Our House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song)
Released September 1970
Format Single
Recorded November 5, 1969
Genre Baroque pop, soft rock, folk rock
Length 2:59
Label Atlantic
Writer(s) Graham Nash
Producer(s) Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
“Our House” is a song written by British singer-songwriter Graham Nash and recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on their album Déjà Vu (1970). The single reached #30 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100[1]and #20 on the Cash Box Top 100. The song, “an ode to countercultural domestic bliss”, was written while Nash was living with Joni Mitchell, recording both Crosby, Stills & Nash and Déjà Vu.
The song originates in a domestic event that took place while Graham Nash was living with Joni Mitchell (and her two cats) in her house on Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles), after they had gone out for breakfast and had bought an inexpensive vase on Ventura Boulevard. Nash wrote the song in an hour, on Mitchell’s piano.
In October 2013, in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air”, Nash elaborated: “Well, it’s an ordinary moment. What happened is that Joni [Mitchell] and I – I don’t know whether you know anything about Los Angeles, but on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley, there’s a very famous deli called Art’s Deli. And we’d been to breakfast there. We’re going to get into Joan’s car, and we pass an antique store. And we’re looking in the window, and she saw a very beautiful vase that she wanted to buy… I persuaded her to buy this vase. It wasn’t very expensive, and we took it home.