Bob Schwartz

Once you find, you stop searching.

I’m reminded today that once upon a not too distant time, searching was cooler than finding. It was a time when if people weren’t actually living in San Francisco or Los Angeles, they were experiencing the SF or LA of the mind. Which meant searching.

David Crosby’s underappreciated masterpiece album If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971) (with appearances by Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Santana) is of that searching time, place and mind.

Here are the lyrics from Laughing. More searching, less finding.

Laughing

I thought I met a man
Who said he knew a man
Who knew what was going on

I was mistaken
Only another stranger
That I knew

And I thought I had found a light
To guide me through
My night and all this darkness

I was mistaken
Only reflections of a shadow
That I saw

And I thought I’d seen someone
Who seemed at last
To know the truth

I was mistaken
Only a child laughing
In the sun