Crosby, Stills & Nash Object to Song’s Use in Ad for Prop. 209

Crosby, Stills & Nash, longtime activists for liberal causes, are furious that part of an old song of theirs was used in a radio commercial supporting Proposition 209, the California ballot measure that would end state affirmative action programs.

“In what lifetime am I going to support 209?” said David Crosby. “I don’t know where in hell they had the gall to use our song.”

The furor comes just weeks after songwriter Isaac Hayes demanded that Bob Dole’s presidential campaign stop using his song “Soul Man,” a 1967 hit for the duo Sam & Dave, in campaign activities.

The Proposition 209 ad began with a brief but distinctive instrumental passage from the song “Carry On,” originally on the 1970 album “Deja Vu” that also featured Neil Young. As the music faded out, Pam Lewis, the co-chair of the Yes on 209 campaign, stated that “as a child of the ‘60s” she learned values of fairness and equality that she believes run counter to government-sponsored affirmative actions programs.

The band owns the rights to the song and its performance.

The ad ran only for a week, ending last Sunday, and is no longer on the air. But Stephen Stills, who wrote the song, was upset that his music was being used at all to support a view to which he is opposed.

“Until this country becomes color-blind and gender-blind and everything-else-blind, we have to have affirmative action or something,” said Stills, who in May will become the first musician inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice in the same year when Crosby, Stills & Nash and his earlier band, Buffalo Springfield, are both honored.

Crosby said that he considers the measure “racist.”

“To try to appropriate us to give them credentials of the ‘60s as if they were out on the front lines of the civil rights movement . . . is the worst kind of lying,” he says.

Yes on 209 spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson insisted, though, that the unauthorized use of the music was merely an honest mistake by the commercial’s producers.

“It was chosen because it represented the spirit they were talking about,” she said.

Of the musicians’ anti-209 comments, she said, “They’re entertainers, musicians and not civil rights leaders. I don’t think anyone in this country has considered them anything but entertainers. . . . Prop. 209 is about achieving a color-blind society . . . about ending government-sponsored discrimination.”

Stills and Crosby have been appearing this political season at numerous fund-raisers for Democratic candidates both national and local--including an appearance Thursday with partner Graham Nash at an event for Santa Monica Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl--and plan to be active campaigning for President Clinton.

Stills said that while he is upset about his music being used in the spot, he welcomes the chance to participate in the Proposition 209 debate. He doesn’t plan any legal action, since the ad is no longer on the air.

“I guess I’ll just settle for the chance to speak my piece in public,” he said.