VIDEO: Pegi Young & The Survivors - "Trying To Live My Life Without You"
Last November, we reported that Pegi Young has a new album coming out in February 2017 titled 'Raw'.
Here is a new music video of "Trying To Live My Life Without You" by Pegi Young & The Survivors.
The video's scenery should look familiar to our TW readers...
Pegi Young & The Survivors will tour in support of Raw later this year and will perform at the 2017 SXSW Music Conference.
In an interview last year, Pegi said:
Pegi Young: "We looked at all the songs we had and I just put together this initial sequence and, you know, it was perfect.Please keep on trying Pegi. You're a survivor and will survive.
It told a story. I kind of look at it as a soundtrack to the seven stages of grief. You've got anger, then shock and disbelief. As we go through the album, the later songs show my growth and ... I can't say total acceptance, but I think the last song, that wonderful Don Henley song ["The Heart of the Matter"], talks about forgiveness.
That's really where it's at, you know?"
Long may you thrive.
peace & love
the t's
UPDATED:
From interview with Pegi Young in L.A. Times by Randy Lewis:
“Why’d you have to ruin my life,” she sings forcefully in the opening line of the album’s opening track, “Why.” “Why’d you have to be so mean? Why’d you have to tell me such lies?”
“That was written early on,” she said with a hearty laugh from the Broken Arrow Ranch in the Bay Area, where she continues to live after Neil moved back to Southern California.
“There was a lot of band debate whether that song should go on the record. I decided to put it on there, because at the time I wrote it, my life had been turned upside down. I didn’t want to mince words.”
“‘Roller coaster’ would be the operative word,” she said. “In the immediate aftermath of the separation I just wrote and wrote and wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote.
“Thank God I had that as an outlet,” she said.
She confessed that the trauma of the divorce left her feeling unable — or unwilling— to play any instruments. Thus, the members of her band, the Survivors, took over all the instrumental support.
Young said she didn’t connect the dots at the time she composed the lyrics, or even when she, Holly and Oldham crafted them into song form. But later, “I realized, ‘Wow, this is like the soundtrack of the seven stages of grief.’ It’s all over the map, because you’ve got all of them at the same time. It’s not a linear process — you’re bouncing back and forth a lot.”
Again, Young laughed — something she wasn’t doing as much a couple of years ago as she is now.
“At first we were just playing it [“These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ ”] as a joke during rehearsals,” she said. “But there were so many intense songs, we decided the album needed a moment of lightheartedness. My drummer, Phil Jones, bless his heart, he was insistent on us including it. By that time, my emotional state was better, and I think the covers I chose reflect that.”
Indeed, concluding the album with Henley’s song closes the song cycle on a note of, if not newfound happiness, some measure of acceptance: “There are people in your life who’ve come and gone/They let you down, you know they hurt your pride/Better put it all behind you baby, ’cause life goes on.”
Although Young said the writing and recording of “Raw” served both as catharsis and healing for her, “What I hope with the record is besides just being able to express myself, that it takes you on a journey.”
She’ll be unveiling several of the new songs when she and the Survivors play the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 15, presaging a string of dates through the Southwest and up the West Coast.
“I hope that others who have gone through loss, who have gone through heartbreak — be it divorce, death or other forms of loss — will be able to connect with it,” she said. “I’m not the only one to go through late-in-life divorce; I’m not the only one to suffer a major heartbreak. And I won’t be the last.”
Labels: pegi young
18 Comments:
Sounds like her best song and perhaps (shoot me down) better than anything on Peace Trail ! Pegi kept his shirt and the house!
If you think this mediocre 'upbeat' tune is better than anything on PEACE TRAIL . . . You're just trolling at this point, go away
I'm not going away I found the video a very interesting look at Neil's old house & life - is Funz spelt correctly?
That's a good song. Catchy too. Only judging from one song, dare I say, better than most of Peace Trail and equal to the title track Peace Trail.
You can't really compare anything on Peace Trail with this as Pegi's just covering someone else's song. Neil writes his own stuff. It's a pretty good version, but I liked it better when Bob Seger covered it.
@ Mick - agree
@ AFB -- now let's not be hasty...
@ bob g - agree. How anyone can compare a NY album w/ a PY album is beyond us. Frankly, comparing any NY album with another artist is something we see exceedingly rarely. Maybe w/ Bob or Bruce on occasion. Seriously, this isn't even apples to oranges (no offense Pegi.)
Also good point on this being a Bob Seger cover. Didn't realize that or forgot after reading liner notes.
You gotta admit the album title sums it. And using this Seger cover along with the video frankly really clarifies the situation for anyone out there either making mis-statements about the divorce and/or under mis-impressions.
Demonstrates a lot of bravery on Pegi's part. And a lot of integrity on Neil's as well. Best to both of course as we all move along...
