So What Makes Neil Young's Muse Tick?

David Geffen, Elliot Roberts, & Neil Young
Frame from 'Inventing David Geffen': American Masters
(Click photo to enlarge)

The other day, we posted preview trailers for the upcoming documentary film 'Inventing David Geffen': American Masters.

Which, of course, reminded many of Neil Young's "lost '80's" due to the infamous Geffen lawsuit. This in turn, coincidentally led to the following article which examines the legal nightmare from a different angle. From How Neil Young Became the First Artist to Get Sued for Not Being Himself By Susan Alexander:

What? How can you get sued for not being yourself?

Writing for Rolling Stone, music journalist Don McLeese explains:

Neil Young is the only artist in the history of modern recording to be sued for refusing to be himself. The suit, filed by Geffen Records, Young’s label for much of the Eighties, charged that he was violating his contract by recording ‘unrepresentative’ albums. In other words, Neil Young wasn’t making Neil Young music.

The problem with Geffen’s suit was that there has never been any such thing as a ‘representative’ Neil Young album. Young has made a decades-long career out of keeping his fans guessing what he’ll do next.

Even before he signed with Geffen, his ever-changing style included raw and edgy, melodic and romantic, dark and melancholic, acoustic and electric, and introspective and retrospective, with a bit of punk thrown in for good measure, all backed by whatever band he’d assembled at the time. It’s just how he worked (and still does).

This post explores how Young has managed to maintain an ongoing state of creative flow throughout his career. Even when he was creating to order for a record company, and even during the litigation that ensued.

As we’ll see, he did so by mastering the art of self-renewal, which is something we can all learn to do.

Now we often are accused of over analyzing things to which we plead guilty.

That said tho, if you want some serious analysis of what makes Neil's creative muse tick, then check this blog on Lateral Action. (Thanks Peter!)

Then come back and tell us what it means for your creative muse.

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