Forever Young # 41: "Staying the Musical Course"

Song:  Don’t Be Denied

Album:  Time Fades Away
Released:  October, 1973

As is the case with several of his contemporaries, including Pete Townshend, John Lennon, and Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young is often at his best when overtly personal in his lyrics.  Few songs in Young’s vast catalog match this week’s Forever Young entry in this manner, which touches on key growing-pain moments in his life to that point (1973), each driven home with the declaration of those three words in the title.  Don’t Be Denied  is not one of Neil Young’s more popular tunes, but the song resonates with the core fan base, as well as with Young himself, which was made evident in the 2009 ‘American Masters’ documentary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tDsDnr18PM ) of the same name.  This film hinges the rock legend’s biographic storyline around the music and lyrics of the previously little known Don’t be Denied ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_08TrkqdCo ).  It works wonders.

Parental divorce, uprooting, school-yard bullying (the receiving end) and hope in music are all the focus of verses in Don’t Be Denied.  But the key stanza is the closing one, which drives to the heart of Neil Young’s professional ideology:

Well, all that glitters isn't gold
I know you've heard
that story told.
And I'm a pauper
in a naked disguise
A millionaire
through a business man's eyes.
Oh friend of mine
Don't be denied.

Decades later, Neil Young complimented these lyrics while being interviewed in that ‘American Masters’ documentary.  After Stephen Stills, in a separate interview,  laments Young frequently quitting the Buffalo Springfield during their all-too brief formation, including two days before a highly anticipated appearance on the Johnny Carson Show in the late 60s (which would have been the first time a rock band performed on the show), his former bandmates response was: “My first job is to follow the musical course. It’s always to the detriment of everything.  Relationships, projects, they get derailed”.   Neil Young has never been swayed from this position.

So, here lies the premise to this week’s entry:  Is this stance defendable?   My take is… most definitely!  Here is a man who sticks to his principles.  But of more qualitative importance, Neil Young’s principles are of a virtuous nature, at least his professional ones.  Most of us have strong principles, but often they are misguided.  Stubborn and ideologue can be others terms associated with having strong principles, and so that ‘Don’t Be Denied’ declaration can take on a multitude of meanings.  Mr. Young’s principle stance on following his musical muse, regardless of popularity (and most anything else for that matter), is what has this musician standing out from the crowd.

I see this approach as being akin to abstract - vs concrete - reasoning.  Concrete reasoning needs to see the end game; you go to college to be a nurse or a doctor or a lawyer for example.  Abstract reasoning on the other hand relies far more on faith:  You follow your path with little understanding of where it’s taking you in the hope that it will play out in some uniquely wonderful fashion.  It’s a ‘leaping in blind’ approach that does not always work.  But when it does, it can be just as rewarding, if not more so than the safer, surer path.

This philosophy has worked for me, and it all started with my parents.  Mom and Dad gave me the freedom to make up my own mind on any number of things.  That’s not to say they weren’t guiding me; they were (and continue to do so).  It’s simply that they gave me the elbow room to figure out the details.  Their approach to parenthood played out when I went to college as my choice in a major ended up being related to what I was fascinated by, not what I needed to find a career in.  The resulting history/geography degree lead to a new, aspiring field called GIS (virtually unknown of when I entered university), which lead to the USGS, which lead to a career I could not have dreamed of as being any better than it has been.

I suppose it’s not too farfetched to say that these parental philosophies eventually lead me to the music of Neil Young beyond the rudimentary entry point.   In fact, I may have just connected the dots.  Old friend Bob Bouvier insisted I would enjoy that first ever Neil Young concert that he brought me to back in 1986. My upbringing helped to prove him correct not just for that heavy Crazy Horse show, but for all the versatility in the Neil Young shows that followed; the blues music, the folk, the theatrical, the conceptual, the grunge…. the muse.  This was a long-term investment, a connection that that could only be made with an understanding that change, experimentation, and faith are often fraught with missteps.  However, in such circumstances, with every step backwards there are soon sure enough to be two steps forward; and what an adventure in the process.

Ok, back to those closing lyrics and following a musical course.  The biggest loser in such a charted course is the lure of success.  Neil Young saw that lure as a trap, even in his younger days when success could easily be redefined as responsibility or even survival.  In the short term, bandmates were let down, opportunity was lost.  It must have been difficult to take on the criticism that had to have come with his unorthodox and untimely decisions.  What is interesting, however, is that when you look at it in historical context, there were never any permanent bridges burned with ex band mates.  In every case, Neil Young was able to loop back to the past to reconnect, rekindle, and recreate.  But it was only when the time was right to do so.   No sooner.  

That’s pretty impressive, considering all the lasting musical relationships in Young’s career.  When you think of feuding and tension in rock music, there is John Lennon vs Paul McCartney, Levon Helm vs Robbie Robertson, Ray vs Dave Davies, John vs Tom Fogerty, and Roger Waters vs David Gilmour among others.  What you don’t think of is Neil Young vs any musician he has performed with, be he/she Stephen Stills, Nils Lofgren, Peggy Young, David Crosby, Richie Furay, Ben Keith, Robin Lane, Jack Nitzsche, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Graham Nash, Bruce Palmer, Tim Drummond, Linda Ronstadt, Pearl Jam, Nicolette Larson, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Danny Whitten… the list goes on.  In all these cases, reunion was always in the cards.  Bridges remained unburned.  That is a testament to Young’s musical principles; of putting art ahead of stature; in taking a chance on the path unknown.

‘Don’t Be Denied’.  Yeah, we’ve all been there.  We all have our stories of facing adversity head on.  It’s those moments when we realize what we’re made of.  And yet, it’s not just about whether or not you pulled something off.  It’s even more about whether you can look back at those conquered hurdles years later knowing in your heart of hearts that your decisions were the correct ones.   

