Dukin' it Out: Post 1980 Neil Young -vs- Post 1980 Lou Reed

Was in a band with Rick James, signed to Motown. Lou Reed can't top that.

listening to "Tonight's The Night" off Live Rust and thinking that it would have been great if Neil in the 80s had done what Lou Reed did on Rock 'N' Roll Animal: taken a few of his "dark" songs and pumped up their arrangements, making them streamlined arena rock. It would have fit with Neil's maximalist thinking through 1987 or so. Like, turn "Tonight's The Night" into a happy pump-your-fist anthem! The Live Rust version (which is fab) gets close to this with the backup vocals, but it's still pretty scuzzy guitar-wise. Clean that up, get a few more back-up singers, and go Vegas. Another model could have been Live At Budokan. Would it have worked? I doubt it! But since when has that stopped Neil?

closest he came was probably the booker t/mgs tour following harvest moon -- backup singers anyway. but when i saw him then the focus was mainly on feeeeeeedback.

yeah, I saw that tour; it was pretty scuzzy iirc (we'd brought a bunch of Crazy Horse malt liquor to the show, lol college/Neil intersection, so I can't really remember the details too well)

Are You Passionate is ~smooth~ but I think it would be cool to hear that kind of arrangement to older songs, the way Dylan and Reed re-imagine their older songs.

"Trans" tour, w/ Nils Lofgren was sort of fist pumping arena rock. Still w/ Neil's guitar playing of course.

Also great btw

Didn't Booker T play on AYP?

huh, I should look for a bootleg of that tour, then; I know a few live version but haven't heard a whole show.

mid 80s crazy horse tours are kind steroid-y arena rock too. certainly not very slick though.

I've got the video! (xp)

(and yeah, most of AYP is booker t/mgs, iirc)

yes, AYP features Booker T & the MGs plus Crazy Horse iirc

I really like that record a lot & think it's a sleeper in Neil's catalog.

lots of rong at the top of this thread.

was looking for video of that trans tour but found this instead lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGXeBpvCxro

I have a bootleg of a 1986 show; maybe I got it from you, tyler? I've not listened yet, but will in the next few weeks (am finishing a massive year-long "listen to everything I presently have" & all that's left are Neil, Prince, REM + Miles Davis, which I put off b/c of how much I have by all those artists, so it was daunting to get started with them)(yes, this is a crazy thing to do, never mind that)

Now that ATP can be found for under a buck I might check it out. I liked Rob Sheffield's review at the time: giving Neil a real band was like giving a gorilla a Palm Pilot.

'differently' is great

yeah, that and "goin home" are my faves from "passionate"

lots of rong at the top of this thread.

ugh yeah jesus christ. mark s was a good poster but man did I disagree with him about nearly everything

The real question here is which embarrassing "socially conscious" misstep invokes the bigger cringe: "Rockin' in the Free World" or "Dirty Boulevard?"

"We got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive."

vs.

"Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on 'em
that's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard"

lots of rong at the top of this thread.

― Would love to hear Bam babble about this (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 22, 2010 3:33 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pretty much true for every classic rock thread started before 2005/6ish

this is such a great opening lyrically:

Caught between the twisted stars
the plotted lines the faulty map
that brought Columbus to New York

rockin in the free world has fantastic lyrics imo

I've got no quarrel with either one. HOWEVER:

http://www.spike.com/video/lou-reed-original/2791259

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P6Q4O5TeuE

definitely agree with iatee about RITFW's lyrics. I was learning to play it out of idle curiosity a few weeks back and was really struck by how well it works lyrically, super-sharp.

Dirty Boulevard is also probably the best track on New York (apart from Romeo and Juliet) but it's maybe a bit hammier/more sledgehammer obvious than Rockin in the Free World...? Lou doesn't really do nuance too well, and RITFW has this distance in it where you can't really tell which parts of it are earnest and which parts are sarcastic/ironic

I wouldn't call either a misstep.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool

the nihilism and despair in this verse gets me every time - it doesn't have the bitter smirk that Dirty Blvd does, it's just straight up sad.

yeah neil young's best lyrics are always ambiguous

but yeah 'never get to fall in love, never get to be cool' is heartbreaking

can't think of anyone else who would phrase it like that, ya know?

as far as ironic 80s singalong choruses go "free world" might beat out "born in the usa"

yeah they're definitely a pair

"Mideast Vacation" is hilarious, and ambiguous in the context Neil's political leanings in the early 80s.

xpost is there a thread for that kind of thing? you know, the kind of 80s bitter, disenchanted lyrical content masked by a rousing arena-ready chorus? thinking of things like "rebel" by tom petty ...

