♫ Teach Your Children ♫

Posted on by under music, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

My inspiration for tonight’s song is Clive’s “Listen to the Band” post from earlier this week.  I do hope you’ll hop over and check out his post — it is awesome!  Meanwhile, this song is just one of the many on Clive’s post and one that I played a couple of years ago.  Today,  this song resonates more than ever given the increase in racism, homophobia, and every other form of bigotry known to humankind. 

A friend and I were having a conversation about how far too often we, as parents, instill our own bigotries and hatreds into our children, often without even realizing it.  Religion is guilty of creating so many phobias in children that I would need some extra fingers to count them.  My proposal is that we expose our children to all different sorts of people at a very young age.  Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBT people … and let them see that these are just people, no different than they themselves in the ways that matter.  If we do this, then we raise young adults who are more caring, more accepting of ‘other’ than past generations.  We break that cycle of homophobia, racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and much more.  As I was chatting via email with this friend on this topic, a song title came to me … this one … Teach Your Children, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Graham Nash wrote this song when he was a member of The Hollies, though it was never recorded by that group. The lyrics deal with the often-difficult relationship he had with his father, who spent time in prison, but they also speak to the way we interact with and accept others.

Shortly after writing this, Nash visited an art gallery and saw two photographs that crystallized the meaning of the song: Diane Arbus’ “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park” and Arnold Newman’s portrait of German industrialist Alfried Krupp. Says Nash:

“I put the ‘Hand Grenade’ photograph next to a picture of Krupp, who was the German arms magnate whose company was probably responsible for millions of deaths. It was an eerie photograph, a portrait, and the lighting is weird and his eyes are dark – a great image. And looking at them together I began to realize that what I’d just written [‘Teach Your Children’] was actually true, that if we don’t start teaching our children a better way of dealing with each other we’re f–ked and humanity itself is in great danger.”

This song wasn’t wildly popular, although it reached #8 in Canada and #16 in the U.S. but did not chart in the UK or much of anywhere else.  Although never one of my top ten favourites, I did like the song, but was completely unaware of the background (or most of the lyrics) until tonight.

Teach Your Children

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

You, who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye

Teach your children well
Their father’s hell did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by

Don’t you ever ask them, “Why?”
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you

And you (Can you hear?) of tender years (And do you care?)
Can’t know the fears (And can you see?)
That your elders grew by (We must be free)
And so, please help (To teach your children)
Them with your youth (What you believe in)
They seek the truth (Make a world)
Before they can die (That we can live in)

And teach your parents well
Their children’s hell will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by

Don’t you ever ask them, “Why?
If they told you, you will cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Graham Nash

Teach Your Children lyrics © Nash Notes

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31 thoughts on “♫ Teach Your Children ♫”

  1. Hello. Speaking of being taught to love or hate, there is a video I saw a few years ago of two toddlers running towards each other with arms wide to hug. The thing that makes it more beautiful is one child is black and the other white. I hope the link below works. Hugs

    https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/8b57cb06-a9b0-11ea-a423-0242ac110005/?jwsource=cl

    https://globalnews.ca/news/7039631/hugging-toddler-video/

    WATCH: The video — showing a Black and a white child running towards each other with open arms, excited to play together — was originally uploaded to Facebook in September 2019 and has gained a lot of attention in the media. – Jun 8, 2020

    Liked by 1 person

    • I LOVE both of these, Scottie!!! Thank you so much! Just proves the point that kids are not born racists … they have to be taught by the adults in their lives. David once had an idea that we should take all babies from their parents and have them raised by ‘woke’ people in institutions until the age of about 15 or so. I used to argue against the idea, but nowadays I think maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all!

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  2. The studio version had Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) on the pedal-steel guitar. May well be some of his best licks … that won’t be remembered (thus).

    For some of us, it was an anthem …

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Got to see Graham and David do an acoustic performance at a small theater down on River Road in Cincy. The owner had a house high on the hill opposite the theatre and he would host the artists there. My friend new the guy and we went to the house after the concert and we sat at the kitchen table talking with Graham into the early morning. I was on my motorcycle and had to get up before dawn to get to someplace. I was soaked from the dew before I got to the highway and had never been that cold. Warm night cold morning. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  4. A wise song. Not too many of them around. I like it lots, but in my dotage I forget about it. Combined with Ohio they are very special songs to me. Ohio sets the scene for Teach Your Children. And since you didn’t play it, though I think Clive did, here it is below:

    Liked by 3 people

  5. Great Song. On a different note, I was watching a history documentary today the included the news that Charles Ist was executed after being found guilty of High Treason. Maybe someone should point out to Trump that he’ had a lucky escape.Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan who was backed by religion passed the Protectorate on to his son who lost it when the peoplem decide they did not like the new religious laws wich removed their freedoms so Trump would lose on that side too.History does have a habit of repeating itself.

    Liked by 3 people

  6. A great message, Jill. Children are born to be naturally open, inclusive, kind and caring and prejudice and bigotry are learned behaviours. I was very lucky to be raised in a fairly diverse urban city and exposed to different cultures, races, ethnicities, etc and it made a huge difference.

    Liked by 4 people

    • I agree! Like you, I was lucky to have been exposed to a wide variety of people of different cultures and ethnicities and to appreciate the differences, rather than to fear them. That’s what we need more of today! What a boring world it would be if everyone looked, acted, and thought exactly alike!

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Thanks for the link. I love this song, and as I said in my post it speaks volumes to us, if we did but listen. Good to see you chose the same clip I did, with the unexplained addition at the end 🤣

    Liked by 4 people

    • I was hoping more would go visit your post, for it was so much fun! Yes, if we would only listen. I preferred your clip … the one I had used first time ’round was more twangy, sounded more country. Plus, it wasn’t live but was a studio recording, so yours was far preferable!

      Liked by 3 people

      • I’ve had two views from your post, but as John also shared a link to it I guess anyone who wanted to see it has already done so. Thank you, though, I’m pleased you enjoyed it.

        Their original version on the Deja Vu album was country, complete with some great pedal steel guitar, but I guess they couldn’t take Jerry Garcia on tour with them when he had Grateful Dead commitments!

        Liked by 3 people

  9. Jill, it is a poignant song. It appeared on one of my favorite all time albums, “Crosby Stills Nash and Young, So Far,” where every song is memorable. It is one of my favorite driving albums. Keith

    Liked by 4 people

    • They are born rather like a book that has yet to be written in … and every experience, every word adds to the book. We can teach love, acceptance, compassion, and inclusion, or we can teach the opposite. Sadly, too many prefer teaching the hate, the exclusion, the intolerance. Sigh. Glad you liked the song!

      Liked by 3 people

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