Given Neil Young’s musical longevity and the respect he’s garnered in the process, I think it’s safe to say his approach works.  Better yet, I’d go so far as to say it’s the model for staying the course with ones principles. 

 

-          Pete

Forever Young # 40: "Beach Front Property"

Song:  On the Beach

Album:  On the Beach

Released:  July, 1974

“ Now I’m livin’

out here on the beach

but those seagulls

are still out of reach ”

That’s it; just a few lines in the title track.  Other than these lyrics, there is no other discernable reference to the beach (or seagulls for that matter) in any song on the entire album that is ‘On the Beach’.   In fact, there is no mention of the ocean whatsoever.  And yet this song and album ooze a seaboard feel.   To be clear, I’m not talking a happy, sun-drenched, bikini, surfboard, volleyball sandy haven.  No, this is an entirely different kind of beach.  It’s a solitary, reflective, lonely beach.   It’s a beach at the crossroads.

Neil Young did indeed live on the beach during the making of this album; just north of Santa Monica, California to be specific.  This ‘living there’ is the feel I’m referring to, as a simple visit to where the sea and sand meet is not in line with the intensity of the aura that permeates ‘On the Beach’.  Day in and day out?  Off season?  A bachelor pad?  Reclusiveness?  Loss?  Coping (see Forever Young # 19)?  An enveloping darkness mixed with relentless waves and abundant stars by night?  Mist, fog and empty beach by day?   Margaritaville?

Yeah, that does the trick.  This is the essence of ‘On the Beach’.

Nothing brings out introspection quite like the beach.  Spend enough time there, and all that reflection can be life changing.  Those of us who have enjoyed significant stretches of time there know the beach to be an open palette:  A stroll alone at dawn or dusk being an entirely different experience than a midday swim.  Living close to the coastline just adds to these experiences; laughter and melancholy all mashed up into one big ball of emotion. 

‘On the Beach’ could have been critiqued as an all-time, upper-echelon rock album if Neil Young had gotten his way.  Young wanted side 2 to be side 1, which would have placed the title track first, but surprisingly he succumbed to the will of his record company (who were likely thinking the album would be better off to be led by its only up-tempo song, Walk On).  Listening to the album all week with side 2 leading the way, I can certainly relate to Young’s reasoning.  On the Beach (the song) is a stage setter.  Not only does it place you where Neil Young is, but where he wants to go.  This is made evident near the end of the song when he sings “get out of town, I think I’ll get out of town”.  Whether this is literal or figurative in meaning is not clear (though given that feel of the album, I choose the latter).  What is clear is that from this point on, Young embarks on a journey of the soul. 

Beaches have factored pretty significantly into Rock and Roll history.  “Here by the sea and sand, nothing ever goes as planned” sang Roger Daltrey on Pete Townshend’s magnum opus, ‘Quadrophenia’, an album heavy with beach analogy.  There was the Rolling Stones exile to the French Riviera. There was John Lennon’s “lost weekend” (that lasted over a year), much of which was spent on the West Coast with fellow lost soul (at the time) Harry Nilsson among others.   There was Keith Moon’s exploits on same coast with personal assistant Dougal Butler (including his infamous run-ins with beach neighbor Steve McQueen).  Butler wrote a book, ‘Moon the Loon’ on his years with the madcap Who drummer and stated in it that during that beach-front period they were the two loneliest guys on the face of the earth.  There was much of Dennis Wilson’s life and untimely drowning death at Marina Del Ray.  None of these stories are happy ones, but they all have something to say to us about where we retreat to get away from it all.  That edge of the earth zone where you can’t go any farther without wading: The beach as a metaphor for escapism.

Howard Hughes is probably the most renowned recluse, but Neil Young and other fellow musicians had their stretches of isolation from the crowds.  Bob Dylan went into seclusion after a motorcycle accident in the late 60s, not performing live again for years.  After that “lost weekend” escapade, John Lennon returned home to Yoko Ono and the Dakota Apartments on Central Park West, where he settled in as a “house husband” and a 5 year stretch completely out of the limelight (until releasing ‘Double Fantasy’ in 1980, just before his murder). 

Neil Young’s reclusive period was earlier in that decade, during which he performed infrequently and became a very elusive interview.   ‘On the Beach’ was released at the tail end of this public estrangement, in July of 1974. It was Young’s first studio album to be released since ‘Harvest’, 2 ½ years earlier.  This was a pretty unusual stretch to be idle for a successful musician of that era, especially at this time in his career.  But Neil Young was not idle per se.  He was simply turning inward; yet remaining extremely prolific in his creativity (for example ‘Tonight’s the Night’ was recorded in the interim but not released until later).  There was much reevaluation after the death of several close friends that brought this on.  You can hear it in ‘On the Beach’.

Bob Dylan appears to me to have been deeply inspired by ‘On the Beach’.  As written about before, his song Highlands makes reference to his fellow songsmith (“I’m listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound.  Someone’s always yellin’, ‘turn him down’ “).  Highlands is the closing number to one of my all-time favorite Dylan albums, 1997’s ‘Time Out of Mind’.  It’s an album I’ve delved into a bit more than most Bob Dylan works (which, believe me, is saying something), and which I hope to write about more when I get around to Dylan in this blog some time down the road.  In a nutshell, I see ‘Time Out of Mind’ as a journey, much like ‘On the Beach’.  When I listen, I always get a sense as if it’s a personal story about Dylan making his way down the Mississippi River.  An alternative name for the album could have been ‘Highway 61, Revisited - Again’.   Dylan moves north to south, along Route 61, from his home state of Minnesota and nearby Chicago to New Orleans, a reverse direction of the bluesmen from the 30s and 40s (making their way up to the Windy City).   It’s an intense, heavy, riveting journey. 

