Neil Young: Waging Heavy Peace

Did i mention cars?

so Neil has never read his dad's writing? innaresting

I read the book. I was a little shocked at how "simplistic" Neil seems. The fact he's not a reader is weird, since his father was a prolific author. Strange book, interesting guy.

― One Way Ticket on the 1277 Express (Bill Magill), Thursday, October 18, 2012 4:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I mean sometimes I get a simplistic vibe from some of his songs, and there are times when it just works perfectly, and then there are other times where it's like "Is he playing a character? Is this affected? Is it ironic?" and I can't tell.

there's a difference between simplistic and simple
some people are just plain spoken and uncomplicated, i always figured he was one of those people and it's something i genuinely like about him!

there's also something about the way he speaks in interviews that makes me think it's partly mental illness that's at play. I almost wonder if he avoids reading because of how strongly it affects him.

he also buys a clive cussler book at some point.
for all its faults, i did appreciate that the book is pretty obviously written (typed even) by Neil himself, as opposed to a ghostwriter.

and then there are other times where it's like "Is he playing a character? Is this affected? Is it ironic?" and I can't tell.

^its apparently not ironic. Sometimes he's able to pull a work of genius out of the air, sometimes he just really has a clunker. I dont think he has a sense of irony, now that ive read his book.

there's also something about the way he speaks in interviews that makes me think it's partly mental illness that's at play. I almost wonder if he avoids reading because of how strongly it affects him.

― michael bolton's reckless daughter (Hurting 2), Thursday, October 18, 2012 3:53 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there was a similar thing in Shakey where thurston moore was talking about going on tour with crazy horse and he was like "neil doesn't really know anything that's going on in music" like you could tell he only had the vaguest idea about what "punk" was when he wrote hey hey, my my, but it was just the idea of it more than the actual music that influenced him in his weird neil way

He's somewhat childlike. I'm anticipating when i get around to Townshend's book it's gonna be a 180 degree difference

Townsend's more of an adolescent

i've never thought of him as childlike because he clearly has a pretty good sense of human nature and adult feelings, but his uncomplicatedness and lack of broodiness is a quality i find really appealing.

i mean, you don't have to wear a hairshirt of pain to make noise. you can just enjoy making noise. that's admirable!

We're looking at this all wrong. He's just Canadian. (Thanks, tip your servers.)

Townsend's more of an adolescent

― stop swearing and start windmilling (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 18, 2012 5:27 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess cuz you say it its true

I just read a book about a guy playing with toy trains, is obsessed with cars, and keeps repeating the same shit over and over. It's not a criticism, its endearing, but he's childlike

lack of broodiness is a quality i find really appealing.

^he broods quite a bit

haha

Townsend's self-seriousness and self-consciousness strike me very much like a teenager's is all. Neil isn't like that, he's more like a moody 10 yo or something.

xp

Townshend's a smart fellow but his songwriting is often clumsy Thinking About Things exercises whereas Young has unfathomable depths behind the doggerel lyrics and nursery rhyme melodies.

Cortez the Killer, albeit written in high school, does at times sound like it was written by a 10-year-old. But an incredibly awesome 10-year-old.

ok well then i take it all back
i'm listening to american stars n bars right now btw

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

They carried them to the flatlands
And they died along the way
But they built up with their bare hands
What we still can't do today.

although I love the way the next verse is a seeming nonsequitur about pining for a lost woman. I always hoped there was some mind-blowing metaphorical meaning to the whole song revealed by that part, but there probably isn't.

the mind-blowing metaphorical meaning to the whole song is revealed by the rad guitar solo

^^ as in most Young songs

otm

But they built up with their bare hands
What we still can't do today.

^i fucking love this couplet so much

one of the most enticing tidbits of waging heavy peace [aside from the hot model train action] was neil mentioning the Zuma era collection that will appear on archives vol. 2 -- neil says it's called DUME. [after this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Dume] oh man it is going to be so good. i hope.

seriously vol. 2 of archives....i can't even really quantify how excited i am for that and how insanely let down i will be once neil releases the actual version

lol yes. he also says that joni mitchell won't let him release the jams she did w/ the tonight's the night band in 73! so lame, joni. next time i talk to neil, i'm going to ask if he'll just give me the mp3s for my blog.

but honestly, i think he should just start releasing separate 10-disc box sets of the next few albums -- the time fades away tour, tonight's the night sessions/tour, on the beach sessions, zuma sessions/tour.

fuck i didn't even know about the joni stuff

vol 2 is supposed to have david brigg's "hardcore not pussified glossy commercial" version of tonight's the night right?

yeah the tonight's the night band backs joni on "Raised on Robbery" apparently.
no idea what exactly is going to be included in the archives vol. 2.

yeah the tonight's the night band backs joni on "Raised on Robbery" apparently.

!!

I can't really picture them playing that tightly tbh

haha, no. neil says something like "it's the funkiest thing joni ever did!"

I'm not a fan of the official "Raised on Robbery"'s arrangement so wau

I thought you said something similar on the Joni poll thread - kinda surprised, it's one of my favorites on that album. is it too fussy for you or something?

It's a hamhanded arrangement of a good song. I had the same problems on a couple of Wild Things Run Free songs too. She has such a sui generis sense of harmony and rhythm that I'd rather she do that than essay Jackson Browne or (on the latter) the Police.

there's something to be said about neil's disinterest in fields we'd assume him to be interested in, but not from somebody who assumes writes shit like "After the ride it occurred to me that his lack of reading accounted for some few of his lyrics being insipid or sentimental. He apparently had no 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."

re: the new yorker piece

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.

"I couldn't believe I was dealing with such a disinterested interview subject and then he said he didn't read, and i realized. oh, that's why this songwriter/tech geek with an author father doesn't seem to play along with my discussion, his mind has no reach."

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.

I get the feeling this guy is the kind of interviewer who doesn't actually ask questions.

"That reminds me of Moby Dick! You know, the great hunt..."

"..."

"don't you read?"

I didn't even want to comment on yet another horrible example of needless autobiographical shoehorning.

What about the reviewer's description of why reading is fundamental?

not that wilkerson claims to be "especially well read"

I think I need the audiobook. It's read by Keith Carradine.

for real? if so that is definitely going to be the way i experience this book, if i ever do

So many rock memoirs and bios coming out at once. Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Greg Allman, Bruce, Leonard Cohen. Fogerty just announced his.

Allman's was better than Young's. Will read Townshends and possibly Fogerty's. Dont care about the other ones, unless by "Bruce" you mean "Bruce Dickinson"