Album: Life
Released: July, 1987
I ended up having to wait a few extra weeks to wrap up my blog focus on
Neil Young’s 80s music, which started in June (five in all, including this one,
which were otherwise presented every other week). As with all my entries, the selected songs
were done within the context of the album they were on. Approaching things this way has given me a
much broader perspective of both the times the tune was penned and what may
have been going on in Young’s mind during that period (not to mention mine). This last one, off of the ’87 album ‘Life’,
was harder to track down than I thought it would be. I’ve had the vinyl copy since release, but
for over a decade now, no turntable to play it on. After working the phone, I finally tracked a
compact disc version in Boston, and longtime tried/true friend Mac picked it up
and shipped it off. Thanks Mac!
The first time I heard Mideast
Vacation ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-x1n5xe9c ) , the opening cut off of ‘Life’, was
live at Great Woods in the fall of 1986 with another close friend, Bob Bouvier (who this
Forever Young series is dedicated to). The version on the album, which came out
less than a year later, sounded exactly as I recall it from that magical
late-summer afternoon, which leads me to believe that the song was recorded right
around this time or not soon after. And
the photograph of Young on the album cover was just how I remember him too: Foot thrusting forward in full jam, flannel shirt
regalia, looking as if he could withstand a head-on category-5 hurricane (or better
yet, create one). * Side Note: The album cover also has a more obscure image
of a pair of hands holding prison bars with the number 5 visible on the back
wall (symbolized by tally marks). It’s
been suggested that this was a statement to Geffen Records that his five contractually-obligated
albums to date equated to being locked up and counting down the days.
I could relate to Mideast
Vacation – all songs on side one of ‘Life’ for that matter – which collectively
viewed human folly through the wary eyes of someone who understands cause and
effect in a historical context (making the album title all that more poignant). This connection that I made was partially due
to being a history major myself. But it
was even more due to the fact that song, album and concert had all come on the
heels of a summer travelling through Europe with yet another great old friend,
Bob Mainguy. It was an interesting
summer to be travelling abroad as an American.
Not many US citizens were…at least across the Atlantic. A Berlin discotheque full of US soldiers had
been bombed that April. Fingers were
pointed at Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and the retaliatory air bombing
ended up killing a number of people close to him, including his daughter. Vengeance was in the air. All of this was not
many years after the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Security was unlike it is today (a debatable good/bad thing), and since
the US government could not guarantee safety for travelers overseas, they
tended to dissuade us from doing so. I
wasn’t having it. Besides, I was young
and cocky, believing I did a pretty good job in those days of blending in with
the crowd, which is not so hard to do when you’re a grub prancing around with
long hair, a beard, and a backpack.
Thinking back on all this it’s sad to digest that American tension with
extremists in the Islamic world has been at high intensity for about 35 years
now. This week was the 13th
anniversary of 911. The week also marked
yet another intervention in Iraq and Syria, punctuated by President Obama’s
announcement of renewed offensives against insurgents in those 2
countries. How did it come to all this? There’s no denying you have to go back to
colonialism and the resentment that ensued.
It’s been recommended by my insightful and enlightened boss to read ‘Lawrence
in Arabia’ by Scott Anderson, published last year, which apparently makes a
convincing argument along these lines. Yet
any way you slice it, there seems to be no end in sight to all this madness.
Neil Young has been wrapped up in writing and singing about the Western
vs. Middle East conflict from the release of ‘Life’ onward. There was 89’s (Keep on) Rockin’ in the Free World (which was born through Young’s
realization he could not tour safely in the Middle East). Later you had chunks of 2012’s ‘Are You
Passionate’ (see last week’s Forever Young entry), which was later followed by ‘Living
With War’ in 2006. Yes, there has been a
considerable amount of Neil Young’s focus put into this modern-day
scourge.
So, back to 1986 and that glorious backpacking trip through Europe with
Bob. I’ve not talked much about this
multi-month adventure in all these entries, but it was a transcendent
experience for me. I still recall
something said by the millionaire owner I bartended for at the Pub Dennis in
Milford Massachusetts just after I gave my 2-week notice immediately before my travels (to save
up for the trip, I worked several jobs including this one, since my career path
wasn’t quite covering my income needs
just yet). He rarely said two
words to me during my stint there (though in this man’s defense, his infrequent
visits were a factor, considering he owned at least three other Pub Dennis
locations in Rhode Island), but the day I left, he approached me and broached
the subject that I was quitting to travel Europe. He then looked me in the eye and stated “I’m
wealthy because I worked hard and never stopped, but if I had to do it all over
again, I would do what you are doing”.
He was right. I would realize
this more and more over the next few months and beyond.
My travels in Europe were eye opening on many accounts (as they would
be again 3 years later with Nancy). Our
explorations touched on 15 countries, ranging from above the Arctic Circle in
the North to the edge of the Iron Curtain in the East to the western-most tip
of Ireland, to the southern extent of the Iberian Peninsula, and all World Cup,
Medieval, Alpine, Bavarian and Running of the Bulls experiences in between. Of all this, it was in southern Spain that I
felt closest to a clash of cultures.
There was a strong Middle East presence there (of which there is a long,
500 year history). And the region had a
distinct ‘Old World’ feel in those years, recovering slowly from the heavy-hand
40 year dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco (who by all account at
this time was still dead!).
All of this was fascinating to me.
But I knew instinctually that I had to keep a low profile, which was
hard to pull off: Tourism was
practically non-existent in this region that year. The most telling sign was Torremolinos. It felt as if Bob and I had this tourist village
on the Mediterranean all to ourselves, which was a bit eerie. And the ancient city of Grenada was
positively Muslim. Sections we walked
through could have easily been mistaken for Algiers.
But there was only one time on the entire trip that I had a sense of
genuine fear. On the overnight train to
the Mediterranean coast (Torremolinos), Bob and I were late boarding the train.
Our many overnights on Eurail were godsend to that point; bunk booths being a
cheap way to both sleep and get from one point to another. This night was different. We poked our heads into a handful of booths
(4 beds in each), only to find they were all full. Finally, we came to a booth with 2 empty
beds. Turned out there was a reason for
this. One of the two guys was a Libyan
(the other was a Muslim from another country) and he had….some anger
issues.
We didn’t know it right off, but we soon found out, with early
greetings escalating in bizarre negative fashion. I’d like to think I’m a pretty open minded
and adaptable person, but here, one misunderstanding lead to another, and
before we knew it there was plenty of tension in the air. And so, after using the bathrooms, we found
our backpacks and sleeping bags tossed out into the walkway. We wanted to confront the guy, but he was not
someone you could reason with, and besides, how would we get any sleep in
this circumstance? We decided to pick up
our stuff and head to the very back of the train. Awaiting us, amazingly,
was an empty caboose. However, we remained
vigilant the rest of the night (believe me, there was reason for this) and
ended up getting our sleep the next morning on the sands of a Mediterranean beach (which was
my introduction to this vast Sea).
Mideast Vacation is much underrated
because it’s one of Young’s most atmospheric songs. I feel the weight of the world here, much due to my
experiences in Southern Spain in the summer of ‘86.
- Pete
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