(and yeah, mideast vacation is bizarre -- weird, 80s fever dream thing)

the kind of 80s bitter, disenchanted lyrical content masked by a rousing arena-ready chorus?

Boys of Summer thread came up yesterday, fits the mold I think

er I mean the SONG fits the mold

I dunno that one feels unambiguously bleak

reagan probably wouldn't want to use it as a campaign theme song

yeah now that I think about the chorus isn't all that rousing

in the last 4 minutes I created an alternate world in my head where a cool and ironic reagan wearing sunglasses runs for president w/ that song

He's always living back in Dixon.

I love "Mideast Vacation" actually. I should buy Life and be done with it.

I enjoyed the hell out of Life a few days ago; I wasn't sure which thread to revive but I was struck by how "Inca Queen" is Neil gone Avalon.

yeah i guess the 80s songs i'm thinking of --- the choruses could easily double as campaign slogans. haven't listened to it in a while, is "pink houses" ironic?

it's maybe a bit hammier/more sledgehammer obvious than Rockin in the Free World...?

OK, now you guys are defending the indefensible, NOTHING is hammier than "Rockin in the Free World." It reads like something a 16-year-old who just discovered politics would write in his notebook. "We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man." OH, HOW IRONIC, I AM REPURPOSING A POLITICIAN'S SPEECH TO SHOW THAT HE SAYS HE CARES BUT REALLY DOESN'T.

This song is a stupid, tossed-off piece of pop fluff, and worse, it is a stupid, tossed-off piece of pop fluff that takes itself seriously. If it weren't by Neil Young you would treat it no differently than "Another Day in Paradise."

p.s. I am not even a gigantic Jane's Addiction fan but Perry Farrell's delivery of "I'm gonna kick tomorrow" does 1000x more work in four words than does the entire freaking laborious double stanza you quoted.

Life is usually considered the beginning of the Clawing Out of the Abyss, right? I like "Prisoners of Rock and Roll" a lot too.

The best hard-to-find Young song: "Cocaine Eyes."

okay eephus let's try something - tell me what you think Neil's political POV is in that song

Actually, "Pink Houses" is a good example of a song that reaches for the easy irony in the same general way "Rockin in the Free World" does, but is massively more successful: the people in it seem so much more like people, and the word choices are so much less obvious...

Life is usually considered the beginning of the Clawing Out of the Abyss, right?

One or two tentative talons. Don't think it got too many good reviews.

yeah, no one's idea of a comeback record, at least not in the vein of Freedom ...

'the people in it seem so much more like people' = this is actually why 'pink houses' is the hammier one

literally do not understand what you mean by that, iatee, to me "hammy" includes "characters come off as caricatures instead of people" but I think we have different things in mind

for one thing you can read "We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man" as perfectly straight - as a literal repetition of Bush's speeches and intentions. People are homeless? well there are a thousand points of light in America there to support them and help them and light the way. OR you can read it as sneering sarcasm, that those lights aren't going to help Mr. Homeless at all. But which one is it? Neil is ambiguous. The chorus works the same way - does Neil mean it, or is he being sarcastic? Is he celebrating America, or is he opposing it (just keepin his head down and continuing to "rock" while everything falls apart?)

many x-posts

yeah I think the difference is that shakey and I def don't interpret the song as straight up snarky.

