Neil Young Answers The Question: "What is a Thrasher?"
via Neil Young Archives | T-C | LTE
Now that the 1st Leg of Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts' 2025 love earth WORLD Tour is complete, Neil is back to answering letters on NYA.
In particular, Neil answers the immortal question: "What is a Thrasher?" (thanks Road Dawg!)
And more importantly, Neil promises to add the song Thrasher to the setlists for the upcoming North American Leg #2. Obviously, the song resonates deeply with the proprietors of this blog.
Which reminds of the time that The NYA Team announced a major discovery back in 2019 of the original lyrics for Neil Young's song "Thrasher".
Original "Thrasher" Lyrics
(More on the nine page original lyric manuscripts for Neil Young's epic, immortal and legendary song "Thrasher" which reveal several telling lyric changes made during the evolution from writing to 1st performance. )
The Essential “Thrasher” Request Fold Up Sign
(never leave home without it ... or attend a Neil concert w/o)
Labels: archives, lyrics, neil young, neil young archives, nya, song, thrasher
by thrasher@PermaLink: 7/22/2025 04:31:00 PM
14 comments
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14 Comments:
Welcome back.
We continue to be delayed on completing our Dublin concert report. The good news would be that it seems that Neil managed to return home without troubles.
Much to look forward to with the upcoming Leg#2!
I am so glad to hear that!
Your Brother Alan in Seattle
I haven't heard the song, Thrasher, since its debut on the second and third nights of the Rust Never Sleeps tour at Pine Knob Music Theater. That was when I was a cub reporter for the Ypsilanti Press. Met Elliott Roberts at the soundboard with my brother before the show and he promised to meet me afterward to give me new song titles. I remember Thrasher and Powderfinger titles were given to me by him right after the show. I'll have to dig that out of my archives to post here with this new development for the song. Can't wait to ride down to Charlotte with Thrasher to the opening night of the second leg of the tour in North Carolina. This is going to be epic and I'm bringing my youngest son with us. Thrasher will be on the rail and I'll be back at the soundboard. That was a perfect spot for sound at the NY/CH show at Jiffy Lube near Manassas, VA.
Call me mundane, but I tend to think of "thrasher" (in the song) as basically deriving from thresher. As in the heavy-duty agricultural machine. A fortuitous mishearing or maybe poetic license. It's the kind of rich symbolism I'd like think could come from a happy accident.
There's thread, or theme, throughout NY's songs, about machines, energy, consumption. These things seem to kindle a kind of tension, almost a dialectic between greed and compassion, waste and love, commerce and spirit. The result is a lot of fragmentation, in an emotional and psychological sense. I've been trying to distill these tension points (plus my longstanding fascination with SWA,Toast, and AYP) into a play list, which I'm currently titling Restless Consumer. Or possibly Heart's Eye...? It runs as follows:
Quit (Don’t Say You Love Me)
She’s a Healer
Be with You
Two old Friends
The Restless Consumer
Timberline
Safeway Cart
Goin’ Home [AYP version]
Piece of Crap
When I Hold you in My Arms
Standing in the Light of Love
Mr. Disappointment
Gateway of Love
Sleeps with Angels
Are You Passionate?
Quit [Toast]
Good Playlist MetaRock. Nothing mundane whatsoever
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Just a heads up, the Seattle show has been moved to Thursday September 4th. TM says folks can get a refund if they'd like up until July 29th...if you missed getting tickets for this sold out show, it seems like there's a chance there'll be some available after July 29th. KRITFW!
Thanks Jeff. I am gonna go try to get in on short notice Thursday. It will be more likely with the swapped day. See you soon, Neil!
Your Brother Alan in Seattle
Nice list
Thrashers are birds. Passerines.Cowbirds are thrashers.
I had to chuckle when I read the "What is a Thrasher" question. While the Merlin app correctly identifies subtle differences between the many varieties of Thrashers' songs, I have yet to see any birds "looking more than two lanes wide". I have fond memories of my Uncle Rod finally letting me, his then 13 year old nephew, actually drive the magnificent John Deere as it pulled the massive Thrasher down the wheat field outside of Pipestone, Minnesota, in the late 60s. It was for only for one lap down and back, but the splendor of that short time at the helm has found a place to stay for 57 years now, so far. Thrashers and threshers. A difference subtle as the many songs of the avian friends. As a farm implement, a thresher is a machine that separates grain from its stalk and straw, while a thrasher is a person or machine that beats or strikes something to separate the grain from its stalk. Two different but similar machines to achieve basically the same result. But then, not many coming along now in our TikTok age will be concerned with either.
Aer, thank you for the elaboration on our favorite topic.
Our plan is to update our Thrasher song analysis... someday.
The Thrasher analysis was one of our 1st rust postings back in 1993.
A bird? Farm equipment? Quite a span.
Fascinating.
Alas, no Thrasher in Charlotte. Were you on the rail with your sign?
Yes, I remember the Thrasher discussion(s). I think my favorite comment was - "The allegories and allusions in this song are multilayered and full of many meanings, as a good song should be. As Robert Hunter has aptly said: "A good lyric is allusion, illusion, subterfuge and collusion. ... I may know where they come from, but I don't know where they've been." - from James Sheats.
Metaphors need a familiar image to warp from, regardless of what direction that adventure takes. It was always very apparent to me that this Thrasher, with its job to do, starts on the farm, as Neil confirmed.
My favorite Neil songs, and Thrasher is right up there, can mean many things throughout my life, and sometimes what Neil might have written it to mean is nowhere to be found on a particular listening, and that makes it magic. We all have that right once the song is released to the world. The song and lyric can have a life of its own, changing with the times, and/or love found or lost. CSN is nowhere to be found, for me, in the song anymore. If Neil does add Thrasher to the Love Earth set, the times can make the delivery start with immigrants hiding behind hay bales for much more literal reasons. Mother Nature is still on the run, and the 70s are long gone. I don't mind that Neil's songs are so much more literal now. I still have those masterpieces to take me away.
Thanks Aer. Right, no Thrasher in Charlotte or Richmond.
We'd say if Ambulance Blues is played the likelihood of Thrasher is pretty low. Maybe we'll get some more set adjustments?
That said, The Chrome Hearts are jamming away and that works for us.
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