(1970)

The war dominated those newscasts, yet the radio allowed you to escape from it all. Nothing heavy there, save for two songs.

Forty years ago this week, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young dreamed of bombers turning into butterflies and getting back to the garden.

That week, millions of Americans also embraced a song that declared:

“I don’t need your war machines. I don’t need your ghetto scenes.”

“American Woman” by the Guess Who endures, a great song on so many levels. Think of the song and you think of Burton Cummings spitting out angry lyrics and Randy Bachman grinding out freaky guitar fills. True enough, but the pulse, the cadence, the urgency of the song comes from Jim Kale and Garry Peterson, who drive the whole thing on bass and drums, respectively.

What’s it all about? Bachman explained it this way in a 2008 interview on the Gibson guitar website:

“A lot of people... (continuer)