Comment of the Moment: The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Neil Young Fan

Neil Young Concert
Coburg, Germany - 08/23/08
Photo by Henning Rosenbusch

An amusingly perplexing reaction to the post The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Neil Young Fan.

Judging from the comments, clearly, it is almost completely unbearable to be a "Lightness" Neil Young fan.

From a comment by Greg "A Friend Of Yours":

Interesting analysis, that mixes in some very strong points and potentially sound ideas, but I’m way out of my depth in trying to encapsulate the psyche of the garden variety Neil detractor, and don’t think it’s fair to try.

Everybody has their own story and, you know, “walk a mile in my shoes”, and all that. Yeah, “I’ve been chopping down” that “palm tree for”, well, not 87 years, but at least as early as I started hearing the standard carping about Neil’s voice, and certainly from the time I first commented on this site at the amusing to me incredulity of fan reaction to Greendale. I keep waiting for someone to come along in a Cadillac to serve up the perfect rationale for the savaging that Neil takes on a consistent basis, something other than the increasingly mundane “his music just isn’t the same as it used to be, somehow. Somehow, it just don’t seem right…”, but I haven’t come across that either- not by a country mile. Anyways, I don’t think I’ll hold my breath too long waiting in vain for that broken back moment, so although it’s an interesting notion, and probably has an element of truth to it, I find it hard to reduce things down to “They probably are disappointed in the life they have led after that time, and long back to that time when they were young, untroubled and happy.”

But I think Peter comes very close to the truth of it, by relating to each album he cites a specific to that time current experience Neil was going through in his life, and that as time went by a gulf continued to form between the common experiences of awakening youth and young adulthood, and the divergent experiences of many Neil fans from Neil himself. While we were chattering about what Neil’s music means to him, as opposed to what some fans think it should mean to him, I took up the suggestion to ”peruse” the lyrics to Johnny Magic, just to see if somehow I had mistaken the thrust of their meaning relative to the coherent whole of Fork In The Road’s message, vis a vis the passion that it takes to do as Ghandi suggested, namely “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I wanted to be doubly sure that somehow the lyrics do not betray Neil indulging in “his worst and laziest instincts.” And you know what I saw? I saw lyrics depicting the spirit of Johnathan Goodwin/Johnny Magic bringing to reality the caring and integrity filled (I’d hate to use the word passion again) vision of an artist who in some quarters is deemed to be “unfettered by reality”. Now, I know I’m a little dense at times, and given to mindless worship, but I could swear that I discerned the presence right there in the lyrics of a strong thread tying together the theme of the album, back to the real life experience of its author, and an album and an author representing the passion (damn, just couldn’t find a better way to say it) of “lighting a candle in the darkness”, because “just singing a song won’t change the world.” But you know, I could be wrong, I guess it could be just some insipid “song about a car.”

Another thing I thought about while I was chattering away to myself, was how easy it seems to be to miss the simplicity behind all the complexity running through Neil’s career, a hyper sensitive individual of unique artistic bent, who has the just as unique personality trait to continually reinvent himself along the lines of what is happening for him in his present, as distinct from what is happening to anyone or anything else around him. I think this is referred to as single mindedness, another dart indiscriminately hurled at ‘ole Neil. In other words, “whim” falls far short of explaining Neil’s career decisions. Single mindedness that as far as I can tell usually made Neil impervious to anyone telling him he was “full of crap”. In fact, Neil himself addressed this in Shakey, when told of Briggs’ disdain for songs like “Ordinary People”, because “Neil doesn’t know anything about ordinary people.” Neil flatly turned the notion away, by saying that Briggs wasn’t always a part of his music, and something to the effect that Briggs wasn’t always right. No doubt that if anyone was ever in a position to speak to Neil frankly, it was Briggs, but is anyone really pretending that Neil was talked down from his decisions on a regular basis? No? Correct answer.

So a young, inspired and impressionistic poetic mind, newly off his first taste of the spotlight, and on the rise in the minds of other artists around him, is asked to write the lyrics and music to a movie that never gets produced, but puts it out anyways because it “captures the spirit of Topanga Canyon”, where he is living at the time. The rock world is being turned upside down by the iconoclast Punk Rock, and a little older man embraces it and puts his own spin on it. The much older man has a brush with death, and searches his soul and his past to find an understanding of the life he has led, of life and human experience itself. Then the wizened character looks around at a world suffering under the onus of runaway threats to the environment, and has the temerity to contribute a possible solution. Present experience, current music… current music, present experience… God, you could say the same thing about just about any album this pain in the ass has put out!

The common theme here, that the detractors seem to be missing is that nothing has ever changed in Neil’s musical approach, except for the circumstances of his present experience. Does the detractor expect that today’s Neil is going to sound and act like yesteryear's Neil? Can the prolific melodic value of the old stuff be churned out to infinity without repeating itself, which I think even the detractor can acknowledge that Neil will never allow himself to do, “It’s all one song”, or no?

Why am I trying to explain this? Again?

A Friend Of Yours

Thanks Greg. A friend of ours indeed.


Neil Young Concert
Coburg, Germany - 08/23/08
Photo by Henning Rosenbusch

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