Search and destroy: Neil Young

"Horse With No Name" feels like the equivalent of those pop folk songs with banjos and suspenders nowadays

otm

"There were plants and birds and rocks and things" is in its way a hilariously great lyric

don't care much for America but "Sister Golden Hair" is a nonsensical trifle that I love

"i don't know man / it was a desert / who gives a fuck / lalalalala-la"

The ocean is a desert with it's life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

I have a hard time ignoring the lyrics, they are exactly what poseur hippies say. "I've been to the desert/in the desert you can remember your name". Neil Young was more subtle in his writing, he might sing about mountains and stuff but it is with prettier words than "Plants and birds and rocks and trees". I guess you could make a case for it being raw and unschooled but the performance is too whispery and light to come across with any vitality at all. The song doesn't develop anywhere. It's like a catalog of things you see in a landscape, it's just a bunch of descriptions, floating in space. Some hippie thinking he's spiritual and telling you about it.

"Heart of Gold" has this awesome folk song structure and it uses repetition ("I wanna live"/"i wanna give") to that end. It doesn't have clunkers like "Plants and birds and rocks and trees", relying not on telling the audience but showing them. He is a miner, his heart is gold. There are implied metaphors and relationships. As the song progresses he doesn't rely on description so much as comparison/contrast. Things happen, he travels, he experiences things that are actually pretty vague, and uses folk repetition of the "Heart of Gold". We come back to the title of the song, the metaphor that everyone probably can relate to (hence the song's massive popularity).

These new experiences describe the theme Heart of Gold. Which is basically whatever the listener wants to decide for themselves. It is a metaphor that must be arrived at by the listener. By juxtapositioning the "Redwoods"/"Hollywood"/"cross(ing) the oceans" with this theme Neil Young is engaging the listener in the act of creating meaning.

Oh another part of "Horse" is basically it is someone just aimlessly wandering. Trying to remember his name. It is a celebration of laziness. "Heart of Gold" is at least in someway about "a miner" whose work is never done. This is why Neil Young was a revolutionary and America was corporate rock.

oh that's why

or could it not be that america was giving a truer account of what it was to be young & fucked-up, without the capacity to formulate coherent thoughts, while neil simply cloaked his lady issues in the vain trappings of the protestant work ethic

I should hate "A Horse with No Name"--any Neil fan should--but as quasi-drug Top-40 silliness, I think it's funnier than "Puff the Magic Dragon" and more atmospheric than "One Toke Over the Line." And I have the advantage of first hearing it when I was 11.

"Sister Golden Hair"'s their best, though.

i totally grant that "horse" is insubstantial hippie poseur fluff but i still enjoy hearing it and it is so amusing and enjoyable on many levels

i mean crosby's "MUSIC IS LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHVVE" from "if could only remember my name" is also insubstantial hippie (not poseur to be sure though) fluff too you know and i also love that

DC otm.

Yes I prefer David Crosby if we're talking 70s caveman stoner folk rock.

Aside from the lyrics "Horse With No Name" does not rock. It sounds like muzak.

What is the other America stuff like? I'd imagine lots of folk blueshammer.

Oh wow I am listening to "I Need You" it is like Harry Nilsson watered down and spun off into a successful 80s soft rock career. Nice arrangements and singing tho!

they worked a lot with George Martin. they have a pretty good song about the wizard of oz. i like america.

ugh u wanna talk bad lyrics

and oz didn't give nothin 2 the tin man

that he didn't

didn't allllllready have

"There were plants and birds and rocks and things" is in its way a hilariously great lyric

― totally unachievable goals and no incentive to compromise (Sparkle Motion),

oh like Neil's above this shit

This is why Neil Young was a revolutionary and America was corporate rock.

― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau),

is "Adam Bruneau" a pseudonym for "Jann Wenner"?

oh like Neil's above this shit
hey now

the Y in the biggest corporate rock band of the early and mid seventies wrote six dozen great better than "A Horse With No Name," so America should feel grateful that Neil Young finally wrote something at their level.

ok lol @ neil young as revolutionary

I'm sure there were bigger corporate rock bands at the time (I know how to measure "bigger," not as sure how to determine "corporate"). Chicago, for one, comes to mind.

if we're talking size and GDP and per capita income Europe and Asia were bigger.

oh like Neil's above this shit
hey now

hey now now now

"heart of gold" is graceful coherent songwriting with a good balance b/w float and weight. "horse with no name" is 100% awkward self-regarding plod, its only redeeming factor apparently being one-note hippie camp. p sure there are much clearer documents of fucked up youth from that era than a dumb hit song, archival truth factor minimal, rejected as evidence. and alfred where is a n.y. lyric as artless as "I was looking at a river bed and the story it told of a river that flowed made me sad to think it was dead". agree neil isn't above that level of inane faux-profundity but at least he always manages to get the picture across in half the words w/ a much richer profile.

really they're both self-regarding but only "heart of gold" earns it.

neil is obv a champ and a better songwriter and a hero and a patriot etc etc but man that line about the riverbed is awesome.

kind of reminds me of the meat puppets

lol. i have to admit just typing that out it grew on me a little bit.

xp good point

in their case though the songs are a lot faster.

neil is obv a champ and a better songwriter and a hero and a patriot etc etc but man that line about the riverbed is awesome.

― da croupier, Friday, March 20, 2015 5:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes it is kind of cool. Like when GTA: Vice City glitches out and you fall through the beach.

But I think "sky of blue/sea of green" is a similar idea only more evocative.

pretty sure we're all convincing ourselves that america > neil young

Neil would write "I was lookin' at the river/It flowed/She was dead/So the story goes"

haha

But I think "sky of blue/sea of green" is a similar idea only more evocative.

Donovan wrote that line iirc

Didn't Donovan do a wandering-in-the-desert-on-mushrooms record in the 70s?

Alfred that rules!

don't mind me i haven't listened to neil young in months, it's friday, and hating on something harmless sounded appealing.

speaking of inanity

Didn't Donovan do a wandering-in-the-desert-on-mushrooms record in the 70s?

what you mean this one?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/Donovan-Cosmic_Wheels.jpg

And now we're back to Bob Dylan imitators LOL.

Donovan also living in the southwest around when Dylan was living in Phoenix iirc

"Heart of Gold" in acoustic set (but electric brings onslaught)

http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/09/24/neil-young-crazy-horse-fukuoka-japan-march-8-1976/

"Welcome to Miami Beach, ladies and gentlemen." Yes, tonight's the night:
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/03/19/neil-young-the-santa-monica-flyers-manchester-england-1973/

Thanks Tyler!

Had to do something drastic, since we're drifting into post-sell-by-date Leitch.