David Crosby Says He ‘May Never Play Guitar Again’
David Crosby said he may not be able to play guitar ever again after attempts to treat a finger injury failed. But he remained positive about the album he recently finished, which features collaborations with Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen.
In a far-reaching interview with Rolling Stone, Crosby listed his injury as just one of the issues he was facing. The recent death of his biological son, the financial challenges caused by the coronavirus, the police killing of George Floyd, his concerns about America’s future under Donald Trump and the world’s future amid environmental alerts were all weighing on him.
“I get trigger-finger tendinitis in my hands,” he explained. “I went in to get it fixed, and it didn’t work. Now I’m in a tremendous amount of pain in my right hand. It’s entirely possible that I may never play guitar again.”
Crosby noted that "my democracy that I love so much and that I believe in so much and I’ve believed all my life is failing and being abused to death, just being raped, shot and strangled. And then I don’t think we are addressing climate change because these assholes don’t see a profit in it. They have no way to even conceive that it’s real. That’s disturbing me tremendously because I have children and I want them to have a world.”
The 78-year-old admitted that, even though he's a “pretty positive guy,” he had “more on my plate then I can handle, and I have been crying. I’ll admit it.” Asked about the perception that he couldn’t be having financial problems after the enduring success of Crosby, Stills & Nash he replied, “Can you spell cocaine?”
Despite his physical pain, however, Crosby noted that on his upcoming album, he "sang my ass into the middle distance. … I think it’s going to be called Lifting Force or Lift. I think it’s going to be really good. We’ve got three singles. I’ve never had singles before, but I’ve got three of them this time. I got one we wrote with Michael McDonald that’s just killer. That’s ‘River Rise,’ and Michael sings harmony with me on it. He and I kill it. When we sing together, it’s scary."
He also said he wrote a song with Fagen. "It’s really fucking good," he added. "I’m so honored he gave us a set of words. I’ve been asking him for a couple of years. He started to trust us, I think. It took a long time, but he gave us a set of words that are really wonderful, and we just wrote the shit out of them.”
Crosby said he thinks "people are going to love the record. I think people are going to like the music. And that is great. That is what I’m holding onto, fiercely, to try and get through all the crazy. And there’s a lot of crazy.” Reminded that he was a “fighter” and that he’d “get through” his challenges, he responded: “I will. I’ve been through so much, man. I’m hard to kill.”