It is said to have been inspired by the birth in 1972 of Zeke, his son with Carrie Snodgress.[1] It is a slow song with sparse instrumentation—guitar, piano, and vibes.
Critics have described the song as "tender"[2] and "poignantly lovely,"[1] but noted also that while it offered "some hope in family life," Tonight's the Night as a whole, an album of mourning, "did not offer solutions to the personal and professional problems it posed."[3]
New Mama (first verse)
New mama's got a sun in her eyes
No clouds are in my changing skies
Each morning when I wake up to rise
I'm livin' in a dreamland.
Stephen Stills recorded the song for the 1975 album Stills. Young referred to the song on his 1982 album Trans, in the song "Transformer Man" ("Every morning when I look in your eyes, / I feel electrified by you"), and in "Big Time", a song from his 1996 album Broken Arrow ("I'm still living in dreamland").[4]
