The Book On Neil Young: You Gotta Tell Your Story Boy

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)
A nice perceptive book review of 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young on LikeTheDew.com "The Book On Neil Young: You Gotta Tell Your Story Boy" by Jeff Cochran:

Some things never change
They stay the way they are
-Neil Young, from “Opera Star,” 1981

Some people never change, but don’t count Neil Young among them. To both the delight and consternation of his fans, particularly over the last three decades, there’s been much about Young’s career that has screamed change. If one liked his most recent album at any given time, it was a sure bet one wouldn’t think as fondly of his next album. Neil Young would be into something else. He has been – and is – into a lot of things.

Readers of his new memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, will learn a lot -perhaps more than they ever wanted -about what inspires and moves Neil Young. They’re also likely to feel frustrated with what they thought would be a standard autobiography. For example, he devotes more space to Pono, the audio system he’s developing (to “save the sound of music”) than he does to his brain surgery and subsequent close call with death. But despite the book’s curious passages, readers should also come away newly impressed with the storyteller.

There is nothing standard about Neil Young.

More of book review of 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young on LikeTheDew.com "The Book On Neil Young: You Gotta Tell Your Story Boy" by Jeff Cochran.

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Neil Young's Hippie Dreams: "Status-quo-disturbing visions" | The Kingston Whig-Standard

Neil Young
Illustration by Paul Lachine
(Click photo to enlarge)
For those who have read Neil Young's new memoir Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream, you know that it is "filled with reminiscences, ideas, idle thoughts and big, status-quo-disturbing visions."

From the review Neil Young's hippie dreams | Entertainment | The Kingston Whig-Standard by Stephen Skyvington:

Instead of giving us the standard tale of excess (sex, drugs and ... you know the rest), or having his story told by a ghostwriter (like Keith Richards), Young opts for telling his own tale, by himself, in his own special way.

Like a man who often looks onstage like he doesn't quite know how to play guitar but somehow pulls it off, the author of Waging Heavy Peace seems at times oddly ill-equipped to write a book. But what a book it is. Filled with reminiscences, ideas, idle thoughts and big, status-quo-disturbing visions, you'll swear you're watching a movie instead of reading a book - which is hardly surprising, given Young's affinity and genuine enthusiasm for film.

...
The book ends with two unforgettable, uplifting chapters. In one, the author describes how he came to write and record one of his most endearing and enduring songs, Will to Love. Suffice to say that if you ever wanted to know how an artist creates a work of art, then you need to read this.

The other chapter - the 68th and last in the book - is as moving a piece of writing as you'll ever encounter. The last paragraph, in particular, is almost Joycean in its reach, and ranks with any song Neil Young has ever written. Rip Van Winkle meets Back to the Future.

Check it out.

Thanks Stephen!

More on Heavy Review of "Waging Heavy Peace" Book by Neil Young.

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A Fan's Reaction to Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young - CBC Music

So what does one long time Neil Young fan think of his new book Waging Heavy Peace?

Well, the answer may surprise you.

From CBC Music - What’cha Readin’? Jason Schneider on Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young, noted music writer/author, Jason Schneider discusses his passion for Young and his music. Schneider wrote about Young extensively in his book Whispering Pines: The Northern Roots of American Music . . . from Hank Snow to The Band
, and also in a biographical timeline on Neil Young.

At this point, we'll reserve judgement on Schneider's comments and let them speak for themself. But hey, don't let that stop anyone from commenting below on whether they liked Waging Heavy Peace.

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Waging Heavy Peace: Capturing The Spirit of the Artist

Neil Young
In The Redwoods
(Click photo to enlarge)
A rather definitive review of Neil Young's book Waging Heavy Peace in All About Jazz by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.

Here's the opening and the whole review is well worth clicking through and reading in its entirety:

An argument can be made that the three greatest artists in the history of contemporary rock music are Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Neil Young, in no particular order. The most controversial amongst the three would be Young.

