Search and destroy: Neil Young

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.

speaking of ny inanities I always liked the 'tell me why / is it hard to make arrangements with yourself / when you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell" line but iirc it's often been lambasted for its faux profundity. Beautiful melody though and the lyric is evocative enough without actually meaning anything coherent

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

― mizzell, Friday, March 20, 2015 9:12 PM
I like America too, but I'm not so sure that Tin Man is about the Wizard of Oz. It could equally be about the Tropic of Sir Galahad. I'm not sure, in fact, if any America song is about anything.

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.

Nah, man, Chicago were the real revolutionaries. The inscription on the inside gatefold of Chicago II reads as follows:

"With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of its forms."

And from there it was but one small step to celebrating a man selling ice cream (in all of its flavors), singing Italian songs.

funny you should say that, since the hot dog place closest to me when i was growing up was owned by chicago's manager and had all their gold records on the wall, so the band chicago is inextricably linked in my mind to hot dogs, fries, and soft-serve ice cream.

anyway, this thread has gotten pretty entertaining!

please don't go dragging down "one toke over the line" with your "horse with no name," though. "one toke over the line" is a great pop song. also, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tdmaEhMHE

i mean, at least "one toke over the line" is genuinely weird! "horse with no name" is not weird, although it wants to be.

A horse is pretty great. The "la la la" part is spooky as hell. Who cares about the lyrics, yall hate on Toto - Africa as well?

no it's pretty great. the chorus part is melodic as hell.

super melodious.

No I like Africa
I guess I like America ok too

They are both songs that seemed really spooky & sad & big & meaningful to me when I was a small child & even as they revealed their own cheap tackiness there's still some element of the old feelings there, like how the country fair felt at night

it was spooky and sad and meaningful
but the air was full of sound

yeah or just riding around in the family car at night looking out the window. the smell of dew on grass, that sort of thing. my cousin and i built this fort out of logs and scrap wood, it probably looked like a decrepit dog house, actually it was attached to the real dog house. that summer we would bring up a radio and sleep out on the roof. i remember one night being elevated into some kind of delicious ecstasy by one song that played, sailing over the moon when the guitar solo hit and then going on about how it was the kind of music i lived for and that all music should sound like it. that song was "(everything i do) i do it for you" by bryan adams.

the song is better if you picture he's in the desert at night

does any Neil song have such prominent bongos?

speaking of ny inanities I always liked the 'tell me why / is it hard to make arrangements with yourself / when you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell" line but iirc it's often been lambasted for its faux profundity. Beautiful melody though and the lyric is evocative enough without actually meaning anything coherent

― marcos, Friday, March 20, 2015 7:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
au contraire, mein herr! "old enough to repay" all the things we've done for you, son, pay your debt to society (as a youthful offender, which you are re lawbreaking, being a hippie, or just being young and Young). How do you do this? Well, at the same time, you are "young enough to sell" your attractive wares, so get going, "make arrangements with yourself" and appointments with others. "You can't be twen-ty/On Sugar Mountain," you've either gotta be a kid or step "one toke over the line." You can't loiter. You're "sittin' downtown at a railway station" for a reason. It's a purpose-driven life and Brewer & Shipley know this. Are they "just" waiting for their man or Man? Purposeful as hell, son.

i mean, at least "one toke over the line" is genuinely weird! "horse with no name" is not weird, although it wants to be.

I can certainly see liking "One Toke Over the Line" more--I like it a lot, and anyway, we like what we like--but I have a harder time getting my head around the idea that "One Toke Over the Line" is the weirder of the two. It's sprightly country-pop--outside of the drug connotation, I think I could easily name a dozen records from the era that have a similar feel. (And lots of Jesus songs, ironic or not, from the same moment...that Lawrence Welk clip is mind-boggling). Outside of the guy whose thread this is, I can't think of anything that sounds like "A Horse with No Name."

i think there's a false dichotomy emerging here

one can like a song and still acknowledge its faults, like asinine lyrics

I'm not sure if you're referring to "One Toke Over the Line" or "A Horse with No Name," or what that has to do with the question of weirdness. I'm speculating, but simple point: get 50 people to listen to both songs for the first time, and ask them which one's weirder. I say an overwhelming majority says "A Horse with No Name."

Never thought of "One Toke" as particularly weird, just a snapshot of Jesus Freak culture from an era where even stuffy evening TV variety shows dabbled in psychedelic pandering.

clemenza otm, it doesn't matter if a horse is intentionally weird, it just has this heavy 70s negative energy to it.

fading billboard in smog