But as stated above, I believe Neil Young’s journey in ‘On the Beach’ was of a different sort.  After the opening title track (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgj1FNToWY ), Young hits you from many angles and places:  The mountains (Motion Pictures), Dixieland (See the Sky About to Rain), Toronto and Woodstock (Ambulance Blues), among other locales, events and reflections.  And yet you still feel as if he’s on that lonely beach, staring out at the vast ocean and beyond.

It’s rare when a musician can be creative during solemn periods in their lives.  This is why I believe that many of us find albums like ‘On the Beach’, ‘Time Out of Mind’, ‘Empty Glass’, ‘Who By Numbers’, ‘Blood on the Tracks’, and ‘Tonight’s the Night’ so fascinating.  These introspective and confessional albums depict a soul in crisis and allow us to share in their grief.  Many people tend to shy away from such an exclamation.  Isn’t music supposed to make you happy after all?  But there are some of us who gravitate to this mood in the midst of art, if only out of shear respect for what it must have taken to pull it off!

Neil Young decided on the title ‘On the Beach’ for a reason.  It must have come to him after the fact, perhaps while sitting on a storm wall alone after a long night, listening to the waves relentlessly beating against the shore.  In doing so, he spoke for many of us who have done the same, then finally wandering back to our homes and cottages…..to call it a day.

-          Pete

Forever Young # 39: "Not Ad-verse to a Little Sugar Coating"

Song:  Sugar Mountain
Album:  B-side to The Loner
Released:  February, 1969 (written 5 years earlier)

A few years back, Brother Joe and I found ourselves in downtown Nashua, New Hampshire on a drizzly Thursday nite.  We’d had dinner and were now looking for a place to knock down a pint or two.  After canvassing a few blocks we finally settled on a rustic place by the river called The Peddler’s Daughter, where we wandered in and bellied up at the bar.  This being just after a day at the office, Joe was dressed for success and I was most likely dressed in casual civvies with perhaps several days’ worth of facial growth; which at one time was standard fare for me and a good number of my USGS colleagues (Joe regularly jokes that a beard is a prerequisite to working at my agency). 

It was not long before we got the sense that we were being watched.  The two of us took a look around and began to take in the fact that we were by far the oldest ones in the pub.  Yes, this was a very young crowd that surrounded us, and a number of them had already come to this same conclusion.  There was a snicker to our left, and an offhand ‘old man’ comment to our right.  Joe and I chuckled.  A few of the young whippersnappers did the same.  And then we all carried on with our own agendas until Joe and I decided we’d do better to find another locale.  No biggie, but it was clear we were out of place (on our way out the door, I do believe I heard a comment from inside about it being past our bedtime). 

I recollect now that somewhere along the lines that evening I thought of Sugar Mountain; that place in Neil Young’s dreams where “you can’t be 20, though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon”.  Young wrote Sugar Mountain - a song that laments the loss of youthful innocence - on the occasion of his 19^th birthday.  This amazes me, because you would think that a song on such subject matter would be written after the fact.   But that would not be Neil Young’s style.  Even at such a young age, he was looking at the world through a slightly different prism than most of us. 

Neil Young has stated that he wrote over 120 verses for this song, but in the end he chose just 4 of them for the official recording.  The lyrics focus mostly on his then-recent experiences at the tender age of 18, but do not discard his even-younger days (for example with his parents at the fair).  It’s perfect that he covers the gambit of his lifetime experiences to that point, because the dividing line is made clear:  Life before and after the age of 20.  This is a major demarcation, because it’s around this time that many of us break off on our own.  One key line to the song is the following:

Now you say you're leavin' home
'Cause you want to be alone.
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're findin' out it's real?

As I listened this week, I recalled that moment for me so clearly.  It was the end of the summer of 1980 and I would be off to college the very next day.  I was feeling as if my whole childhood was flashing before my eyes as I packed my stuff.  As I’ve discussed in other entries, Franklin was such a great place to grow up and it was all I really knew to that point.  This transition was going to be tough and it was all hitting me at once as I loaded my Lincoln Mercury Capri for the drive west down the Mohawk Trail.  I’d ultimately make the adjustment, but will never forget that feeling.  To this day it remains a powerful memory.

What was I leaving behind?  Well, what do most of us leave behind?  There’s family, and friends, and jobs, and hangouts.  There’s the first time you did this and the first time you did that.  There’s this 7-year-old memory over here and that 17-year-old memory over there.  There are the uptown experiences and the natural experiences and the educational experiences.  There’s that sense of naïve wonder and risky discovery and youthful exuberance and unrestrained joy.    Moving on from such a comfort zone can be difficult (but paradoxically, oh so necessary).  Sugar Mountain captures it all in song.

This week, listening to Sugar Mountain again and again, I reconnected with those bygone days.  In the process, I got thinking:  What were those never-heard lyrics in the other ~ 120 verses of Sugar Mountain anyhow?  Some of them must have been very good, because Neil Young has stated that one of the verses he retained, about being “underneath the stairs and giving back some glares” was intentionally chosen despite the fact that he thought it was the worse of them all.  Why do this?  I believe it goes back to that ideal of youthful innocence and naivety:  Why exclude the emergence of a songwriter from such a concept? 

Still, I chewed more on those lost verses and decided to fill in some of the gap myself.  And so, in an attempt to honor the spirit of Sugar Mountain, below are my own 4 verses:

Family treks in the Volkswagen Bus

The bond was there in all of us

It was felt regularly at home

And reaffirmed each time we roamed

Now you’re hiking the railroad track

And your friends have got your back

Conversation can run deep

All this meaning you hope to keep 

Back at home after a long night

Chair in the kitchen looks just right

So you sit, talk to old faithful

And reflect on why you’re grateful 

So it’s almost time to go

Daily life that once seemed slow

Catches up in record time

Now your leaving on a dime

The iconic image of Neil Young arising on top of those super-sized speakers in the movie ‘Rust Never Sleeps’, was my first real inroads into connecting with Sugar Mountain.  In this opening track to the movie and concert ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGI5wGp2tXA ) , Young impresses upon us the emergence of a songwriter.  But it’s more than that.  What is really being portrayed here is the emergence of a man.  And yet as the lyrics to Sugar Mountain attest, this is a man who is not going to forget what got him there. 

