2 posts tagged “neil young”

Neil Young was in my dream this morning.

Reason for the yawn? Famous people show up in my dreams with unpredictable regularity.

I think nothing of it. By that I mean I'm not all gaga and star-struck and running up with drool dripping down my chin digging through pockets for paper (I find only a Wendy's napkin crushed inside a blue-jeans jacket pocket) and pen (which inevitably I'll have) for an autograph. What I mean is, they're there like anyone else who normally appears, like friends ... or family, only way better.

Usually the talents are in film. This time it was Neil Young. A veritable rock legend and among the industry's worst dressers. I mean no disparagement, that's throwing stones at the mirror. It's just abundantly clear, as it's been since the '60s, when he hit the scene in a soft landing before taking off running, wearing effectively the very clothes he wears today, that for Neil, it's about music, not appearance.

I'm a Neil fan from way back. "Harvest" was my first rock album (I'm dating myself) and the rest, far as he and I are concerned, is history.

So what was the dream? What's this mega-mega-mega talent doing in the dream of this little girl livin' the simple life in Tacoma, Washington?

Not much. We were hangin' out together, seemingly in a theater or concert hall as it was fairly dark and there was seating and possibly sound equipment. He's involved in some project, getting something ready for a show or appearance or recording, and we're yakkin' as he goes about it.

That continues for a while, then we're in the balcony with red seating, standing, he's in the row behind me. He's getting ready to leave and holding an armful of papers, all jumbled and disorganized. Sheets of white paper, 8-1/2-by-11, bearing his handwriting in black ink, uneven scrawls across the unlined pages. The lyrics they are, the original sheets with his lyrics to tunes dating far back to the "Cinnamon Girl" era, a body of work, songs put onto records, songs that became known or hits.

And he hands the mishmash of pages to me, giving them to me because he has no use for them any longer. And I receive them -- the originals! -- and think: "Oh my god, wait till my sister sees!" (She's a huge fan too.)

Then Neil takes off and I'm in the balcony still and now there's a radio and I'm listening to it as Neil's pledged to have a song, a surprise, played for me (seems his next stop was a radio station).

Time passes, in his busyness, he forgets, then remembers (possibly through a telepathic nudge to him or the radio station?) ... and the song he's chosen comes on, "See the Sky About to Rain," off his very early work, "On the Beach."

And I chuckle. Either it's a very cool, Neil-like metaphor or a comic reference to the Pacific Northwest weather. Either way, Neil in my dream or in person rocks.

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming
Saying something about a queen ...

The writer and singer of those words is Neil Young, whose release of a compilation of live acoustic music from his early era circa 1971, titled Live at Massey Hall, is imminent, on March 13, and I'm thrilled to death. The songlist of recognized career-makers  includes "Old Man," "Cowgirl in the Sand," "Ohio" and "Down by the River." It doesn't include, unfortunately, the song that holds great personal significance and resonance and that is "After the Gold Rush."

I’ve been at the side of this prolific songwriter and guitar player since Harvest arrived in my life, so 1972 or thereabouts. That album marked not only my official foray into a lifetime of music, kicking me up several notches from the -- don't laugh -- Glen Campbell and the Lettermen that rotated endlessly on my little childhood turntable but coincidentally was a birthday gift from playmate/neighbor Andrea -- coincidentally because here I am on the cusp of another birthday and the release of the Neil music I grew up with and in. Anyway, I risk losing the thread with meanderings into the memory bank; the central point is that in the vast wealth of his artistic creations, it’s the simple yet poignant "After the Gold Rush," from the album of the same name, that stays with me.

My ponderings have not illuminated why this be. I didn’t endure a horrible childhood listening to it, Harvest served that purpose, so there’s not that association. Neither do I recollect a specific moment or occasion the song clicked in, capturing like a photograph every detail that remains with you. No, it wasn’t that either. Yet I can’t remember ever being without this song in my soul.

The occasion when "After the Gold Rush" presented itself with particular power and significance was during a camping trip with a small group of friends and peyote back in my University of California Berkeley days. It was in the night in the tent with my very significant and intimate other that I sang softly its words. Now singing was not something I did, or do, normally, or ever, for despite my great passion for music, my singing ability is a negative nil, a fact I admit freely and without embarrassment; simply, the apple did not fall far from that father's tree. So what brought me to singing is elusive. It could've  been to help settle the dust kicked up in a day of peyote tripping; more likely it was to soothe and sweeten the night.

No other song by Neil or anyone plays so consistently and with such clarity, as if it’s rotating on a turntable in my head. I find years later that it's still the one, and only, song that I sing aloud to myself in a whispered tone, sometimes to comfort, sometimes for its sweetness. Clearly it emotes a quality special and rapturous, one that lies in the timbre of his voice, so distinctly and characteristically Neil -- a tad soprano in his youth, with that hint of a nasal twangy shakey quality, feminine, and remarkably emotional without being hard-hitting. It’s also in the piano, striking in its bareness and simplicity, that accompanies and the words that speak of imagination and vision:

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming
Sayin' something about a queen
There were peasants singin' and drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree
There was a fanfare blowin' to the sun
That floated on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies

I was lyin' in a burned out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for a replacement
When the sun burst through the skies
There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
Thinkin' about what a friend had said,
I was hopin' it was a lie
Thinkin' about what a friend had said,
I was hopin' it was a lie

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
They were flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home.

All combined, they speak of a poetic journey ... of a dreamy Neptunian longing for a place better ... not of the Earth and her glares but one softer and warmer ... a place that's home ... a home in the sun. What this song really taps into, I reckon, is more than my so-called spaciness that's been attributed to me by friends for years, particularly during my Berkeley/university days, by which time this song had solidly woven itself into the fabric of my being, but my acute awareness that I'm a visitor, a journeyer and a traveler through time and space. And like no other song in my musical repetorie, this one has stretched its arm deep into my soul, grabbed hold of it, spun it around and presented it like a mirror. Rare and intense is a song that does that. Though wisps of melancholy and yearning color this song, it also speaks to me of hope, in better, elsewhere.

My hat’s off to Neil for a stellar career in song-crafting and guitar playing, oft times mezmerizing or so blazing that you expect the strings to erupt into flames. Perhaps one day I'll blog about the concert where I was at the very edge of the Cow Palace stage and touched his shoe. For now, the debut of Live at Massey Hall, to be delivered to my door any day now, is one of the dreamiest gifts for which this almost-birthday girl could wish.