Behind the Meaning of Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell’s Domestic Love Story, “Our House”

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s “Our House” perfectly encapsulates feeling at home. It’s a singular effort in the folk/rock space. Not many artists would think to pen a song about something so small and seemingly inconsequential. Nevertheless, we’re glad Graham Nash decided to go against the grain. Check out the meaning behind this song, below.

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Behind the Meaning of “Our House”

I’ll light the fire
You place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today

Not many musicians revel in domestic bliss. Moreover, few musicians get enough time at home to find “domestic bliss.” It was trying to hold on to those fleeting moment of “normal” life that forced Nash’s hand when he wrote “Our House.”

Nash spent time living with Joni Mitchell in the late ’60s-early ’70s. During that time, Mitchell was Nash’s muse and vice versa. On one occasion, Mitchell arranged flowers while Nash started a fire in their shared house. Nash found the moment to be charming in its mundanity. He reportedly sat down at “Joan’s piano and an hour later, “Our House’ was written.”

“One day Joan and I got up and went to breakfast at a delicatessen on Ventura Boulevard,” Nash once said. “A few doors away there was a little antique store, and in the window Joan saw this vase, went inside, fell in love with it, bought it and brought it back to the house.

It was a kind of a cold gray morning as it sometimes can be in Los Angeles, and I said, ‘Why don’t I light the fire and you put some flowers in the vase that you just bought,’” Nash continued. “So she’s cutting stems and leaves and arranging flowers in this vase, and I’d lit the fire. Now, my and Joan’s life at the time was far from ordinary … and I thought, ‘What an ordinary moment.’ Here I am lighting the fire for my old lady and she’s putting flowers in this vase that she just bought.”

The song is a stunning ode to the simple life that few musicians would even think to portray. Revisit the track, below.

Staring at the fire
For hours and hours while I listen to you
Play your love songs all night long
For me, only for me

(Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)