The fortunate among us are those who can relate.

 

-          Pete

Forever Young # 38: "We Don't Want No Stinkin' Pipeline"

Song:  Who’s Gonna Stand Up?
Album:  Storeytone (the likely name)
Released:  November, 2014 (the likely release date)

It’s been a unique Forever Young week in this Forever Young year.   In the days leading up to every prior blog entry, I immersed myself in the music with the hope it would stir up some writing material.  Although I took the same tack this week, it was not nearly as intense or as focused.  One reason is that the song this time around has yet to be released on an album, making it a bit more difficult to listen to while driving (which is when I do most of my ‘research’ these days).  A second reason is that I realized that to write as passionately as I could about the subject at hand, it would take a bit more than the music.   And so I tuned dials back to NPR, and ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’, and even a little bit of Fox (as counterpoint) to stir up the old ideologue-slanted juices.  It’s been almost a year since I’ve done this (and frankly, I welcome the break).

It did not take long to get charged up.  Soon I found myself once again yelling at the radio and cursing the television.  I suppose this is good in terms of timing.  We are after all close to the mid-term elections and so I need to get somewhat caught up in the hyperbole, innuendo, character assassination, and occasional accurate statement.  Not too much, though.  This is an off year from that kind of stuff for me.  Yes, this every-other-year blog series is proving to be somewhat therapeutic in that regard:  A virtual sabbatical in most senses of the term.   I recommend it to anyone who gets caught up in politically-charged current events. 

Then again, it’s not as if I’ve abandoned my convictions this year.  I say this for several reasons, the most obvious one being Neil Young’s music.  Of the top tier musicians I connect with, Young has proven to be the one who has persevered the most in the politically-charged-issues department.  There are certainly others, including Joan Baez and Patti Smith and Rage Against the Machine.   But these are folks I’d struggle to write more than one or two entries on, never mind a years’ worth.  Regardless, listening to Neil Young has kept me connected in a way my younger self would be proud of.

The other reason is more personal and turns out it’s a subject Neil Young has become quite caught up in as well.  It’s about pipelines.  Fossil fueled pipelines to be more specific.   Pipelines that carry oil and gas and that are crisscrossing our country at accelerating and alarming rates, despite the protestations of open-space advocates and private property owners.  Back in Forever Young # 4, I wrote briefly of Neil Young’s stance against the tar-sands in Northern Alberta.  In the interim, there have been related developments that have manifested here in my hometown of Pepperell, Massachusetts. 

Here’s the skinny as I see it.  A Texas-sized energy company by the name of Kinder Morgan (the owner Richard Kinder, a former ENRON CEO) is attempting to build a formidable pipeline across Northern Massachusetts, which stands between the heavily fracked State of Pennsylvania and its neighbor New York to the west and the ready and willing ‘tea-party’ governor of Maine and St. Lawrence Bay just beyond to the east (where liquidation refineries and overseas shipping would be constructed).   The proposed route of the pipeline cuts across untold acres of pristine lands and rural private property.  It would include a 50-foot wide clear-cut right-of-way swath in its path (100 feet to begin with).  Doors have been knocked on and cash offers made to effected homeowners.  Many are turning it down, but then the letters arrive that are a bit more….threatening.  The term eminent domain is tossed about.  It all has the feel of bygone-eras such as the Great Depression.  It’s eerie, and reeks of corporate profit at the expense of individual rights.

This project insults me in so many ways.  Decades of land protection efforts are being undermined, breaking virtually every conservation commission-like rule in the book.  And as mentioned, there is no denying by Kinder Morgan that a big factor in their ambition is export.  This is despite the fact that they are looking to Massachusetts taxpayers to pay for the construction of this pipeline through our State!  Then there’s the perception of the region supporting fracking, which more and more is seen as an environmental disaster in the making (see the movie’s ‘Gasland’ and ‘Gasland II’), including the pumping of flammable chemicals into deep underground aquifers (and eventually people’s faucets, which amazingly can be lit with a match) to break up shale and extract gas (with significant amounts of these dangerous chemicals coming along for the ride through the pipelines).  Then there’s a history of unavoidable pipe leaks in other areas of the country.  There’s the smoke and mirrors of attempting to get the public to think that they (Kinder Morgan) have the support of our public officials.  There’s the clandestine, behind the doors discussions with stakeholders prior to this year.  There’s the devaluation of property.

But most of all for me there is this struggle to move beyond fossil fuels.  Energy companies like Kinder Morgan and their affiliates have had their subsidized moment in the sun for going on 100 years.  That moment in the sun has turned to smog and artificial global warming.  I cannot deny the benefits fossil fuels have had to civilization.  However, it is time to move on.  Subsidies need to be pointed elsewhere; to alternative energies that give promise (including jobs) to our future.  Sure we have seen energy independence in this country over the past 8-10 years, but at what cost?  Alternatives are a must option to anything that burns.  We’ve about reached the breaking point.  I suppose dealing with existing infrastructure is a necessity until we can realistically move on.   But any new infrastructure should be green.  We can do it, and keep the job market thriving in the process. 

In this day and age it is hard to fathom that concepts like eminent domain and blanket FERC authorizations could overrule the will of a community.  There was a special Pepperell town meeting on the issue of a pipeline several months ago.  It was packed to the gills; the biggest showing for a town meeting in a long time. Not one person voted in favor.  Not one!  And Pepperell routinely votes Republican.  This type of vote is typical of what has happened in every community the pipeline is proposed to cross (although the votes are non-binding).  There are anti-pipeline signs scattered all over the front lawns of ours and our fellow affected communities.  It appears we are at the crossroads of a great battle between the past (fossil fuels) and the future (alternative energies) and apparently the past is not going down without an ugly fight.