This of course comes from the fact that Young seems to almost purposely take the path that defies commercial success but it's also a significant part of the reason why he remains so relevant. Where as most rock musicians reflect the time they create in by focusing on making hits, they also become dated when contemporary culture moves into the future and the next generation wants their own identity, their own statement and, yes, their own music. Though rare in rock music, every now and then an artist comes along that creates from a deeper well. And that well is so deeply personal in a creative spiritual sense, that the creativity produced does not reflect a style or genre as much as it does the spirit of the artist.

Waging Heavy Peace is a shining example of just what that means.

There may be no other biography that is so closely in tune with the artist, nor an artist that is this in tune with his muse and has the ability to write about it in such a detailed and expressive way. This is not only an inside look into the life of Young but critically important, what is inside the genius of one of the greatest minds in the world of modern art. And at this level, the genre and concept of art disappears. It is the artistic mind in collaboration with the spiritual soul that becomes much greater than the styles that were more than likely identified by record business executives anyway.

More of review on All About Jazz.

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Heavy Review of "Waging Heavy Peace" Book by Neil Young

"Waging Heavy Peace" Book by Neil Young
#2 on The New York Times Best Sellers
(Details on CONTEST: Win Copy of "Waging Heavy Peace")
With so much Neil Young and Crazy Horse concert tour info happening, we haven't had much time to devote to the reviews of Neil's new book "Waging Heavy Peace".

First, a little news from Neil Young 'Waging Heavy Peace' en route to Hollywood Bowl - latimes.com by Randy Lewis:

“Generally speaking, it’s really encouraging,” Young said over the phone of the response to his book so far. “Some of my friends have written personal notes saying that they’ve enjoyed it, and that makes me feel good. That’s the thing that means the most to me, when I hear back from the people I think of as the target audience for the book.”

“Waging Heavy Peace” has been generating positive reviews from literary critics who have praised its non-chronological structure, akin in some ways to Bob Dylan’s impressionistic 2004 memoir “Chronicles: Volume One.” Young’s book is selling strongly, with more than 300,000 copies in print, and it ranks in the Top 5 nonfiction bestsellers nationally by the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and several other publications.

...

“For guys like Bob and me,” Young said nonchalantly (as if there is a large contingent of people on the same musical plane as Dylan and Young), “this is probably the only way to do it and keep it interesting.... I never really wanted to write it in the regular way from beginning to end. That’s not the way my brain works. That would make it into a job, and I’m not looking for another job.”

...

Young is continuing to write prose and is working on another nonfiction book in addition to pondering a third in which he might delve into fiction. “I think it’d be fun to create some characters and see what happens with them,” he said.

So the book is a best seller and is being hailed by many fans as a wonderful read. We include ourselves in that category.

Most reviews thus far contain descriptions like "compelling, non-linear, stream of consciousness, repetitive, very cars/trains/audio equipment focused, not a tell all, rambling, goofy, sentimental, moving", etc.

All of which is true. But for us -- and most readers it seems -- reading the book "Waging Heavy Peace" makes you feel like Neil is having a conversation with you. Digressing, jumping to the past, to the future, right back to the here and now present.

And as strange -- or simple -- as that might sound, it comes across as highly original in this day and age of ghost writers and high drama. The book contains quite a few eye openers and honest moments undisclosed before yet never ventures into what the industry loves to call "juicy tidbits" (translation - celebrity gossip).

And good for Neil not to sell his soul to sell some books.

All of which brings us to this rather peculiar review from Neil Young's Memoir, "Waging Heavy Peace": Writing Without Reading : The New Yorker by Alec Wilkinson. First, if you're not familiar with The New Yorker, it is a rather renowned publication for the literati in the arts and publishing world.

That said, it seems that Alec Wilkinson's review emanates from an interview he conducted with Neil Young some time ago (Wilkinson does not specify when or where published?). The The New Yorker review begins with the following: "[Neil Young] is the only artist I have ever encountered who is proud of not reading."

Now we did find that somewhat startling but maybe not surprising. It turns out that Wilkinson asked Neil what books he read and he said he didn't read books, "Reading would distract him from writing songs, he once told me, meaning interfere with whatever mechanism supplied him with his melodies and lyrics."

Wilkinson goes on to explain that the weakness of both "Waging Heavy Peace" and Young's songs is because of his lack of exposure to great literature.

