Neil Young News: Neil Young's Dynamite Tracks #18: Busting out of Jail

Friday, November 08, 2024

Neil Young's Dynamite Tracks #18: Busting out of Jail

From the irrepressible Scotsman on Dynamite Tracks #18: Busting out of Jail:

Bob Dylan said:
“Hearing Elvis for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
Bob’s words ring true. And whether the jail-break is instigated by Elvis Presley or Bob himself, busting out of jail is one of my favourite themes for music... and art in general.
Some music is about wallowing in despair, a comfort food of sorts. I prefer tracks that provoke positive action.
Sun Green is the classic, probably definitive Neil Young song about busting out of jail. A dynamite track not just in its performance, but in its very conception.
On one level, Greendale as a whole is basically the “guidebook to Neil Young”: and Sun Green is the bit where everything reaches boiling point. Obstacles within are demolished, and the spirit reaches its potential. A journey to freedom.
On a more down-to-Earth level, Greendale is about a bunch of very normal people—and a few abnormal ones—living their lives. And because Neil created them all, he’s in all of them.
He’s the curmudgeonly, world-wise Grandpa, but he’s also the ever-youthful Sun Green.
Remember how in the Wizard of Oz the real characters from Dorothy’s life on the farm appear in Oz, but they’re not quite the same? Parallel, but not identical? Greendale is like that:
In the character of Jed, we see an echo of Danny Whitten. And the track Carmichael tells a vivid story of a grief and mourning that is essentially the 2003 version of Tonight’s the Night.
…not identical, but parallel.
Greendale is not a political album, thank God… nor is it an environmental one. (The excellent final song kicks open the door to an environmental avenue).
It’s an album about living. And of course, there’s a lot of death in it, too. Death adds tension to Greendale, inspiring the survivors to live their lives more fully.