During the era in which even grocery stores had large, well-stocked LP sections, it was a not-uncommon occurrence for Déjà Vu to be mistaken for a greatest hits collection. From the "family photo album" vibe of the cover (nobody at the grocery store knew who Dallas Taylor or Greg Reeves were) and the title itself, to the ridiculously front-loaded song sequence and the fact that it was often one of the only (if not the only) albums in the "CSN(&Y)" section, Déjà Vu gave the impression that it was designed to be representative of the very best that this group had to offer. Maybe in some weird, "underground" record store, a bunch more albums credited to the group could be found, but for regular folks, Déjà Vu was a sufficiently high-quality distillation of their creative output. Of course, Déjà Vu is not a greatest hits album, but one could be forgiven for making the mistake: three of the record’s 10 tracks were generation-defining top 10 hits ("Woodstock," "Teach Your Children," "Our House"), a fourth ("Carry On") was a radio staple, and four others (Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" and "Déjà Vu," Young's "Helpless" and "Country Girl") were iconic additions to their authors' oeuvres. Still, it was only the second album recorded by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and the first to which Neil Young was invited to participate, so the lines were blurred between "follow-up," "debut," and "supergroup outing." And considering that each member of the ad hoc quartet brought their A-game to the sessions, it's none too surprising that the album made the impact that it did. Of course, those sessions were rough sledding—even for a group renowned for a toxic in-studio blend of extraordinary talent, high expectations, tense competitiveness, and dizzyingly poor interpersonal relationship skills, the work that went into Déjà Vu was exceptionally exhausting. This remarkable deluxe edition documents an illuminating chunk of that work, compiling demos, outtakes, and alternate takes that demonstrate how much revision and editing went into Déjà Vu. The demos disc features five of the album cuts plus a dozen songs that didn't make the record, mostly with just the primary singer and a guitar or piano, but occasionally with more players and singers; you should skip directly to the wobbly, home-recorded version of "Our House" with Graham Nash, a laughing Joni Mitchell, and a tinkly piano. A treasure trove of more fully built-out numbers comprise the outtakes disc. Notably devoid of any Young-penned tunes, many of the cuts here are Stills' ("Bluebird Revisited" would show up the next year on his second solo album; this version is looser and far superior), but Nash ("Horses Through A Rainstorm") and Crosby ("Laughing") also left some high-quality work on the table when it came to making Déjà Vu. The alternate versions of the album cuts are less enlightening, but still essential to understanding the labor that went into making this masterpiece.