On the ride Young told me that he didn’t read, but I might have guessed anyway.

He was a reserved and slightly grave figure, and talking with him was like being trapped with someone whose mind had no reach. He could only talk about what he felt or had seen or thought. I couldn’t respond to one of his remarks by raising an idea it had made me think of and have him make some connection to some other thought and then respond to that. A part of him seemed to have been arrested at a very early age. I am, of course, accustomed to meeting people I don’t feel able to talk to, or who aren’t interested in talking to me.

I hadn’t expected, though, to find that someone whose work had ranged so widely had no curiosity about such an obvious possibility for enlarging the imagination, or to have been so indifferent to it. He seemed like someone who had worked at the same factory for years and years without ever wondering what lay to the left or right of the gates. Finally, I asked who he liked to read, and he said he didn’t read, and I thought, Bingo.

Of course, we can only imagine where Neil's career would be today if only he had read "Tolstoy or Dickens or Chekhov or Kierkegaard" like Mr. Wilkinson. Or the "poems of writers such as Philip Levine or William Butler Yeats or the prose of a writer such as Isak Dinesen."

If only. Maybe "Pocahontas" would sound like this...

Aurora borealis
The astronomical phenomenon of electric charged particles
Canoe paddles stroke deeply in the water
In a long and expedient exit
From the European settlers to the bountiful agriculture yields
And the country we've yet to witness.

Yet. Yet, Wilkinson concludes the review with the ultimate complement:

Thelonius Monk said, The man is a genius who is most himself, and Young has exemplified the remark. His thinking is restricted and sheltered, however, and his writing is aimless.

say what?

Read The New Yorker review yourself and let us know what you thought.

And can anyone point out where Neil says or indicates that he is "proud of not reading."? We think Wilkinson has made a huge leap and mis-characterized an impression.


UPDATE:
Apparently, we were not the only one who found The New Yorker review by Alec Wilkinson to be off target.

From Why Neil Young Doesn't Need To Be Well-Read by Matthew Perpetua:

A review of Neil Young's new memoir Waging Heavy Piece by Alec Wilkinson in The New Yorker argues that the veteran rocker's vast body of work would be improved if he had been exposed to "examples of language carrying complicated thoughts or feelings, the way they are carried in the poems of writers such as Philip Levine or William Butler Yeats or the prose of a writer such as Isak Dinesen." It's a gallingly condescending take on Young, who Wilkinson presents as some sort of simple-minded artistic savant. He describes his words as "insipid and sentimental," and notes that Bob Dylan's music and memoirs are far more cerebral and writerly, as if that was the most important criteria to judge a musician and their work.

Much of Wilkinson's review is really a love letter to books, and he says that a lot of the appeal of reading for him comes down to it enabling the reader to "enter intimately into minds remote in time or place from my own." He argues that music does not "easily embody complex ideas," and that's true in the sense that it's a terrible way to convey pure information or didactic arguments. There are absolutely ideas and arguments that are, as he says, better suited to fiction and prose, but music is amazing because it's so effective in communicating thoughts and emotions, particularly knotty, ambiguous feelings that are very difficult to put into words. But really, it's sort of ridiculous to pit these very different modes of expression against each other – all art forms have their strengths and weaknesses, and you can easily fault novels and poetry for their relative lack of immediacy and concision.

Wilkinson can only consider Young in light of his biases about literature and hangups about what an intelligent artist should be like. He says he reads to gain access to thoughts and experiences that are not his own, yet recoils when he does not see a reflection of himself in Young. He recognizes the value of Young's music, but dismisses it as "artless." It's aggravating, because it's all just an ill-considered bias in favor of the written word, and stubborn refusal to acknowledge that it takes just as much (if not more!) intelligence to convey - and decode - complex thoughts expressed through art forms that rely so much on intuition.

Lastly, don't forget CONTEST: Win "Waging Heavy Peace" Book by Neil Young.

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CONTEST: Win "Waging Heavy Peace" Book by Neil Young

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click to preview pages)
(To win a free copy, see contest details below)
Thanks to the folks at Blue Rider Press, we have five (5) copies of Neil Young's new book "Waging Heavy Peace" to give away in a contest (see contest details below).

