For many of us, Neil Young’s music has provided the soundtrack to our lives for almost as long as we can remember.
I can’t say exactly when Young’s music began to seep deep into my consciousness. But looking back on it now some forty years on, I can still vividly recall the exact moment when the spark of Young’s music first began to flicker and burn. It all began on the morning of May 5, 1970.
The day before, on a college campus in Kent, Ohio, four students had been killed by the National Guard while protesting against the Vietnam War.
I was in the third grade at the time and couldn’t really comprehend much about the world events swirling about us. As I walked into class that day, my third-grade teacher was deeply troubled and shaking her head as she stared at the front page of the day’s paper.
“This is awful,” she declared as she gestured toward the large photo across the top of the page. As I focused on the photo, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It seemed to be a dead person on the ground, with a girl crying while kneeling before the body—her arms flung wide open and what appeared to be blood streaming down the pavement.
I had never seen a picture of a dead person.
“This is awful. Printing a picture like this on the front page … where children can see it?,” the teacher intoned as my nine-year-old eyes stared, puzzled by the image.
Unknown to me at the time, immediately after the Kent State shooting (sometimes referred to as the “Kent Massacre”) on May 4, 1970, Neil Young composed the song “Ohio” after looking at photos appearing in Life magazine and then taking a walk in the woods. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young went into the studio and recorded the song, which was released to radio stations shortly after the killings. Soon, the lyrics “Four dead in Ohio” became an anthem for a generation. In some parts of the country, the song was banned from playlists because of its “antiwar” and “anti-Nixon” sentiments.
Some years later, it would become widely known that “Ohio” referred to the Kent State shootings, with the lyrics “Four dead in Ohio” evoking that Pulitzer-winning image I had inadvertently seen as a young boy. But what really struck me was how the teacher had been most concerned about the printing of the photo in a family newspaper, rather than the events surrounding that tragic day in U.S. history.
David Crosby once said that Young calling Nixon’s name out in the “Ohio” lyrics was “the bravest thing I ever heard.” Crosby noted that at the time, it seemed like those who stood up to Nixon, like those at Kent State, were shot. “Neil Young did not seem scared at all,” Crosby said.
And it is Neil Young’s fearlessness to sing truth to power that I have come to admire most. Which is not to diminish my love in following his concerts, collecting his music, blogging about him, and perhaps most importantly, the camaraderie shared with fellow fans. My life is filled with these fond memories of Young’s music, as I go on my very own journey through the past.
Like back to Woodstock in August 1969. No, I wasn’t actually there on that culturally historic weekend on a farm in upstate New York. But my best friend’s sister had the triple-disc album of the Woodstock film soundtrack, and I used to listen to it on her Dad’s old hi-fi stereo—much to his dismay.
Or back to our very first album—Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s 1971 live double album 4 Way Street. The between-song concert banter and camaraderie among the four struck me at once as clever, passionate, and humorous.
Or maybe it was back when AM top forty radio was playing “Heart of Gold” in 1972. I had never been “from Hollywood to Redwood,” of course. But a drive up the California coastal highway sounded kind of cool while growing up far away on the other side of the country by the Atlantic Ocean.
Or possibly it was my first giant, outdoor stadium Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concert—on a blazing hot day in the summer of 1974. I was only thirteen years old at the time, but looking back, that day seems to have made quite an impression on me. Were all of those peace and love folks really the “hippies” that my parents feared so much?
But what is it about Neil Young and his music that so many miss that we fans seem to see and hear and feel?
In the parlance of our times, it’s complicated to say what exactly drew us to Young’s music. It seems more than just the warm, heartfelt, enigmatic, poetic lyrics. More than just the strange and often haunting vocal phrasings. More than just the gentle, folkie acoustic side, contrasted by the equally raging, wailing electric side.
The passion among Young’s diehard fans—sometimes known as “Rusties”—is really what makes following his music such a joy and pleasure.
Rarely will you find as diverse a group of fans so united in their appreciation and celebration of an artist. Of course, Young is not just any artist but one of the most influential singer-songwriters ever to emerge from North America. Combining the lyrical complexity of Bob Dylan’s songwriting and the emotional drama of a Bruce Springsteen concert, Young is truly one of last remaining giants of the twentieth century to still be as relevant and compelling today as he was forty years ago.
Full disclosure here. When author (and fellow music blogger) Glen Boyd asked me to help out on this book by suggesting some topic sections, proof chapters, and fact check them as he churned them out, as well as provide some materials, I was a bit hesitant. Not that I thought a Neil Young FAQ was a bad idea or anything. It was just thinking about the daunting task of trying to catalog the virtually uncategorizable Neil Young.
But I can say after watching Boyd’s vision to comprehensively document Young’s forty-plus-year career come together—all the while juggling all of the other challenges that come with following this rock-’n’-roll scene on a daily basis—Neil Young FAQ will hopefully be an essential reference book in your own music library. And just maybe it will provide some clues to unlocking the mysteries of Young’s vast canon of work over some five decades and counting.
I’ve enjoyed working with Glen Boyd and all the other wonderful fans around the world who recognize, respect, and celebrate Neil Young’s music. It is this global fan community that makes this all possible and such an honor to be part of.
Still hiding behind hay bales,
Thrasher
Publisher/Editor
Neil Young News Blog
http://NeilYoungNews.ThrashersWheat.org
March 2012