So yes, I’ve been immersed in current events despite (and due to) my ceaseless Neil Young music inclinations this year.  I’ve written a letter to the governor and other state officials; signed off on petitions; attended fund raisers; rallied in the Boston Common in front of the State House; marched the entire length of Pepperell  in protest (part of a statewide march); and attended a handful of town and related meetings on all matters ‘pipeline’.  Vigilance is the order of the day, but the bottom line is that this is a huge distraction from the norm, which makes the issue even more vexing.  “Think Global, Act Local”:  It’s what I’ve had to do this year.  And Nancy.  And Charlotte too.  

When I last wrote of Neil Young’s position on the Tar Sands pipeline, it was something I certainly connected with, but it was still ‘over there’.   Not anymore, and not simply because of the local pipeline fiasco.  I was in Edmonton Alberta this past August.  Travelling the countryside, I witnessed several monstrous, belching refinery plants.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg from what I understand.  A trip further north to Fort McMurray is where the real action is.  It was a tough pill to swallow.  I don’t want to isolate Alberta though.  I’ve been to places like Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Gary, Indiana and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.  There’s a pervasive fossil-fueled culture all around us that has to change. 

Neil Young is not letting go.  A listen to his new classy (and classical) song Who’s Gonna Stand Up? (And Save The Earth) will attest to that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZyL-FZ4lOU ).  He covers a lot of ground in this song.  I’m not sure if it (or this entry for that matter) will help, but I must say this:  Thank you, Mr. Young. 

On a final semi-humorous/serious note, it’s intriguing to me that a predominantly southern movement dubbed ‘the tea party’ has evolved these past 4 years in a bizarre response to the Obama Administration’s policies.  The true Tea Party took place in Massachusetts 250 years ago, and this recent movement has hijacked the term.  These newbies are Tea Party imposters (an oxymoron if you think about it).  But recent developments in my own back yard have me thinking that it’s time to bring the movement and term back to where it belongs.

And so this entry is written for those future Steeves descendants.  If they are to read this blog series (and borderline harangue of an entry) 40, 50, 100 years down the road, I want them to know which side of the fence their ancestor was on.  Neil Young asks “Who’s going to stand up and save the earth”.   My hearts is in that ring and I’ll try to do my job to toss my hat in as well.

-          Pete

Forever Young # 37: "A Pardon of the Partisan Kind"

Song:  Campaigner
Album:  Decade
Released:  October, 1977

I’m thinking it was five October’s ago, when Peter was 11 years old.  Or maybe it was six years ago when he was 10.  Anyhow, Nancy and I took the big guy to a local department store with a large costume section to choose a Halloween outfit.  He looked over quite a variety of options, from Freddy Krueger to Blackbeard, to the Scream, and finally settled on…. a Richard Nixon mask.  I laughed, scratched my head and asked “are you kidding?”  He wasn’t kidding.  This was what he wanted to wear.  There really was no explanation for it and to this day I still can’t figure out what drew him to that mask.  I mean, Peter was (and still is) about as apolitical as they come.  But after realizing he was serious, I ran with it and over the next few days proceeded to give him a few Nixonian gestures to work on (including the two-arm extended ‘V’ victory sign, hunched shoulder, jaw extended) a few quotes (including “My fellow Americans”) and a little history lesson. 

He worked on it and got pretty good too.  I have to say it was all pretty funny, but not nearly as funny as how the actual Halloween night played out.  Our neighborhood is one of the prime places in town to trick-or-treat; being stacked with houses on cul-de-sac side streets.  And so one of Peter’s good friends, Joey, got dropped off at our home for an evening excursion out and about amongst a variety of witches goblins and parents.  When Joey stepped out of his Dad’s car, he was dressed from head to toe, as a police officer, complete with Billy club and handcuffs.  This also took me by surprise, and I must say he looked the part.  We took a few pictures of the two of them and in the process it all started to feel hilariously bizarre.  It only got funnier.  Peter was a bit faster than his buddy, so throughout the night, as they ran from door to door it appeared as if the policeman was chasing the former President.  At one home, a lady opened the door looked out and said “Ahhh, Nixon and the cop, ehhh?”  Yes, there were a few belly laughs that crisp fall night.

I know I flashed back that evening.  Back to the early 70s and the first President of the United States who I knew of at the time of his Presidency (I was just 5 years old when Lyndon Johnson declared “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term….”, and so have no recollection of the 36^th President).  I guess you could say I was a bit jaded out of the gate in relation to what it took to be the executive leader of the free world.  Nixon was under siege in those earliest years of my Oval Office insights due to the Watergate scandal, and would resign by August of 1974 (half way through his second term).  For all that Bill Clinton and George Bush and Barak Obama have faced in terms of public obsession with their job performance these past decades, it all pales in comparison to the late Nixon years. 

My aunt and uncle were great defenders of Nixon.  I witnessed this first hand and found it odd.  But I also found odd the abuse hurdled the President’s way from the opposite direction.  There were imitations (Rich Little being the best) and records and comic strips and eventually…. masks.  Everyone had an opinion.  In the summer of ’74 it seemed to be all the adults talked (and argued) about.  Nixon was everywhere.  My grandmother had a parade of anti-Nixon books in her parlor.  Dad purchased an inflatable boat and dubbed it “The Watergate”.  When we went to Washington D.C. a few years after Nixon’s resignation, seeing the actual office complex where the crime that eventually took down a President took place was almost as intense as riding past the White House for the first time just up the road.

We all put up defense mechanisms when under attack, and Richard Nixon had his share of them.  This came across as Machiavellian to most, which just seemed to make matters worse for him.  It was a very uncomfortable period for the country.  Heck, I was only 12 years old, and I was uncomfortable.  Congressional hearings were all over the television.  America was laid bare; dysfunctional at best, corrupt at worst.  In the end, a President was toppled.  It was not a pretty sight, and there would be long-term ramifications.  Finger pointing intensified over the subsequent decades, both in the left and right direction.   It seems to get worse with every administration, and there appears no end in sight.  This all can be traced back to a rift that began to expand exponentially with Nixon and Watergate. 

