The Meaning Behind the Song Graham Nash Wrote About His Wrongly Imprisoned Father

When Graham Nash was 14, his father William served a one-year sentence in jail for a crime he never committed. The senior Nash had purchased a stolen camera for his son from a family member but refused to tell the police the name of the relative who sold the item to him and served time at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England.

“Sure enough, everything soon turned to s–t,” recalled Nash in his 2013 book Wild Tales: a Rock & Roll Life of his father’s imprisonment. “They carted my dad off to Strangeways, a brutal high-security prison, with an execution shed and a permanent gallows. You’d see it as you walked through downtown Manchester, dark and ominous, a scary f–king place right out of a Dickens novel. I couldn’t imagine my dad being in there with hardened criminals. And neither could my mom she just came undone, which was so unlike her.”

Nash’s father was later transferred to a minimum security prison Bela River five months into his sentence but never recovered from his time in jail. During his year in prison, the family struggled financially and his father was heartbroken over the ordeal and later died at the age of 46.

“He Was Never the Same”

“My father had gotten a really sh—y deal,” said Nash. “He was never the same after he came out of prison, and his death, at 46, can be traced to that event. But his business with that camera wasn’t the whole story.” Nash’s aunt had been stealing all her life and storing items in her home and his father was only trying to protect his sister by not telling the police where he acquired the camera.

“He was protecting his sister,” added Nash. “He was convicted of receiving stolen goods—not just the camera, but all the stuff they found locked up in our house.”

The experience made Nash sensitive to injustice. “I came to the conclusion there was no such thing as true justice,” said Nash. “Justice was malleable and subjective. There was too much politics involved, too many personalities. And I began thinking that if this was the way things worked, then f–k justice—and f–k school. I didn’t need any of their rules and regulations.”

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“They Say I’ve Done Wrong”

Nash later penned a song about his father’s experience, “Prison Song,” which was released on his second solo album Wild Tales in 1974. The song was written from the perspective of the incarcerated person telling someone why they were being sent away.

One day a friend took me aside
And said I have to leave you
For buying something from a friend
They say I’ve done wrong
For protecting the name of a man
They say I’ll have to leave you
So now I’m bidding you farewell
For much too long

And here’s a song to sing
For every man inside
If he can hear you sing
It’s an open door
There’s not a rich man there
Who couldn’t pay his way
And buy the freedom that’s a high price
For the poor

Kids in Texas
Smoking grass
Ten-year sentence
Comes to pass
Misdemeanor
In Ann Arbor
Ask the judges
Why?

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The song was later released on CSNY 1974, the live album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 2014.

“Here’s something ironic,” recalled Nash in a 2016 interview. “I’m in Manchester singing ‘Prison Song’ and the show was taped. I look at the film and who do I see but the judge who sent my father to jail? I really wanted to talk to him.”

Photo: Graham Nash interviewed in London, October 28, 1970. (Michael Putland/Getty Images)