Ah, I thought Shakey = Neil Young there for a minute

as far as ironic 80s singalong choruses go "free world" might beat out "born in the usa"

Considering he had audiences singing along to it before it was even released (cf. the live version that opens Freedom; you can practically hear the beach balls bouncing through the crowd), I'd say yeah, definitely.

you know what I think a good comparison is? 'I Love LA'

tell me what you think Neil's political POV is in that song

I take it to be something along the lines of:

"the free world" is not actually that free, or to the extent that it's free, we direct that freedom towards meaningless and ultimately destructive ends like consumerism and drugs. There is little point to idealism, which either consists of empty promises from politicians ("a thousand points of light," "kinder gentler", "keep hope alive") or degenerates immediately into distracting symbolic displays of patriotism.

Is that totally wrong?

Snarkey.

for one thing you can read "We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man" as perfectly straight - as a literal repetition of Bush's speeches and intentions.

This would be like reading "Bob Roberts" as an endorsement of right-wing populism (though I think the latter reading is actually much more defensible.)

xp I agree with iatee in the sense that "I love LA" works in the ambiguous way that he wrongly claims "Rockin' in the Free World" works.

You guys are reading lyrics without mentioning the most important element: Young's singing. The rush of the music, his angry bark – it's impossible to hear anything but sarcasm in "We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man."

Is that totally wrong?

I wouldn't say it's totally wrong it's just more nuanced than that. Something you're ignoring is that a central undercurrent of the song to me is not "there is little point to idealism" but that no matter how bad things get, you just keep moving forward - "don't feel like Satan but I am to them/so I try and forget it any way I can", "Got fuel to burn/got roads to drive", the refrain of the chorus. Whether or not the "man of the people" saying "keep hope alive" or the "thousand points of light for the homeless man" are empty gestures or not is not really clear, because they're stated in the context of this numbed endurance, this blank-minded persistence to just KEEP TRYING. The one line that IS clearly sarcastic is the "kinder, gentler machine gun hand", I'll give you that one.

xp

for me, the key is that I don't think he's being 100% sarcastic when he says 'keep on rockin' - with this going on what else can we do, essentially, but 'keep on rockin'? I don't think it's that difficult to interpret it as an motivational/positive thing. 'don't give up - this is still the free world.' then at the same time you can take 'keep on rockin' to mean - well, we're not really changing anything / all hope is lost / etc.

This would be like reading "Bob Roberts" as an endorsement of right-wing populism (though I think the latter reading is actually much more defensible.)

yr aware of Neil's public statements of support for Reagan in the early 80s, etc.? Neil's politics are REALLY incoherent and convoluted (reminds me of James Brown in that way)

I gotta admit, I always found the "thousand points of light" line pretty clunky too (and am quick sick of "Rockin' in the Free World" now because of overkill from our classic-rock station). I think Neil may have carried a certain amount of guilt at the time over his brief flirtation with Reagan in the mid-'80s, was maybe looking for a convenient way to put that behind him, and found a quick out in Bush I.

I don't think it's that difficult to interpret it as an motivational/positive thing. 'don't give up - this is still the free world.' then at the same time you can take 'keep on rockin' to mean - well, we're not really changing anything / all hope is lost / etc.

I agree with this - it's a statement of persistence, of endurance. at the same time there's this implication that that endurance is futile, that it doesn't matter.

xp

Fantastic account of Free World by Shakey. I think eephus has missed all the deliberate ambiguity. Given his politics during the 80s, I think it was a bit early for him to turn round with a full-bore assault on a Republican president. And he believed passionately in America as the "free world" vs Islamic extremists, USSR, etc, whatever its flaws. He wasn't Jello Biafra.

for the benefit of the thread I'll rephrase the story of this song that Neil details in Shakey - at the time he was with Crazy Horse and they were booking some int'l tour and considering dates near the Middle East but Ralph Molina saw some news show of angry Muslims burning effigies or something and him and Neil got to talking about how the US is viewed as the "Great Satan" etc. Ralph said "fuck it, might as well not go over there and just keep rockin' in the free world" - which Neil immediately seized on as a good line

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdiCJUysIT0

evidence: end up video, homeless dude covers himself w/ portable tvs and is cheering at neil young rockin out. whatever symbolism he's going for it's definitely not clear or obvious.

yup shakey going deep like a baby seal itt

figuring out neil's politics is pretty much impossible

Shakey is one of the best rock star biogs you'll ever read. All the controversies/ambiguities you'd want dealt with are covered, and usually discussed at length with Young himself.