But many of us tend to forget that a funny thing happened after Nixon’s resignation:  Most Americans started feeling sorry for him.  The image of the lonely California beach stroller took hold.  Wife Pat went ill, which added to the sympathy.  And for all his faults, it slowly seeped into the counter-culture consciousness that Nixon had some very insightful policy to hang his hat on.  The EPA was established under him.  There was the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, restrictions on trade with Japan due to their whaling practices, and the Endangered Species Act (and even more important to a younger version of me at the time, he traded a muskox for a giant panda with the Chinese). 

For an environmental-minded person like myself who focuses on these types of issues as extremely important, it’s all too hard to ignore.  The fact of the matter is that Dick Nixon did some good things, and I can’t help comparing these advancements to the current state of affairs.  I mean, can anyone imagine this type of legislation kicking in on today’s Republican agenda?  On the contrary, many of them are trying to dismantle such progress.  So I do think Nixon’s legacy has at the very least hung in there over the past few decades…at least for those of us who were (and are) on the other side of the ideological fence.

Yes, the country was caught up in all things Nixon in the mid-70s, and Neil Young was no exception.  He sang “Tin Soldiers and Nixon coming” on Ohio (see Forever Young # 27).  He included a famous newspaper headline related to Watergate on his 1974 ‘On the Beach’ cover (“Sen Buckley calls for Nixon to resign”).  And he wrote and sang Campaigner, post resignation, which – and this should be no surprise for Young aficionados - makes room for reconciliation.  Before I discuss this, there’s something I’ve been observing for some time and it is this:  For a Rock and Roller, Neil Young is unusual in his call for strong elective leadership.  He’s been doing it from the beginning of his career and has not stopped, seeing this character trait as an answer to problems that confront us all.  When Young is disappointed, he does not hesitate to let his feelings show in word and song.  He was certainly disappointed with Richard Nixon, but was almost immediately ready to do what he could to start the healing process after the fact.  Gerald Ford initiated it all with a pardon.   Neil Young was not far behind.

Campaigner ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv7XaLG6zC8 ) is one of Neil Young’s most heartfelt songs, which is amazing considering the subject matter.   Some think it sounds like Neil Young poking fun at Nixon (“Even Richard Nixon has got soul” he sings).  But I don’t think so.  It’s just too stark, bordering on mournful, to be so.  There’s something deeper going on here.  I don’t want to call it regret, but it’s something like that.  Young recognizes there is soul in Richard Millhouse Nixon, and I believe in the process recognizes there is soul in all of us.  A moment like this can be enlightening for anyone.  Young seems to be capturing his own revelation on record, which makes it extraordinary.

I’ve been listening all week to the “Complete Joel Bernstein Tapes” (thanks C. Brady) which are classic recordings of live Neil Young from a variety of venues in 1976.  The version of Campaigner on this collection is particularly poignant, and may likely be one of the first recordings of the song.  It’s interesting that a Boston venue would have been chosen by Bernstein for inclusion of Campaigner in his collection.  Perhaps it’s because he simply has a very good ear for quality.  Given that Massachusetts was the only State that did not vote for Nixon in 1972 (along with the District of Columbia) Young may have been moved to put a little more gusto into the song while in the Hub, and Bernstein seems to have noticed (if you want a listen, go to http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1643 and click on Track 1). 

So there you have.  Neil Young did his part to help exorcise the bad vibes that played out on our National stage in the early to mid-70s, in turn allowing a counter culture to soften its tone, making room for kinder, gentler (and sillier) thoughts.  Many years after the fact, seeing my son run from door to door with that exaggerated Nixon caricature over his face, that’s all I had room for.

-          Pete

Forever Young # 36: "Facing the Music"

Song:  Tonight’s the Night
Album:  Tonight’s the Night

Released:  June, 1975 (2 year delayed-release)

One of Neil Young’s most oft quoted statements is one he wrote in the liner notes for ‘Decade’.  In it he states that ‘Heart of Gold’, the acclaimed 1972 album with his only #1 song (the title cut) “put me in the middle of the road.  Travelling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch” (* Side note:  The term “Ditch Trilogy”, coined by Young aficionados in reference to his subsequent 3 morose albums, is tied to this statement).   Young was alluding to the commercial soft-rock success of ‘Heart of Gold’ and the necessity to move on in order to stay fresh.  There were a number of directions Young could have gone, but the direction he chose (or was chosen for him) was straight down.  Down to places most musicians don’t want to go.  I’m not referring to a dark side, as some might think.  I’m referring to facing pain and suffering head on.  And in the early years of the 1970s, Neil Young had plenty of this to confront.

The 3^rd album in the trilogy ‘Tonight’s the Night’ (which was actually the 2^nd considering when it was produced in comparison to its release) is in the ditch alright; a ditch festooned with barbed wire and cow manure.  I already wrote a Forever Young entry about it (# 14), but at the time, promised to come back, if only to focus on the title track. After all, Tonight’s the Night ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFIcQU8K4AY ) rivals a handful of songs in terms of how often I have seen it performed live.  It’s not one of my favorite tunes; not by a long shot.  But as with the Rolling Stones Satisfaction, which I was also apathetic to, yet ended up giving its own Stepping Stone (# 41, September 2012), I’ve grown to respect Tonight’s the Night, if for no other reason than the songwriter’s own fascination for it (as is the case with Satisfaction).  I’ll try to explain why here.    

