Comes A Time When You Settle Down

On her 18th birthday ('74), Diana Desern contemplates packing it in, buying a pick-up and taking it to L.A.

From a rather delightful rumination on Neil Young and the glory days of the record business on LikeTheDew.com | A Journal of Southern Culture & Politics, "Comes A Time When You Settle Down" by Jeff Cochran:

There was a teeming bunch of us in the record business back in the ’70s who followed Neil Young with an intensity that exceeded fascination.

It wasn’t hero worship, though; it was simply strong admiration for an artist who took chances with his work and considered the music he was creating more important than fame or keeping the suits at the record company satisfied.

Prior to the release of Comes A Time, the record business appeared in great shape, but to paraphrase Young, there was more to the picture than met the eye. Disco had yet to go away and in a last blaze of glory, the cheesy musical genre would drive soundtrack albums such as Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It’s Friday up the charts. Disco had gone mainstream and its adherents flocked into our stores, snapping up the soundtracks and other albums by the wildly popular Bee Gees, Donna Summer, and others who fueled the dance floors.

In order to keep our jobs, we were happy to sell the disco LPs and 45s to the people in polyester, but still we were nonplussed. Disco, identified with materialism at its gaudiest, represented a far different musical world than the rock, folk and blues many of us embraced in the ’60s. Maybe we were self-righteous about it, but it was far more satisfying to sell a Neil Young or Muddy Waters album than one by A Taste of Honey. The folks at the book store around the corner probably felt the same in preferring to sell novels by E.L. Doctorow instead of those by Harold Robbins. Yet, having to eat, pay rent, and send increasing amounts of money to Georgia Power each month compelled us to resist temptation and not lecture customers on matters of taste.

More on Neil Young, Atlanta, record stores and nostalgia on Comes A Time When You Settle Down | LikeTheDew.com by Jeff Cochran.

Thanks klh!

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