Ditto. The Manson stuff is especially fascinating.

great book but I def came out of it liking neil young less as a person

suchhh a diva in his own way

I like the "I can't go on I'll go on" deal Shakey is going for, I just can't find it in the actual song. Or rather: I guess it is there (what else can "keep on rockin" mean?) but the song is so preening and its claims so unearned that it carries no force.

As for "homeless dude covers himself w/ portable tvs and is cheering at neil young rockin out," this functions in the same way as and is comparably deep to the "african child" video.

if nothing else the song is always venue for neil to go ham like this:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7luq7_neil-young-rockin-in-the-free-world_music

but yeah, the video - neil young's absolutely singing *to* the homeless dude at the end - would he be mocking him w/ the 'keep on rockin'? no way. instead it's like, 'yeah this free world is pretty messed up, covering yourself in portable tvs is probably a half decent idea really, but hey man, fuck it, keep on rockin'

I don't think it's meant to be african-child 'deep' - it's meant to be absurdist

suchhh a diva in his own way

It's so weird: Neil Young's been part of my life for some 35 years now--a pretty large part through high school and 10 years beyond--and as a person, he's almost a complete abstraction at this point. If he were to sit down beside me at a bar, I think I'd be stuck for something to say.

conan was like that when neil young came on once

at this point he just sort of seems like my dad. sort of mysterious/frustrating, but awesome and lovable.

but yeah - like the homeless man in the video is actually sorta over-the-top *goofy* - that's what I meant about the 'not having real characters' making this more interesting.

Whatever we talked about, I'd make sure to get him to say "inneresting" at least once. That's my favorite word ever.

Tied with "refudiate."

isn't the homeless guy in the video ... neil young?

omg didn't notice that. final layer of wtf.

Any analysis of Neil Young's politics needs to accommodate the fact that (as far as I can tell) he doesn't think this stuff through - he just does it on a whim and never mind the consequences/contradictions. How else can you chart a path from Ohio to Campaigner to the Reagan/AIDS comments to Free World to Let It Roll to Let's Impeach the President? I don't think even he's 100% sure about what Free World is saying.

yeah, i don't think neil has any idea what that songs means, except that it's ambiguous

I don't think even he's 100% sure about what Free World is saying.

Fair enough, but I think this supports my contention that the song is a piece of poorly-thought-out hackery more than iatee's and Shakey Mo's stance that the song is an exquisitely crafted exercise in deliberate ambiguity!

Let's agree that the song is no "Drive On."

*"Drive Back" rather

"Campaigner" especially supports the idea that Young's 100% instinctive. He saw some news footage that moved him, so he immediately wrote a song that allowed that Nixon was human after all. It's an amazingly generous song that might never have happened had he thought the matter through.

yeah, i mean, neil's political songs often seem to be more about how to absorb/experience information than actually about "politics." dude was obviously watching a lot of CNN in the late 80s, and I think he was confused by it. like the rest of us!

Growing Up In Public better than Legendary Hearts and New Sensations? That's absolute batshit crazytalk. I can't compare them to any of Young's 80s albums, because I have none. Haven't liked what I heard. Legendary Hearts and New Sensations were reissued earlier this year and I enjoy them more than the more widely accepted "return to form," The Blue Mask. I liked New York when it came out, but soon got sick of it. He still had some tunes in him back in 83-84. And Quine in 83. Quine wasn't in him, that I know of.

^^^ real talk

Imagine if Neil had watched C-SPAN instead of CNN.

haha
telling comments about writing rockin in the free world: "I wrote that song out on the road. I really don't remember except I know I wrote it all on my bus. I thought of the first line, rocking in the free world, keep on rocking in the free world. I said, Oh God, that really says something but that's such a cliche, it's such a terrible..., it's such an obvious thing and then I knew I had to use it!"

"hippie dream" has kinda great ambiguous lyrics too

"Hippie Dream" is one of his best tunes of the period, but you gotta find it beneath the offal.

"Hippie Dream"

Take my advice
Don't listen to me
It ain't paradise
But it used to be
There was a time
When the river was wide
And the water
came running down
To the rising tide
But the wooden ships
Were just a hippie dream
Just a hippie dream.

