Two cats in the yard

Our house is a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, Now everything is easy cause of you ... Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Our House, album Déjà Vu, 1970.

The very private Canadian Joni Mitchell opens up to Mark Bego (Joni Mitchell, Mark Bego, 2005.) revealing the story behind her brief time with Brit Graham Nash. Nash even wrote a song about their time together, Our House. Graham Nash is living with Joni Mitchell and her two cats in a house on Laurel Canyon in LA. After breakfast Nash bought a cheap vase on Ventura Boulevard, stuck a flower in it and gave it to Mitchell.

two cats in the yard, life need not be so hard

Nash wrote the song in an hour, on Mitchell's piano. 

Graham Nash tells Terri Gross the story on NPR's Fresh Air. 


Okay, you know this is not Laurel Canyon, not California, and not Joni Mitchell's house; and the vase with the flower is replaced by a cheap figure of a plastic man in bright yellow and blue. 

Two cats, but only one chair to watch the world go by in Mt. Moriah, Missouri. A cooler behind the file cabinet from which to grab a frosty one. 

Life need not be so hard. But it was. After Joni broke up with Nash in 1969, he plus buddies Crosby, Stills and Young, came out with the album Déjà Vu and she went off to Greece and the island of Crete where she slept on the rocks in a cave with Carey. 

I'll let the Wall Street Journal take up the story from here. Life used to be so hard.