uruguay (Atlantic, 12-74042) with regional picture sleeve. Reached #43 on the US charts (charted on October 1, 1977 for 9 weeks). Also released as promotional 7-inch single in 1977 in the US (Atlantic, 3432) feat. A stereo & mono.