Don't bat an eye
Don't waste a word
Don't mention nothin'
That could go unheard
'Cause the tie-dye sails
Are the screamin' sheets
And the dusty trail
Leads to blood
in the streets
And the wooden ships
Are a hippie dream
Capsized in excess
If you know what I mean.

Just because
it's over for you
Don't mean
it's over for me
It's a victory
for the heart
Every time
the music starts
So please
don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine.

Another flower child
goes to seed
In an ether-filled
room of meat-hooks
It's so ugly
So ugly.

^^the last few lines are kinda crazy, the ether filled room yikes

Supposedly about David Crosby, but who cares? One of the best songs about the sainted sixties.

I wish he'd recorded it in time for Live Aid, or shot a video incorporating shots of Joan Baez at Live Aid.

Take my advice
Don't listen to me

^^^sums up everything I love about Neil lyrically

yeah, i mean, neil's political songs often seem to be more about how to absorb/experience information than actually about "politics."

In addition to Ohio (Life magazine cover) and Campaigner (TV), the whole Living With War album was spurred by a photo of soldiers' coffins in USA Today. He sees something, reacts and writes a song about it before he's had to time to work it all through. Which makes it all the more amazing that some of those songs are so impeccably well-judged. Some people would take weeks honing a bunch of rambling lyrics down to a few lines as perfect as Ohio.

Must track down Hippie Dream - never heard it before but lyrics look fascinating.

Even though Young's written a number of songs where he questions, turns his back on, and, yes, refudiates the idea that hippiedom was some magical time, I do believe he has a very profound and absolutely unshakeable reverence for that time in his life.

Well, yeah, look at his fashion sense and terrible hair.

C'mon--isn't that pinstripe suit on Tonight's the Night an Armani?

even in hippie dream there's this:

Just because
it's over for you
Don't mean
it's over for me

man that song isn't as good as its lyrics, but it's still pretty great and damn those are some of his best

Scorching guitar too. I even like that synth slime on top. The walloping drum sound is a huge minus though.

this is prob. obvious but are there songs in which you can overtly hear Neil's right-leaning views? I can't think of any. I haven't read Shakey in a while, or any interviews, but is there reason to think he took Reagan particularly seriously? Or were his comments just the usual rock-star silliness, more or less a one-off?

I think Neil thinks less about "the sixties" than about particular people, Stills & Crosby in particular.

Live version (crap audio):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GstsaVUk3Y

is there reason to think he took Reagan particularly seriously? Or were his comments just the usual rock-star silliness, more or less a one-off?

I'm paraphrasing, but he said he liked how Reagan made him feel like America was a winner again.

ok---not really particularly right, then, as much as patriotic for essentially superficial reasons: a very 80s attitude!

I think he admired Reagan (and disliked Carter) without having to sign up to every right-wing policy. From one 80s interview: "Don’t you think it’s better that Russia and these other countries think that Reagan’s a trigger-happy cowboy than think it’s Jimmy Carter, who wants to give back the Panama Canal?”

A big quotient of macho bs, in other words.

here's some pretty jingo-istic 80s Neil lyrics:

Ain't getting old,
ain't getting younger though
Just getting used
to the lay of the land
I ain't tongue-tied,
just don't got nothin' to say
I'm proud to be livin' in the U.S.A.

Ready to go, willin' to stay and pay
U.S.A., U.S.A.
So my sweet love can dance
another free day
U.S.A., U.S.A.

In history we painted pictures grim
The devil knows
we might feel that way again
The big wind blows,
so the tall grass bends
But for you don't
push too hard my friend.

Ready to go, willin' to stay and pay
U.S.A., U.S.A.
So my sweet wife can dance
another free day
U.S.A., U.S.A.

Got people here
down on their knees and prayin'
Hawks and doves
are circlin' in the rain
Got rock and roll,
got country music playin'
If you hate us, you just
don't know what you're sayin'.

Ready to go, willin' to stay and pay
U.S.A., U.S.A.
So my sweet love can dance
another free day
U.S.A., U.S.A.

is that off old ways?

