Tuesday 7 March 2017

I'm getting blown away, Young man

I've never liked Neil Young. I didn't get Crosby, Stills and Nash, with or without Young, though of course Nash played a big role in those wonderful 60s chart hits by The Hollies. They were all too folky and country for me. (I know my all time hero is a man with an acoustic guitar, Roy Harper, but he isn't folk*). But maybe I was wrong about Young....

CSN&Y were all well known musicians before they got together, an early "supergroup". Crosby was in the Byrds, Nash as already noted was in the Hollies (and the odd one out - a Brit) and Stills and Young were in Buffalo Springfield, whose best known song is probably the Stills song For What It's Worth. If you don't recognise the title, that's understandable, as it doesn't appear in the lyric. I heard it played on Radio 2 recently, so clearly isn't obscure - even if you don't recognise the title, the chorus may well strike a chord:
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

The song got adopted by the anti-war and other protest movements, understandably in view of the opening lines:
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

Stills says many people think the song is about the Kent State shootings, in which 4 unarmed college students were shot dead and 9 others injured by National Guardsmen at an anti-war protest in 1970, even though it was written 3 years earlier. The song is indeed a protest song, though not about war. It was inspired by demonstrations against a 10pm curfew placed on Sunset Strip which residents and businesses had pressed Los Angeles to introduce, irritated by traffic and crowds of young people going to clubs and music venues. The young music fans thought the curfew an infringement of their civil rights. Stills has said that the song got its title from what he said when he presented it to the grandly named record company executive Ahmet Ertegun: "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it".**

Crosby basically got sacked from the Byrds and acquired a reputation for being "difficult". Buffalo Springfield disbanded, so Stills and Young were at a lose end, though Young got his own band, Crazy Horse, together. I rather like the story about how CSN got together. They were all at a houseparty in the States and, hanging out in the kitchen, started to sing songs acapella. Hearing the harmonies, they said "we should get a band together". Which they did but, as Nash was still contracted with the Hollies (a bit like footballers back in the day, no freedom of movement!) Ertegun had to do a deal. After their previous experience, paranoia made them call the group "Crosby, Stills and Nash" as, if anyone wanted to leave, the others would have to change the name.

CSN had immediate success - the well known Marrakesh Express. I thought it a bit light, neither mainstream pop nor something more serious. Checking back, it wasn't a very big hit, though bigger here than in the States. Despite this success CSN felt the band needed more. They tried to get Stevie Winwood (I've mentioned him before - must do a proper blog on him sometime) but he was busy with Blind Faith. Ertegun suggested Young and, despite some reservation from Stills, Young joined though, hedging his bets, he wanted to keep his own band going as well.

Neil Young's addition to CS&N made them even more famous though, with or without occasional member Young, CS&N had no enormous mainstream hits, which I hadn't really appreciated given their name recognition, though their albums Deja Vu and CSN were huge. However, the profile helped turbo-charge Young's solo career, his album After the Goldrush album did well, then Harvest with its number 1 hit single (in the US, 10 here) Heart of Gold was a massive seller. I always thought that song, with its weedy and reedy, whinging, whining vocal was the epitome of wimp. If you don't remember just how wimpy, listen here

However, somehow, Neil Young recorded one of my favourite all time songs. I remember listening to John Peel's show, probably in the late 70s or early 80s, listening out for stuff by Joy Division. The great thing about Peel was that he didn't speak over the records, so it was ideal for making your own bootleg cassettes. He announced a Neil Young song and something made me press record.

The song was Like A Hurricane, a live recording from the 1977 album American Stars 'n Bars. The song starts with some ear grabbing guitar which soars and then swoops before the vocal comes in. And of course it's reedy Neil, but rocking a bit. He whines for a couple of verses and then a chorus, with a decent lyric:
You are like a hurricane/ There's calm in your eye/And I'm getting blown away....
Then, after 2 and a half minutes, comes the guitar break, which really gets going with, well, a couple of minutes of fireworks really. Neil whines back in with another brief verse before another 2 and a half minutes of guitar fireworks, before the final thrash takes us to a fairly predictable but satisfying ending. This song is awesome and whenever I listen to it I think it's the shortest 8 minutes of my life.

There are loads of live versions of the song on youtube, though none of the ones I've listened to rival the recording that was officially released.

A friend whose views on music I trust tells me I've missed out on Young, he's great live and there are loads of other good tracks. Mind, when I've checked out sites like Rolling Stone, which has a readers poll of best Neil Young tracks and also "20 insanely great Neil Young tracks only hardcore fans know" I've not found anything else I like much..... yet (though Ohio isn't bad, see **). But there's an amazing number of links to lists like these on Google, so there's a few tracks to check out yet....

But hey, maybe I just found one while writing this - "The Restless Consumer", an angry rant against George W Bush from 2006. You can hear this one (with official video) here. Clearly, though, my Neil Young highlights playlist is going to remain fairly short. But thanks for Like A Hurricane, man.

*The best description I've seen of Roy Harper is that he "belongs in the category of epic progressive acoustic - which would be a category of one". So not really folk at all. "The Restless Consumer", though very electric, has a very similar feel to some of Roy's angrier stuff.

**For what it's worth, it's actually the Neil Young song Ohio that is about the Kent State shootings. Young called the incident the "biggest lesson ever learned at an American institute of higher education". Young, who has made many political songs and even more comments, including getting into an online spat with Donald Trump in 2015, is Canadian.

Rolling Stone magazine links:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-best-neil-young-songs-20110608   (Like Hurricane polled 4th)
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/20-insanely-great-neil-young-songs-only-hardcore-fans-know-20140515
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/readers-poll-the-10-best-neil-young-deep-cuts-20150603 (this is a fan poll which excludes "hits")

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