INTERVIEW: Neil Young - The music icon on his 50 year career, making music and his new documentary | CBC

In a recent CBC interview, Neil Young discusses how he feels about recording music, what it means to be an authentic person and this current moment in Canada.

From "Neil Young - The music icon on his 50 year career, making music and his new documentary" | CBC by Tom Power:

On reflecting on 50 years of his career and what he puts into the Neil Young online archives.

Neil Young: I'm looking forward to the next things that I'm going to put in it. We're searching through all kinds of stuff that we have —from unreleased Crazy Horse to unreleased Pearl Jam. It's just an amazing amount of stuff. I was going pretty fast for a while in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I made more records than I could put out and more films than I could put out. I didn't even have a chance to finish some of them. Now that's what I'm doing as I'm going through those projects that were roughed in and deciding while rough is good enough for those, you've got the feeling. Sometimes I have to do some kind of work to technically make them better. There's just so much to do that is in the future, compared to listening to what's there. I'm just creating all of this so that it's a cohesive record of what we all accomplished together.

On the importance of the first take and the pursuit of perfection in the recording process.

Neil Young: Usually take one's the best one if you're ready. If you're not ready, then you shouldn't have been there. Everybody should know the song and the changes. They should know the melody. They should know what the song is about before they go in the studio. You should never be running it down or practising it. You should have the roadies play the instruments so that everybody knows it works. Then the musicians go in and play. They play it once and they're done. If they want to play it 100 times to get it perfect, that's fine. That's somebody else's record.

Here's the deal, you get the vibe and you hear the song and you feel the song. You see the pictures in your mind that you thought of when you were writing the song. No amount of fixing is going to change that or no amount of unfixing is going to change that. The thing is, you have to let that be and fix it or not fix it. But if that vibe is there then that's the only thing that matters. You can't get that vibe. You can have a perfect record, but it wouldn't feel like that. So that's the way I do it because that's what I like to do. I'm not saying anybody else should do that.

Full From "Neil Young - The music icon on his 50 year career, making music and his new documentary" | CBC by Tom Power.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse in the Studio

More on album Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 'Colorado'.

COLORADO is now streaming on http://NeilYoungArchives.com.

COLORADO by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Release Date: October 25, 2019 - Pre-order now
(Please shop locally & independently. But if you can't, we appreciate your supporting Thrasher's Wheat by clicking this link. Thank you!!!)

Also, see commentary on STREAMING PREVIEW: "Milky Way" on COLORADO, New Album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

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