Happy Valentine's Day Because Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Happy Valentine's Day!

We like to wish every day is Valentine's Day. So there comes a time such as the delightfully heart-warming story of Matthew and Melinda which we posted on recently.

In a follow-up comment by Greg M (A Friend Of Yours), another Neil story ... because only love can break your heart. Love and only love.

What a great story, so honest and real. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering how and when you were going to blurt it out, Matthew! Nice to see two people “Take a chance on love”, and have it happen with Neil’s music as a backdrop. Very beautiful.

When I first read this thread, I thought you were putting it out there for people to tell their own stories, and immediately wrote my own version of a crucial period of my life, and how it all became tied up with Neil’s music. After rereading what you wrote, I’m not sure that’s what you meant, but here goes anyhow.

"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" was the one that got me.

My parents were in the midst of a divorce, and the house I loved was being put on the market. I was just coming of age, and about to start high school. My father was mostly out of town, and my mother for understandable reasons was out of reach. Within a year my Dad was dead. A turbulent time, my world really was “falling apart”.

I didn't know who Neil Young was until the day I was walking down the hallway outside my sister's bedroom, and first heard that unmistakable voice. She had "After The Gold Rush" on the record player, and I just sat down and listened without saying a word. It was all over but the shouting, I was hooked. The LP was everything- acoustic, electric, melodic, evocative, shot through with imagery, poignant, strident- you name it. It was raw, immediate, real. Maybe more than anything, it was honest and forthright, uncompromising- this is who I am and what I do, and I want the whole world to know it. It became a part of me, I became a part of it, and there was no getting away from it. Some alchemy had taken place. The voice, the feeling, the directness, I could imagine that he was singing directly to me, even though I knew he wasn’t. To this day through all the music that has followed, I can still imagine that.

AM radio was still at the forefront in Detroit, only the lucky few were there when underground FM was happening. But still and all, there was the voice that I had found singing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (“over and over”!). It stood out from all the rest, like a “ruby in a black man’s ear”. It was the first song I’d ever heard that found me just where I was: "Someone should call him, and see if he can come out. Try to lose the down that he's found". I didn't fully realize it then, but that was my truth. I was alone in the world, and someone knew it. Someone was singing about me, someone who understood.

Next thing I know, "Heart Of Gold" hits the charts, and I’m dragging my friends off to Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit to see Neil and the Stray Gators, and it’s off to the races, lo these forty years, and thirty some concerts later. "After The Gold Rush" and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” was just the start.

Since then, Neil Young has been the guy to speak the things I didn’t know were there to be spoken, or give voice to the things I did know, but couldn’t speak about coherently. Neil Young was the first guy I ever heard be vulnerable, and self deprecating, the first guy to speak about things that in my macho world guys just didn’t speak about.

And the music just kept coming. In the end, Neil has been an example: say what you mean, mean what you say, and do it with your own voice, in your own unique way. Even right now, at this latter stage of my life, in the midst of reinventing myself, I am being inspired yet again by the words of Neil Young, speaking directly to me: “Just do what you want to do. Don’t listen to anyone else.” Sorry to blather, just my attempt at trying to define the essence of Neil’s music for me.

Greg M (A Friend Of Yours)

Thanks Greg M! Happy Valentine's Day.

"ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK YOUR HEART" - Lyrics by Neil Young

When you were young and on your own
How did it feel to be alone?
I was always thinking of games that I was playing.
Trying to make the best of my time.

But only love can break your heart
Try to be sure right from the start
Yes only love can break your heart
What if your world should fall apart?

I have a friend I've never seen
He hides his head inside a dream
Someone should call him and see if he can come out.
Try to lose the down that he's found.

But only love can break your heart
Try to be sure right from the start
Yes only love can break your heart
What if your world should fall apart?

I have a friend I've never seen
He hides his head inside a dream
Yes, only love can break your heart
Yes, only love can break your heart


Matthew and Melinda



And thanks Matthew and Melinda for capturing the essence of Neil Young's music.