‘Tonight’s the Night’ was the first of Neil Young’s compositions that had a reprise, that being the title track, which occurs at the beginning and end of the record (the two others that come to mind are My My, Hey Hey {Out of the Blue} / Hey Hey, My My {Into the Black} off 1979s ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ and Rockin’ in the Free World - acoustic and electric versions - off of 1989s ‘Freedom’).  This to me had always meant that there was a storyline here.  But for many years I had thought it to simply be a loose affiliation of songs related to the decline and eventual overdose death of two of Young’s close friends, Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, sung from the songwriter’s point of view (with most songs put to tape during one late hazy night jam session in August of 1973, giving the whole product a cohesive sound and feel).

Fine enough.  That works as a storyline.  But after doing some more reading on the subject, it was Young himself who raised the bar a few notches for me, setting the record straight (no pun intended) by hinting in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine that the song sequence may actually be a bit closer to the fatally-flawed sources of his inspiration.  In other words, the album is an attempt to frame the story from Whitten and Berry’s point of view on their downward spiral from troubled to “too far gone” to the grave.  Of course, few if any can self-reflect when they are in such a frame of mind (Dylan Thomas perhaps?).  And so Neil Young and company (Ben Keith, Nils Lofgren, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina) attempt to put themselves in the shoes of their lost friends.  When you listen to it in this context, ‘Tonight’s the Night’ enters a new realm of intensity and clarity, and in the process I believe it significantly helps to propel Young into the single-digit pantheon of rock immortals.

I would like to think there are few in this world who would want to achieve lofty stature upon such a tragedy as the premature loss of two close friends to overdose (this thought brings to mind Jon Krakauer getting flack for writing ‘Into Thin Air’ about his personal account of the 1996 Mt. Everest Disaster).  Certainly not Neil Young, since it’s clear that for him the ramifications would be lasting in his writing and reflections on these events throughout his career; and not in a good way (at least for him).  The pain is palpable and it is to Young’s credit that he never really has put this behind him.  Much like Pink Floyd who penned ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, Shine on You Crazy Diamond and ‘The Wall’ with founding member Syd Barrett in mind (after Barrett slipped into LSD-induced madness early in the band’s career).  In both cases, the musicians focused much of their writing on trying to come to grips with what had occurred.  

We the fans heard it all and felt it all, which is ultimately why this focus paid off.  It was a lesson learned for us 2^nd generation listeners growing up in the 70s.  Why did I personally get caught up in it?  I mean, my goodness, this material is dour.  Well, why does anyone get caught up in artistic reflection of misstep and misfortune, be it Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare, opera, Don Quixote, or a movie like ‘Saving Private Ryan’.  It all comes down to this:  Good art is truth, no matter the subject matter or forum, and people recognize it as such.

Over the years, Neil Young let go of many of the songs on ‘Tonight’s the Night’ as touring staples (oh, what a treat it would be to see him play Albuquerque, Lookout Joe, Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown or Tired Eyes), but he never let go of the title track no matter who he was touring with.  Why?  I believe it goes back to that concept of using the song as a reprise on the album.  At the beginning of the record it feels like a living, breathing set of three words, sung by Bruce Berry (with Young filling in) in haunting refrain.  At the end of the album the words echo like a ghost around the band and us. 

What this song means most to me is that Berry, who was the roadie for CSNY, was working on his own music, his own songs, playing Neil Young’s guitar late at night (“after the people were gone”) with the hope that he’d break through a mental barrier by repeating the refrain “Tonight’s the night” again and again.  Young found Bruce Berry’s singing “as real as the day was long”, and so lamented that this fledging talent was never realized.  Yet this song feels like a lament for all untapped talent, all unrealized dreams, snuffed out prematurely in one form or another. 

Neil Young never tried to complete Bruce Berry’s song.  He just took the “Tonight’s the Night” refrain and built it into his own song.  It’s fascinating that for all Young has written and all he has covered it’s these 3 words, originally sung by a roadie, that may just be what he, in the end, has repeated most in front of large crowds of people.  It says a lot about the man, and about these life-changing events and the effects they had on him.

Many of us listening were too young and naïve to truly realize the intensity of what played out in front of us in our earliest years of attending Neil Young concerts and hearing, Tonight’s the Night.  But life has a way of catching up with you, eventually making such a story all too real.  These are the crossroad moments.  Do you face the music, as Neil Young did, or do you find ways to move on and suppress? 

I vote for facing the music (literally and figuratively), because in the end this is what resonates and gives us pause, hopefully leading to action and ultimately the prevention of similar Berry/Whitten-like consequences.

-          Pete

Forever Young # 35: "Shedding the Baggage"

Song:  Mansion on the Hill
Album:  Ragged Glory
Released:  April, 1990

Anybody who loves Neil Young’s music has probably been touched at one point or another by his 1972 gem, Old Man off of the ‘Harvest’ album.  It’s a beautiful song, about a young man recognizing himself in someone much older.  Old Man is one of a short list of tunes in Young’s vast catalog where the story behind it is pretty well established.  When he purchased the sprawling, majestic Broken Arrow Ranch in Northern California after early success, Young met the elderly caretaker of the place who wanted to know how a hippie like him could afford it.  The musician responded that he was very lucky and tried to emphasize that he was not much different than anyone else.  The impact of this discussion eventually lead to Old Man, including one of the key repeating lines in the song:  “Old Man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were”. 

 There is a key word in that line, and it’s the last one; ‘were’.  If the word had been ‘are’ instead, the song would have taken on a different meaning, and could easily have been received as a bit of a slight.  Not a significant one mind you, but one nonetheless.  After all, how could anyone put themselves in the shoes of a person much older….someone with many more years of living under their belt….someone with far more experience in life?  Neil Young knew this for a fact.  How did I come to this conclusion?  It’s because of a song he wrote many years later, this week’s Forever Young entry, Mansion on the Hill, which comes complete with a bonafide classic of an MTV video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1WpgTzf8nk ).  Both video and song need some serious dissecting.  I’m here to serve.