Hawks and Doves

If I recall correctly, Neil was interviewed by a reporter in the early 80s trying to get him to say something bad about Reagan, assuming that all ex-hippies must think Reagan was evil. Journalists constantly took this tone with him, saying "Isn't Reagan terrible?" etc. Finally one time Neil had had enough of this and said, (paraphrasing) "Reagan's not so bad. I agree with his idea that communities should try to solve local problems rather than relying on the government for everything" and some such. Next thing you know, the headlines read "Neil Young supports Reagan." More than anything, Neil hates to be pigeon-holed.

haha, missed those lyrics on my listen to Hawks and Doves a few days ago. It's not without ambiguity, though:

"I ain't tongue-tied,
just don't got nothin' to say"

Is that a compliment?

we know where he stands on mashed potatoes and t-bone steaks

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Got mashed potatoes
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Got mashed potatoes
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Got mashed potatoes
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Ain't got no T-Bone
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Ain't got no T-Bone

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Got mashed potatoes
Ain't got no T-Bone
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Ain't got no T-Bone

haha yeah that "nothin to say" line sticks out to me too. Just Neil, keepin things "innarestin"

not much talk of Lou here so far but wanted to note that one thing both he and Neil share is a mile-wide contrarian streak. Both have huge chips on their shoulders when it comes to having expectations placed on them. I think where they differ tho is how they react to that - Neil is elusive, he's good at withdrawing behind ambiguity and characters and obtuse gestures. But Lou is more aggressive, his tendency is to be blunt and brutal, both with himself and with other people, which in some ways comes off as more cruel and less human. Neil LOVES people (or at least the idea of people), Lou kinda hates everybody. Except Suzanne lol.

Shakey OTM.

Bad Fog's post above is really interesting, and if that were the sum total of Young's alleged approval of Reagan, upsetting the expectations of a journalist--kind of a benign version of the Elvis Costello/Ray Charles incident--then I agree it would be silly to hold him to that. But I think there was a much more vocal support of Reagan for a time; I recall a country-TV appearance circa Old Ways being described in Shakey where he was very up front about it. Not that any of that makes me think one iota less of all my favorite Neil Young music.

i think old ways is probably the worst neil young album

From here: http://thrasherswheat.org/ptma.htm
Neil's thoughts on Ronald Reagan:

" 'There were some things Reagan liked that I liked. The main component of it was that people have got to talk to each other and help themselves and that government can't completely take care of them by making a bunch of promises and programs. It can't be done that way to the exclusion of working together on things like child care. That was his point--get together, people. Organize your communities.

'I agreed with that,' Young says. 'But because I agreed with that one thing and similar types of points, then I was a Reagan backer. It was a shock for some people that I could agree with anything that that man would say. But I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing. My ideals don't run along those lines.'"

old ways is definitely weak. but his int'l harvesters touring band was killer, go figure.

was just thinking about "Old Ways" the song...I can't make heads or tales of its politics.

that album charted on the country charts, though, evidently peaking at #24.

as embarrassing as neil young's politics can get, let's not ignore this thread's title - "I wanna be black" is so much worse than anything neil young has said/written

nm shakey was already basically on that

You're right clemenza, the incident I cited wasn't the only time Neil expressed approval of Reagan. But I think it would be unfair to say he was a big supporter of Reagan. I saw an interview with David Crosby recently in which he said that contrary to what people think, Neil is not political at all, he hates all politicians equally. For him it's all about people. As others above have suggested, Neil is easily moved by people's actions/suffering rather than adherence to any sort of ideological principles.

"I Wanna Be Black" = ultimate Pandora's Box!

I think I understand Neil's relationship to Reagan better now. If the Thrasher's Wheat quote is to be trusted (from Neil's end, I mean, not tyler w's), he's got, to me, a very commonsense, sane approach to politics.

there is no commonsense, sane approach to politics that allows you to support reagan in any way

reagan literally tore down the berlin wall with his bare hands, are you against that?!