In the meantime, here's a comment by Old Black on the book:

I would like to see some discussions on "Waging Heavy Peace" - has anyone (but me) read it? Any comments on Neil with regard to his appearance on Letterman, Psychedelic Pill, et al., should be made in the context of what I think is a very amazing and revealing (or at least, confirming) book.

First, "Waging Heavy Peace" is very well written. This is an incredibly intelligent man with dry (Canadian) wit and an ability to turn a phrase. Should we have expected anything else? He wrote the whole thing straight (no more weed, not even a beer) and he often marvels at his state of mind in this condition as well as worry (he really is worried) that his creative song-writing muse will not visit unless he has burned one. He notes that all (nearly all?) of his songs have been written while high.

He is struggling with loss and the process of losing and it is quite poignant. He continues to miss Briggs, as well as Larry Johnson – his two great collaborators, cheerleaders, and truth tellers in the media he works mostly in – recording and film. Over and over again, he goes back to these two losses. He misses his friend Ben Keith a lot, too. But mostly, he misses his earlier days – the quality of the music (especially the sonic quality), the immediacy of creating, the LP album as an art form, the great studios, and is relevance in the music of the day. He sees it all going, like the passing of the cars he loves (and collects). Pono (which was PureTone before they found out that had already been trademarked) is, in part, his way of trying to resurrect, preserve, and/or protect the sonic quality of music (especially as it relates to his music but it’s not about him). He sees it all slipping away.

But mostly, one gets the sense that even as he looks forward, he is aware that the end is approaching. Time might be running out. As he puts it, he is all about closure now – wrapping up all of the loose ends before it’s too late. And because he has so many projects (Pono, Archives, Lincvolt, his many unfinished car restorations a Rockets retrospective) he feels pulled between finishing those to the highest quality (he often quotes Briggs “Go big or go home” and LA Johnson about the need for quality) and creating new things. I was so taken by how much he wants and needs Crazy Horse, which seems at odds with the fact that he didn’t play with them for almost a decade. He is beginning the consolidation of his affairs – his properties and the financial well-being of his family.

And there is a lot of regret; regret at not be a nicer person, regret at the need to follow his muse to the exclusion of his friendships, and regret at the pain he has caused people. His discussions about Danny Whitten are quite moving. Whitten originally sang the high harmony on Cinnamon Girl but Neil took him off and overdubbed himself, even though he admits Danny sang it much better. And Danny’s death haunts him. He also seems to regret some of the ways he has treated his fans, too. As he notes, he is most alive on-stage in front of an audience with the music echoing through a hall and the fans really into it as much as he is. Nothing seems to piss him off more than pseudo fans in the orchestra pit on cell phones telling their rich friends how cool they are because they got the best tickets in the house from a scalper.

If you haven’t read this book yet, please do yourself a favor and rectify the situation.

Thanks Old Black! We're still working our way through WHP but find we're learning something new every chapter.

While we didn't read this in the book, the title refers to Neil's battle against the iPod and low quality MP3 sound. Someone (maybe Jobs?) said it seemed like Neil was declaring war on Apple to which Neil responded, "No, I'm waging heavy peace."

Incidentally, Waging Heavy Peace is now the #16, #18, #19 best selling book on Amazon.com

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CONTEST: Win a free copy of "Waging Heavy Peace" book by Neil Young

Thanks to the publisher Blue Rider Press, we are pleased to be able to announce that we have five (5) copies to give away in a contest.

To enter the contest for a free copy of "Waging Heavy Peace" by Neil Young , follow these steps:

#1) Subscribe (or if already subscribed, go to Step #2) to one of our blogfeed channels either via Facebook (LIKE us), Twitter (FOLLOW us) and/or subscribe to our email list.

2) Then just email us (thrasher@thrasherswheat.org) with your name, postal mailing address, and which blogfeed channel you signed up for (Facebook, Twitter, email list options noted above in Step #1). *Be sure to identify your complete Facebook ID, Twitter handle, or email address.*

Entries must be emailed with SUBJECT line (exactly): Contest - Waging Heavy Peace

Include name, postal mailing address with *country*.