Before doing so, a brief overview is in order.  Mansion on the Hill is a hard rocking song on a hard rocking album; ‘Ragged Glory’.  The entire package is pretty darn impressive without taking anything else into account, but to consider that Young and his entourage, Crazy Horse, were in their mid-40s when they released this disc makes it even more provoking.  In the short history of the middle-aged rocker, there really is no one else to compare to in terms of creativity and spark.  Yes, Neil Young and crew had our attention in 1990, but again, the important thing to remember is that this was a unique (mid-life) stage for any rock musician to be achieving such lofty -and deserved - recognition, especially for something as raucous as ‘Ragged Glory’.  And they seized the moment, in more ways than one.  Much of the album helps explain this, but a few key concepts come together on Mansion on the Hill. 

What follows is one man’s interpretation of this song and video.

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I guess I’ll start from the top.  Like many MTV videos in the day, there’s a brief pre-music introduction to Mansion on the Hill (think Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the intro of which was much more expansive overkill).  A deceased Neil Young is prone on a hospital gurney, the doctors and nurses gearing up to tell the family, when to their shock, he rises - presumably from the dead - and states that he’ll inform them himself.  It’s funny, but what’s going on here?  Well, I’ll get to that.  Anyhow, the swinging doors to the hospital room open in front of him to what appears to be the afterlife, and Young steps into the cloudy mist, just as the Crazy Horse backbeat kicks in. 

A few moments later we see a disheveled Young making his way into this mansion-of-a home through the front door, guitar in one hand, amp in the other.  He’s sporting an Elvis t-shirt while appearing to have been through the mill (or at least an extremely intense tour).  At first viewing you would think this is the tail end of the opening sequence.  But it’s not. 

Before I go any further, I think it may be helpful (for me at least) to point out that Neil Young appears to play 4 personas (of himself, or anyone for that matter) in this video (and since I think it accurately portrays the song, let’s go with that too).  And though it’s a relatively short tune for NY & Crazy Horse, there’s quite a bit of complexity playing out with each character trait.  To make it easier moving forward, here’s what I see as the 4 personas:

1. Enlightened Neil: Older and wiser.  This is the Neil who is rising from the dead on the gurney at the beginning of the video and who later jams on stage with his band.

2. Frazzled Neil: Naive and younger, but on the edge of turning it all around.  This is the Neil who walks in the front door of the mansion as the music kicks in (and is not seen again until a bit later in the video, at the gas station, which I will also get to).
3. Preacher Neil: Sees the world in black and white.  While conducting a funeral service for an elderly man (in this video), he initially seems obsessed with the notion of towing the line rather than rocking the boat.  Preacher Neil and Frazzled Neil have much in common, and could actually be one in the same.
4. Toast Neil:  The crazed gas station attendant giving directions.  I’ll get to him.
* Note: there is overlap in all these personas, which is refreshing:  No multi split-Sybil personalities here.

Ok, so with these character descriptions laid out, I can move ahead.  The next part of the video is my favorite, which is a fast-moving, dream-like tunnel sequence as we are introduced to Neil Young’s lead guitar playing (up to that point he can be heard doing a bit of rhythm-guitar back-and-fourth with Frank Sampedro).  Young is accompanied in this sequence by two EMTs.  This appears to be Young transitioning from Frazzled Neil to Enlightened Neil.  It’s fantastic.  And when they finally come out at the end of the tunnel, the lyrics kick in with a jamming, Enlightened Neil, on stage singing:

“ Well I saw an old man walking in my place

When he looked at me it could have been my face

His words were kind, but his eyes were wild

He said I got a load to love, but I want one more child ”

Preacher Neil makes his introduction in the last 2 verses above (starting with “but his eyes were wild”).  At this stage, it appears Preacher Neil is not too happy with how the deceased man’s (lying in front of him) life played out in his later years, but as the scene switches back over to the band, it’s clear that Enlightened Neil is reveling in the notion.  Here’s where the refrain kicks in:

“ There’s a mansion on the hill

Psychedelic music fills the air

Peace and love live there still

In that mansion on the hill “

This first time the refrain is sung, it’s by Enlightened Neil.  I believe he’s trying to explain that there was a part of him that never wanted to let that 60s dream go.  But now he’s singing about that dream in the proper context:  Something to feed on, but not to let it feed on him. 

After a patented mid-song jam, the second stanza unfolds:

“ Around the next bend take the highway to the sun

Or the rocky road, it really don’t matter which one

Well, I was in a hurry, but that don’t matter now

‘Cause I had to get off of that road of tears somehow “

The first 2 verses are sung by Toast Neil, who is giving an elderly woman directions to the Mansion on the Hill.  I interpret this persona as a manifestation of what Young believes is going on in his head when he persists with living in the past.  The elderly woman is driving a hearse:  Could this be “Mort”, Young’s first road-trip vehicle back in the 60s (a symbol of living in the past)?  This concept is reinforced when Frazzled Neil makes his reappearance, singing the 3^rd verse above from the passenger seat.  Here, the older woman is now young and beautiful (the passenger’s face is never shown with the older version of this woman…. too revealing perhaps?).  The lyrics fit perfectly; Frazzled Neil is seeing the light.  I think what it’s all saying is that we age rapidly when we live in the past and stay young and vital when we live in the present.  A nice added touch is that the preacher comes around too, singing the enlightened fourth verse above, along with the 2^nd refrain. 

In all, a perfect blend of fun and brilliance. 

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I think Neil Young took a bullet for the team here.  In comparison to many of us, he’s had little problem moving on; not becoming stale. But I’m sure that shedding the baggage has been difficult for him at times as well. The most inspiring line in Mansion on the Hill is what the older version of Neil Young says to his younger self in the first verse: “I got a load to love, but I want one more child”.  It’s the line that brought me back to Old Man.  It’s the kind of thinking that keeps us charging ahead, in spite of our past successes; to never rest on our laurels.

It’s yet another reason why I write these blog entries.

 

-          Pete