A Battle Raged on the Open Page: Can You Change Your Mind?

What Would Neil Young Do?
Poster by Jeremy Deller

When faceless and anonymous
Come to beat down your door
And say you're all washed up and done
You can just say they have nothing in store

To touch this soul
Because they just don't know
They just don't know
The way

"The Way"

Well, say what you will, things seem to have been getting a little intense around here of late.

Can't imagine why? Maybe the upcoming Canada tour? Or Europe Spring tour? Or New Orleans Jazz Fest? Or excitement over LincVolt repowering the American dream? Or maybe because the Neil Young Archives have been delayed again for the up-teenth time?

Who knows why?

Certainly couldn't be those new LincVolt love songs on the upcoming Fork in the Road CD, do you suppose? Afterall, if you download them, they'll sound like shit, right?

The comments have really piled up of late. Like this one from Bert:

As far as the criticism of Fork in the Road (FITR), we all know Neil will do whatever he wants but at the same time I think we have a right to express our opinions, good or bad. In fact, that's what makes reading the comments here - by die-hard fans, no less - so interesting. Personally I'm not too impressed by what I've heard so far but that's fine. I haven't been blown away by everything he's released but considering how prolific Neil is I just take it in stride.

To those who are unwilling to tolerate *any* criticism of FITR, be honest: if Everybody's Rockin' had not been released in '83 and Neil performed the songs in his recent shows, wouldn't you expect some fans to express their dislike of what they heard? I'm sure even Neil would expect it. My point is that not everything he releases is of the calibre of LAH or Ohio, so you can't really expect everyone to fawn over everything he does.

From the comments on TW, I've noticed that Neil seems to elicit a strange kind of obsessiveness among his fans. There are those who are so moved by his songs that they think Neil can do no wrong no matter what he does ('FITR rocks!'), while others love him so much that that they fault him for any deviation from their perception of what he is capable of ('FITR sucks!'). I think it might be because Neil himself seems to have an obsessive personality and it comes out in his music, where what he's fixated on at the moment is all he cares about, until he moves on to something else which then becomes his all-consuming passion.

He's a man of extremes and maybe that's why some of his fans are so possessive of him, they're like that too. He's not called Shakey for nothing.

Bert

And there have been many similar sentiments expressed like Bert's.
On the other hand, there have been many similar sentiments expressed like SONY's (Speakin Out in NY):

I still think the presentation of FITR blasting into our collective face on the internet for nothing is the main story.

We'll all respond from our personal bias as to what we like, what we want, what we think he should be doing. But this next album is the soundtrack to 'his' current moment.

How easy it it for YOU/ME to switch gears when we're 'into' something that is capturing our attention and efforts. It's like having a baby - can you relate to all your old ways and thinkings when that baby is near, or born, or first growing? You're captured, or least you should be. It's the birth of new creativity from a personal perspective and is as uniquely individual as the DNA that puts it there and channels it out.

I guess if it ain't your cup of tea, go out and do it yourself.

sony

But what could possibly be going on here with Neil Young fans? Are they just too serious about Neil's music and need to get a life?

Here's what Not Above Suspicion has to say:

I think we need to bear in mind that the projected release date for this album is still 3 months away [ED: ? 4/7 according to Amazon.com]. Given Neil's history that makes the odds of this album being released as currently conceived, what, maybe 50:50?

A difference is that today, we can witness beforehand what we couldn't in the past.

On numerous occasions in the past Neil has changed his mind abruptly after releases were announced. Albums have been shelved or radically reworked but we relied almost entirely on rumors and third hand information as to what the original conception was.

Now, the process is far more public because of both the easy almost instantaneous dissemination of live shows by "pirates" and his own choice to provide previews.

I don't really think that Neil's decision will be directly influenced by feedback (positive or negative) but, assuming FITR will be released at all or that it won't include substantial surprises is premature at best.

Obviously, the "eco-car" thing is very important to Neil but the possibility that he might decide that the album isn't "right" still looms large. I don't think, however, his decision will hinge much on what other people have to say about it.

He's heard people ponder his judgment, taste and even sanity before. Maybe that came after releases rather than before, but I find it hard to believe he could not anticipate the reaction to some of his more idiosyncratic choices.

If Neil changes his mind, he will change his course. If he doesn't he won't. I think, however, the notion that his mind will be changed by external reaction is misplaced.

---Not Above Suspicion

Which reminds us of a song called "Change Your Mind":

When you get weak, and you need to test your will
When life's complete, but there's something missing still
Distracting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Don't let another day go by without the magic touch

Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Convincing you (change your mind)

When you're confused and the world has got you down
When you feel used and you just can't play the clown
Protecting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Don't let another day go by without the magic touch

Protecting you (change your mind)
Restoring you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Soothing you (change your mind)

You hear the sound, you wait around and get the word
You see the picture changing everything you've heard
Destroying you with this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Don't let another day go by without the magic touch

Destroying you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Protecting you (change your mind)
Confining you (change your mind)
Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Distorting you (change your mind)
Controlling you (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)

(More on Lyrics Analysis of Change Your Mind).


Neil Young, Neil Young (2004)
Photo by Melanie Schiff

But we guess we would just say that for many, Neil Young is not only a musician but a different animal all together. More of a performance artist in the best sense of the term as an experimenter pushing audiences' boundaries.

From ARTINFO.com by Martin Herbert on performance artist Melanie Schiff:

"That kind of willed projection, born out of abiding admiration, is taken a stage further in Melanie Schiff’s tender photograph Neil Young, Neil Young (2004).

In it, a figure’s head is obscured by the cover of Young’s debut solo album, with its life-size carbon-dated psychedelic portrait of the musician. 'It’s about fandom, genius, and awe,' says the young Chicago photographer. 'He was 23 when he recorded it, and I just found — and find, now that I’m older than that — it incredible that someone of that age can make something so amazing. It was a way of making it my face, because it’s me in the photograph, like a cover song or a tribute or a wish.'

The line between admiration and analysis is consciously hazed; Schiff, like the other artists I talked to, can happily spiel till sundown about Young, which points to a degree of investment that exceeds callow reverentiality and shades into something greater and more deeply seated.

'I don’t think of him as a musician, I think of him as an artist,' says Lee. 'His work has a conceptual quality to it, and he’s not afraid to experiment and lose fans in the process,' says Deller. He has, for Durant, 'incredible integrity and authenticity.'"

(Another take on this on Nothing to Say & Saying It by John Gallaher and Stoning the Devil by Adam Fieled.)

But we'll give Shakey himself the last word from Jimmy McDonough's Neil Young biography on the 1992 acoustic shows (p. 668):

"You know what that tour was good for? It was good for me. It wasn't good for anybody else.

It was good for me to realize how completely fuckin' out of touch with the audience I was. I went out there and played all new stuff - songs that really meant somethin' to me - and they were still lookin' at fifteen, twenty years ago, even though they were teenagers. These young people who wanted me to do my hits. Wanted me to do Ragged Glory, wanted me to do 'RITFW'. They wanted me to get out there, get real intense. They didn't understand that I don't always do that.

They didn't get what they wanted - but I got what I wanted.

Because I went out and did the songs and got in touch with what its like to play and communicate to an audience just with guitar, with songs they don't know that well. That's really where it lives. To get out there with new songs that no one knows and make them known, make them hear them. That's the challenge."

So WWNYD?

Neil's not jesus. We debunked that theory long ago. Here's your new messiah.

Thanks Bert, SONY, Karen & BBQ Master!

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