Deadline: October 19, 2012

We'll then randomly select Thrasher's Wheat readers as winners. Publisher Blue Rider Press and Thrasher's Wheat have agreed that winners will be selected from the entire planet Earth including Canada, Europe, and countries other than the U.S.A. (CLARIFICATION: That last rule was not intended to mean that USA entries are ineligible. USA entries are eligible.)

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TONIGHT: Neil Young & Jimmy Fallon on “David Letterman”

Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young
Neil Young will be a guest on “The Late Show with David Letterman” tonight, Thursday, September 27. Also, Jimmy Fallon will be a guest as well. Or maybe musical entertainment?

Presumably, host David Letterman will have read Waging Heavy Peace and ask a few questions about Neil's writing style and technique? Or about the muse? Or cars and trains?

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)



Incidentally, Waging Heavy Peace is now the #16, #18, #19 best selling book on Amazon.com

Also, there is now a Deluxe version of Waging Heavy Peace . The deluxe eBook edition of Waging Heavy Peace includes excerpts of more than fifteen Neil Young songs (personally selected by Young himself) such as “After the Gold Rush,” “Like a Hurricane,” and “The Needle and the Damage Done,” providing a soundtrack to his stories. Interspersed throughout the text are ten rare Young videos from his own archives, offering an uncommon behind the scenes glimpse of the man behind this memoir. In addition, a complete discography.


Here's a favorite from the book so far...
Talking to Bruce Springsteen shortly after the death of Clarence Clemons, Young realizes that, "Ben Keith was my Clarence Clemons. Clarence was Bruce's Ben Mink."

Also, see:

- Welcome to Neil's world
- Neil Young: 'Being mentioned in Kurt Cobain's suicide note fucked with me' | News | NME.COM
- Neil Young Expands Pono Digital-to-Analog Music Service | Music News | Rolling Stone
- Neil Young in his own words: Autobiography leaves out tales of music and just yammers about nonsense - NY Daily News
- What Neil Said to Bruce: The Juiciest Parts of Neil Young's 'Waging Heavy Peace' | SPIN | Newswire
- Book Review: Neil Young's Wandering Journey Through the Past | Music News | Rolling Stone by Simon Vozick-Levinson.

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Neil Young on “David Letterman” on Thursday

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)

Neil Young will be a guest on “The Late Show with David Letterman” on Thursday, September 27.

We hear Neil has a new book out. Maybe David Letterman will have read it and ask about the muse?

Incidentally, Waging Heavy Peace is now the #6, #5, #4 #3 best selling book on Amazon.com.

Also, there is now a Deluxe version of Waging Heavy Peace . The deluxe eBook edition of Waging Heavy Peace includes excerpts of more than fifteen Neil Young songs (personally selected by Young himself) such as “After the Gold Rush,” “Like a Hurricane,” and “The Needle and the Damage Done,” providing a soundtrack to his stories. Interspersed throughout the text are ten rare Young videos from his own archives, offering an uncommon behind the scenes glimpse of the man behind this memoir. In addition, a complete discography.


Also, Book Review: Neil Young's Wandering Journey Through the Past | Music News | Rolling Stone by Simon Vozick-Levinson.

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LIVE BLOG: Patti Smith Interviews Neil Young at BookExpo America in New York City

Patti Smith & Neil Young
Photo by The New Yorker

UPDATE:

Neil Young and Patti Smith! #BEA12 #bookexpo twitter.com/penguinusa/sta…

— Penguin Books USA (@penguinusa) June 6, 2012

Penguin Books USA (penguinusa) on Twitter:
Penguin Books USA ‏@penguinusa
Live tweeting from the Neil Young lunch. Beginning soon! #BEA12 #bookexpo

"What I love about the book is there is no barrier between you and your reader. It felt like you were talking to me." Patti to Neil #BEA12

— Penguin Books USA (@penguinusa) June 6, 2012

From BEA 2012: Neil Young and Patti Smith Perform for Booksellers by Claire Kirch:

But like every rock concert, things got started a little later than advertised: Smith and Young came on stage at 12:20 and bonded for the next hour in front of a packed hall of more than 1,100 booksellers and other fans, as they discussed their music, their books, dreams; the impact of technology upon their art; life itself, and even their love of trains.