Life looks good on that ranch. Must have taken a great deal of strength to leave it behind.
If somebody really loves you, they won't hurt you. If somebody really loves you, they won't desert you. If somebody really loves you, they'll put aside their own selfish feelings and work with you. If somebody really loves you, they'll be patient. That's what a real masterpiece looks like.
The most selfish thing a man can do to a woman after being in a relationship with her for 36+years is desert her because he confuses "love" with getting sex on demand with another. When husbands desert their wives (and families) to get a bang out of another woman, that's not love. In fact, it's undeserving of real true love.
So.
I had a really difficult time accepting this break up. I was always rooting for Pegi and Neil to stay together. I wanted to believe that Neil had learned a valuable life lesson after hurting all the people he had hurt over the years. I thought maybe he had really changed and learned to truly love. And then I saw a photograph of him with Donald Trump. He sold his wife down the river. Then he sells his soul for stupid piece of plastic.
Real love, true love, is mutual respect.
Mother Nature Over and Out
Bassist is badass.
Um. Shonna Tucker. Folks.
Ms Tucker used to be with the Drive By Truckers
The song is okay. Learning that it's a cover (I've never heard of the original) puts a different perspective on it. Meaning, actually, that it gives me hope that some of Pegi's originals could be more interesting. This is a solid recording and there's nothing wrong with the song, but it doesn't leap out at me. In that regard, I'll be interested to hear a few of Pegi's original songs to get a better sense of her work.
As far as any talk that it's better than Peace Trail, I just can't relate. Such comments seem slightly provocative, but we're to celebrate our enthusiasm for a very provocative artist and person (NY), so I guess that's okay.
I'll refrain from commenting on the "real life" subtext of the song and album. While MNotR speaks some truth here, I don't feel that any of us can ever know enough of the exact circumstances of this particular relationship and breakup, nor about the character and mind of either party, to make firm judgements.
@MNOTR - thanks for comment. we especially need your perspective here on what seems to be a rather lopsided male readership.
we're curious. It seems that Pegi has bravely chosen a cover song with lyrics that suggest she is not without fault. The opening images are suggestive of misgivings as well.
We'll also echo what Ian says about this being a private matter where we ask who are we to judge?
This all seems to be Pegi's way of grieving and moving on. Which we here @ TW fully support, of course.
gosh we tipy toe around this subject- we can have a view and opinions - if you've been buying Neil's music for 40 years then you cannot bury your ears in the sand here- it's all very precious - I have a view on this but I risk incurring the wrath of all those that pray at the font of King Pono - I see the sky about to rain
@Andy Walters--By all means, please have an opinion! Mine is just that I'd rather not wade into making judgements about Neil's personal life, or, for that matter, the personal life of anyone I don't know. It's a simple idea. It does get a bit trickier when talking about artists, such as Neil Young and Pegi, who are evidently game to share some of their personal lives through the art, at least up to a point. On one hand, creating and sharing music or other art is something of an intimate act, but at the same time, I think it's important not to lose perspective and imagine that, because we listen to the music, we know these people better than we do.
"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim"--Oscar Wilde.
Speaking more generally, intimate relationships are a relatively sensitive topic, as evidenced by some of the post on this thread. So, yeah, a little real world experience should tell us that this subject has the potential to touch nerves.
Thanks Ian fair points. As much of his music is about his life it can't be avoided that's all I'm saying.
Sometimes it's easier to spot things from the outside looking in. It makes it even easier because most of his music is an autobiographical outpouring of emotions inspired by whatever or whomever Neil is thinking and feeling about at the time.
He wrote some of the sexiest lyrics a man could ever write to his woman. We all knew he was deeply in love with her because most of his best love ballads were inspired by his love for her.
"Silver wings of mornin'
Shinin' in the gray day
While the ice is formin'
On a lonely runway.
Hydraulic wipers pumpin'
'Til the window glistens
Somethin' sayin' somethin'
No one seems to listen.
Men with walkie-talkies
Men with flashlights wavin'
Up upon the tower
Time reads daylight savings.
I'm home again to you babe
You know it makes me wonder
Sittin' in the quiet slipstream
In the thunder..."
Haven't we all been in the "quiet slipstream" at one time or another fantasizing about being with the one you love?
The song she covers suggests anything but fault or misgiving. It is an indication of her inability to move on because she is surrounded by memories of him everywhere she goes. Even the air she breaths. She's reaching deep here, pulling out all the stops as a brave woman warrior betrayed by "love."
I just hope she's surrounded by love deserving of her resilience, intelligence, grace, and beauty.
Just heard the whole album. He really hurt her. After she raised his kids and held down the ranch so he could follow the muse, he dumped her. Neil's autobiography is in every song, so let's not make excuses. What he did was selfish and wrong. It's made me better appreciate my own husband and 24 year marriage. I hope she finds the happiness she deserves.
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