By the Time We Got to Woodstock
Joni Mitchell wrote the song about the festival—but she wasn’t there
oni Mitchell was all set to appear
at Woodstock, but she canceled
the day before at the urging of her
manager, David Geffen; the
morass of traffic, Geffen feared, might
keep her from getting to New York City
in time to appear on The Dick Cavett
Show, then one of the most prestigious
gigs in the business. “The deprivation of
being stuck in a New York hotel room
and not being able to go,” Mitchell
(right) recalled, “provided me with an
intense angle on Woodstock. I was one
of the fans, [like] a kid who couldn’t
make it... Woodstock, for some reason,
impressed me as being a modern
miracle, like a modern-day fishes and
loaves story. For a herd of people that
large to cooperate so well, it was pretty
remarkable and there was tremendous
optimism. So I wrote the song
‘Woodstock’ out of these feelings.”
The ballad, composed in Geffen’s
apartment, and popularized by Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young (whose slightly
altered lyrics are excerpted below), would
become an anthem for a generation:
Well, I came upon a child of God...
And I asked him, Tell me, where are
you going
This he told me
Said, I’m going down to Yasgur’s
Farm...
We are stardust, we are golden...
And we got to get ourselves back to
the garden...
Other no-shows
Bob Dylan
A local resident, Dylan (below) told Lang
he might stop by, but instead sailed with
his family to England, where he was
scheduled to appear at the Isle of Wight
Festival. “I didn’t want to be part of that
thing,” Dylan has said of Woodstock.
“That don’t excite me. The flower
generation—is that what it was? I wasn’t
into that at all.” Dylan did perform at the
25th anniversary festival in ’94.Simon & Garfunkel
Weary from touring, they declined.The Rolling Stones
Nope. Mick Jagger was in Australia
making a movie (a bomb) called Ned
Kelley. Keith Richards’ girlfriend, Anita
Pallenberg, had just given birth to their
son, Marlon.Jeff Beck Group
The all-star band—Beck, Rod Stewart,
Nicky Hopkins, Aynsley Dunbar, and
Ron Wood—were scheduled to play but
broke up just before the gig.Led Zeppelin
The heavy metal icons were invited,
but their manager preferred that they
launch what would be a successful
summer tour.The Byrds
They said they’d rather play the
Miami Pop Festival, where they would
headline. Also, the band, led by Roger
McGuinn, didn’t think Woodstock
would be such a huge deal.Frank Zappa and the Mothers
of Invention
Zappa didn’t care for the whole hippie
scene. “A lot of mud at Woodstock,”
he said. “We were invited, we turned
it down.”The Doors
Jim Morrison had some paranoia about
performing outdoors. Guitarist Robby
Krieger put it this way: “We never
played at Woodstock because we were
stupid and turned it down. We thought
it would be a second-class repeat of the
Monterey Pop Festival.” (Keen eyes will
spy Doors drummer John Densmore in
the Woodstock film, stageside, during
Joe Cocker’s set.)Roy Rogers
The organizers thought it would be
a nice—if incongruous—idea to have
the famed singing cowboy close
out the festival with his signature
“Happy Trails.” Rogers’s manager,
unsurprisingly, politely declined.