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Love Quote by Graham Nash

"I mean, there's times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music"

About this Quote

Nash is doing something disarmingly simple here: he’s drawing a boundary without starting a war. “There’s times to rock and roll” is a diplomatic nod to the electric, stadium-sized mythology that helped define his era and, frankly, his own résumé. It’s not a rejection so much as a permission slip: yes, volume and swagger have their place. But then he pivots to a quieter truth, and the pivot matters. “My first love” isn’t a genre preference; it’s an origin story. It frames acoustic music as the place his musical identity began, before image, amplification, or the expectations of bands and audiences.

The subtext is a gentle protest against the idea that legitimacy comes from bigness. In a culture that often treats rock as the main event and acoustic as an unplugged side quest, Nash flips the hierarchy. Acoustic becomes the baseline, the moral center: closer to songwriting, breath, and the human grain of a voice. The phrasing is conversational (“I mean,” “I think”), which reads less like branding and more like a musician admitting what still feels true after decades of reinvention.

Contextually, it tracks with Nash’s whole lane: harmony-forward writing, folk intimacy, confession as craft. For artists who lived through the arms race of louder guitars and bigger stages, choosing acoustic isn’t nostalgia; it’s control. It’s the sound of someone who’s already been celebrated for spectacle and is now insisting that the real thrill is a song that can survive without the lights.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Nash, Graham. (2026, January 16). I mean, there's times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-theres-times-to-rock-and-roll-and-i-love-93245/

Chicago Style
Nash, Graham. "I mean, there's times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-theres-times-to-rock-and-roll-and-i-love-93245/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I mean, there's times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-mean-theres-times-to-rock-and-roll-and-i-love-93245/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Graham Add to List
Graham Nash on Acoustic Music and Songwriting
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About the Author

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Graham Nash (born February 2, 1942) is a Musician from United Kingdom.

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