It was no surprise that Smith and Young would immediately launch into a discussion about his music, beginning with Young’s latest album, Americana, which was released yesterday.

“We’ll move on,” Smith at one point assured her audience, after questioning Young about his original intent in writing the song, “Jesus Chariot.” “But I just can’t resist talking about the record.”

As the conversation segued into a discussion of his memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, scheduled for release by Blue Rider Press in October, Young described it as more of a diary than a memoir. “I would write what I was thinking,” he told Smith, who agreed with him, adding, “There’s no barrier between the reader and you. I really felt you were talking to me. You were, right?”

Smith also praised Waging Heavy Peace for its nonlinear narrative structure, telling Young, “It’s not chronological, but memory is not chronological.”
The conversation veered back to music, with a discussion of one of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young’s most seminal songs, “Ohio,” written and composed by Young in 1970. Asked by Smith about the backstory to the song, Young disclosed that “Ohio” was written far from the Midwest, while he was staying with fellow singer David Crosby at a cabin in northern California. The song was sparked in response to a Life magazine cover, the iconic photo of the young woman kneeling over the prone body of a young man shot at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard.

“When were you aware of the impact that the song made?” Smith asked, referring to the Viet Nam protesters of that era who took up “Ohio” as their anthem. The question prompted Young to reveal his discomfort that he had profited financially from the upheaval, declaring, “You didn’t want to become that which you were separating yourself from.” Smith, who recalled working at a New York City bookstore at the time the song was released, praised him for “translating that picture,” and for “making us more aware of what was going on in our world.”

Although she wasn’t always successful, Smith did try at various points to turn the conversation back to books, in between her questions about Young’s music and his songwriting process. Her question to Young on his reading preferences revealed that he is reading Smith’s memoir about her relationship to Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids. “I’m the highway and landscapes. You are cities,” Young said, praising her book as effusively as she had previously praised his. “We’re on similar paths, but in different geographic places. Our [books] represent that.”

From Neil Young's book is more a diary than a memoir, he says – USATODAY.com by Bob Minzesheimer:

Young said he and David Crosby (then part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) were visiting friends in the Redwoods in Northern California where he saw a magazine cover — either Time or Newsweek— and "the photo of the girl bent over a dead student. It was unbelievable. I still get chills just thinking about it."
He picked up a guitar and a song came to him. "It took about a minute."
His lyrics begin: "Tin solders and Nixon coming … Four dead in Ohio."
Young said Crosby said " 'OK. Let's go.' And we got in a car and drove to a recording plant in L.A. The next day, we recorded it."
But later, Young told Smith, "I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to take advantage. I didn't want to make money from something like that. It gets complicated on a consciousness level."

Go Kent? RT @penguinusa: Neil Young wrote "Ohio" in "about a minute." Immediately after hearing about Kent State. Unbelievable. #BEA12

— jen_k (@jen_k) June 6, 2012

Writing a song is like catching a rabbit. You hang out by the rabbit hole, waiting for it to come. - Neil Young #BEA12 #bookexpo

— Penguin Books USA (@penguinusa) June 6, 2012

"Guitars talk. If you really want to write a song, ask a guitar." -Neil Young #BEA12 #bookexpo

— Penguin Books USA (@penguinusa) June 6, 2012

"We will embrace technology so long as we can maintain feeling. We don't want our work to be reduced to information." -Patti Smith #BEA12

— Penguin Books USA (@penguinusa) June 6, 2012

Patti Smith: "What do you read?" Neil Young: "Right now I'm reading you. I'm reading Just Kids and I love it." #BEA12

— nationalbook (@nationalbook) June 6, 2012

Neil Young's dad called him Windy because he always had so many ideas! Can't wait to read his memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, in October! #BEA12

— NatGeo Books (@NatGeoBooks) June 6, 2012

Neil Young and Patti Smith at #BEA12 instagr.am/p/Lin0EeiAnx/

— Jason Boucher (@Bouchermedia) June 6, 2012

Patti Smith & Neil Young
Date: ?

