Comment of the Moment: "Little Wing" by Neil Young & New EP "The Times"

"Little Wing" by Neil Young  

Fireside Sessions - Porch Episode

 

Tomorrow, on September 18th, the EP "The Times" by Neil Young will be released.  The new EP contains seven songs from the Fireside Sessions - Porch Episode on July 1, 2020. (More here and now playing on NYA.)

 

"The Times" EP by Neil Young

The coda for the seven track EP is the song "Little Wing" from the album "Hawks & Doves". 

Neil Young's Album of the Week: Hawks & Doves | NYA

Neil Young has commented that "Hawks & Doves  reveals him as "A redneck and a hippie, all rolled into one album."  Released in November 1980, Neil Young's album Hawks & Doves was his tenth studio album and featured the enigmatic song "Little Wing" on The "Doves" side as a "softer/hippie" song. 

 

Neil Young's 'Hawks & Doves' (1980)
Which Side Will You Choose?
The "Blue Side" or "The Red Side"?

The CHOICE Is Yours ... Or Is It?

The delightfully delicate and intimate "Little Wing" serves as a fitting coda to The Times EP -- a  brief song to conclude a brief release. And the fade out section with his wife Daryl Hannah murmuring is -- oh so -- lovely and fitting. It definitely mellows out a rather incendiary release. As Sugar Mountain notes, this is the only known performance of an acoustic "Little Wing".

Which brings us to our  Comment of the Moment from PORCH EPISODE: NOW ON NEIL YOUNG ARCHIVES on 7/02/2020 05:06:00 AM,  Kundalini:

I started today watching/listening to Porchside and started to cry watching the silhouette of Neil sing The Times They Are A’Changing - I watched and listened three times and just finished Little Wing, reading the lyrics.

I have a hearing loss and need to read to get them. Will any of you help me understand/interpret this song?

Who is the Little Wing? She comes when the children sing - is this Spring? And then, change comes to summer but if you fly away then it is winter and that time is the best of all? Well, I try hear, times a changing, and every season is one to treasure. Winter/isolated - a time for solitude and inward glance. Is that the best of all? Some above mention Neil is interior and Bob observes the world around him, so yes Winter - Interior could be the best for Neil.

We approach the Fourth of July and Neil presents us with such a gift - from Alabama to Campaigner to Ohio, offering political calls to action.

A break for “Water Is Life” and a request for donations to Navajo Water Project. I see this offering as a strong celebration of our country, and yet, Neil recognizes that we built our Nation on the backs of Indigenous. Then, Neil’s soulful prophetic voice sings Bob’s Times Are A Changing - Admit that the waters around you have grown...

Lookin’ For a Leader - with updated lyrics follows, then Southern Man - speaks to BLM today and then closes with wistful Little Wing.

Happy Fourth of July - Our country has its work to do and our Troubadour Neil is saying get out there - work for the man to succeed the current occupant of the White House, the Man who has the Great Spirit on his side.

In reply, a comment by  (D.) Ian Kertis; The Metamorphic Rocker:

@Kundalini, Regarding Little Wing, I think your interpretation is solid.

I've always found the song very touching, with the nursery rhyme-like simplicity of the words. It could work well as a lullaby. I think the Little Wing character herself could represent hope, relief, or fresh beginnings--which could be symbolically associated with spring, the sprouting up of new life, etc, just as in the title track of Homegrown: "One day, without no warning, things start jumping up from the ground"--the exuberance of renewed growth. "Winter is the best time of them all" is the puzzler, and I don't have a strong reading of that line as yet.

Neil has several other songs with birds as characters or symbols: the aptly titled Birds from 'Gold Rush', Dangerbird, Thrasher, The Old Homestead (with its three "prehistoric birds"), and the much later Beautiful Bluebird (among others) show this motif. I'm not going to unfold a thesis on avian imagery in the lyrics of Neil Young--although that's an enticing project for the future--but this may provide some context for the imagery of Little Wing.

Sorry if I'm giving more questions than answers, but I too find the song fascinating and enigmatic.

Thank you both Kundalini & Meta Rocker for your thoughts and contributions on " Little Wing".

Hopefully it draws others back to  Neil Young's "Redneck-hippie" Hawks & Doves album.

Little Wing, don't fly away
When the summer turns to fall
Don't you know some people say
The winter is the best time of them all
Winter is the best of all.
 

We can only hope & pray that neil is right about the coming winter...

may all of our seasons make the turn.
peace

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Join Neil out on the porch and listen to The Times Now available on CD. Exclusively streaming on neilyoungarchives.com, the Neil Young Archives mobile app, and Amazon Music

A post shared by Neil Young Archives (@neilyoungarchives) on Sep 18, 2020 at 10:00am PDT

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