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Today, Patti Smith will host a lunchtime interview of Neil Young at BookExpo America in New York City and discuss his upcoming book 'Waging Heavy Peace'.

In the video above, Patti Smith discusses recording a cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" for her new album Banga.

"The last song on the record, I performed live with my son, Jackson, and my daughter, Jesse," says Smith. "I wanted the album to end like dawn breaking, and I thought of the type of song that I wanted to write. But then I was in a café and I happened to hear Neil Young's 'After the Gold Rush,' and I thought, 'Neil's already written it.'"

More on “Waging Heavy Peace”: Neil Young's Upcoming Book.

More on Patti Smith and Neil Young.

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Waging Heavy Peace: Excerpt, Patti Smith Will Interview Neil Young

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)


Some new developments on Neil Young's upcoming autobiography Waging Heavy Peace.

There is now a fascinating excerpt to read and news that Patti Smith will interview Neil Young at BEA.

The book excerpt can be downloaded from Amazon.com: Buzz Books 2012: Exclusive Pre-Publication Excerpts from Over 30 New Books. Even if you do not have a Kindle device, you should be able to read in the cloud format.

The excerpt is quite fascinating and a nice preview of the book. In the excerpt, Neil talks about Pegi giving him a gift of a Lionel train, his "train barn", recording American Dream with Crosby, Nash & Stills, and the "Feelgood Garage" of amps & cars.

The book promises to take us "from the snows of Ontario through the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today."

Book is available to pre-order on Amazon.com: Waging Heavy Peace (9780399159466): Neil Young: Books and set for release on October 2, 2012.

In other Waging Heavy Peace news Patti Smith will host a lunchtime interview of Neil Young at BookExpo America in New York City on June 6th according to GalleyCat.

More on “Waging Heavy Peace”: Neil Young's Upcoming Book.

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Is It Really All Just A "Hippie Dream"?

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)


"Hippie Dream" reads the note stuck in Neil Young's hat on the cover of his upcoming book 'Waging Heavy Peace' and set for release on October 2, 2012.

The photo for the book cover looks to be from the same photography session that put Neil Young On the Cover of the Rolling Stone.


Neil Young
Rolling Stone - January 2006

And this also seems to be the same photo session as was the same used for 2005 NBC's Saturday Night Live.


Neil Young
Saturday Night Live - December 2005

From a comment on BOOK COVER: 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young by Arthur:

The first thing I notice about the cover is that Neil's eyes are shaded out from the hat brim. He looks like a journalist from the '40's. Makes me think of the image of Lady Justice who's eyes are blindfolded. Probably a metaphor there if you think about it.

The song "Hippie Dream" was pretty much about Crosby, but could be a metaphor again about a generation taking the "High Road" instead of a more balanced "Human Highway".

Bottom line is, Neil is Scott Young's son. And he has a lot of Rassy in him too. But I think he's go a lot more of Scott's DNA in him than anything. Hell, he even LOOKS like Scott these days!

Aside from that, the cover of "Americana" uses mid-'70's images of Crazy Horse and not the current "mature" look of the members. But Neil does that a lot with what he puts out. Hey, it's still Neil. And his career is all one....career.

All we have to do is turn the page when he offers a new chapter.

Thanks Arthur!

More on upcoming book 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young.

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BOOK COVER: 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young

'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)


The book cover for 'Waging Heavy Peace' by Neil Young is now up on Amazon.com: Waging Heavy Peace (9780399159466): Neil Young: Books and set for release on October 2, 2012.

The photo for the book cover looks to be from the same photography session that put Neil Young On the Cover of the Rolling Stone.

Book blurb:

"Young has consistently demonstrated the unbridled passion of an artist who understands that self-renewal is the only way to avoid burning out. For this reason, he has remained one of the most significant artists of the rock and roll era."
-Eddie Vedder

More on “Waging Heavy Peace”: Neil Young's Upcoming Book.

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