"I wanna be black" is so much worse than anything neil young has said/written

lol yeah and "I Wanna Be Black" is a perfect example of what I was saying about how Lou's contrarianism manifests itself. Like, Lou's tack is always to cut closer to the bone, to strip things down as far as they can go - you want him to talk about race? Okay, here's a completely ugly portrait, with everyone's insecurities and nasty stereotypes laid bare, how do you like THAT. I have no idea if Lou wrote "I Wanna Be Black" in reaction to any specific person or event, but the song is such a blatantly obvious act of provocation it's hard to think he didn't have pissing people off in mind when he wrote it.

xp

I'm no Reagan fan, but that's the thing--based on that quote, he's less of a Reagan supporter than a supporter of what he perceives, rightly or wrongly, to be an idea of Reagan's that he happens to agree with. (He almost manages to transform Reagan into a hippie!)

yeah, reagan as community organizer! hmm.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E8BpJEni77I/SYCqPLoa-aI/AAAAAAAAH6Q/fnWVi--8WU0/s400/Ronald_Wilson_Reagan_Cowboy_Poet.gif

^^^ mandolin on Old Ways

http://blog.press.org/NPC/NPC_shrdlu/images/Page_105_Photo_sm.jpg
richard nixon & crazy horse

I used to like "I Wanna Be Black" a lot, but haven't listened to it in ages. I think I took it for granted that the song was meant as a provocation...or else took the easy way out and avoided thinking about that stuff altogether.

i always just took i wanna be black as lou's send up of middle class white college students who glorify black stereotypes. it's a nasty song, to be sure, but that's what he's getting at, right? kinda?

isn't "I Wanna Be Black" from 1978 /pedantic

also to answer the original thread question this basically boils down to:

the Blue Mask, New York vs. Trans, the Human Highway film, "This Note's For You", Freedom, Ragged Glory, Unplugged, the Dead Man sdtk, Arc/Weld, "cough up the bucks/where did all the money go?"

(I've never heard New Sensations or Legendary Hearts, which I'm sure Alfred will be appalled by)

so basically Neil, no contest

xp

yeah I Wanna Be Black is not 80s - but if we need any other examples of Lou-as-assholish-provocateur there's plenty more in the 80s ("Good Evening, Mr Waldheim" springs to mind)

you're forgetting 'I'm the Ocean'

lou's "sex with your parents" song is pretty childish. kind of funny the 1st time you hear it.

Christgau's line is good: "I'm a belated convert to 'I Wanna Be Black,' which treats racism as a stupid joke and gets away with it"...I also forgot about this thread's time frame.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sF9rkmcnL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

"You think I'm an asshole? In this sweater?"

lol

examples of what Christgau calls Old Fart Lou: "Outside," "Video Violence," "No Money Down" (a third of Mistrial really).

"Can you imagine working for a fucking lifetime, and you get called an assholish-provocateur by Shakey Mo Collier on ILM?"

"Teach the Gifted Children" is a bizarre song

I was getting lunch and missed the last hour on this thread, but let me return to Hawks & Doves for a moment. The album's a diptych: for every right-leaning song, there's another frustrated by the collapse of the Old Ways. Which may or may not be a liberal sentiment! These things are hard to pin down. While the album's not a total success -- the songs are just too uneven -- he nails the tone of a confused, unemployed rural guy struggling to understand how the events depicted on the front page of his town newspaper suddenly look like algebra to him.

Alfred, I think that's spot-on; he doesn't do it as well as, say, Merle Haggard, but he's expressing similar confusions.

'little wing' is 100% classic

Anyone looking for what my grad school professors would call praxis should spend time with H&D.

in my day we called it dialectics

Hegelian dialectics even

well, yeah that album is split right down the middle -- the first side is all hazy 70s acoustic outtakes, and the second is peppy populist country.

t/s dylan does country, ny does country

they're both competent poseurs basically, no?

all artists are poseurs, no?

I like Neil and Bob's country efforts (Nashville Skyline, Comes a Time) but I don't think either actually succeeds as a COUNTRY album per se. I don't think either of them actually understands how country music works, for some reason. Dylan maybe gets it more than Neil.

They understand country music as a kind of folk music, rather than pop music...though those categories are somewhat suspect, I think the point's clear: more Hank Williams than Patsy Cline, say.

i dunno, i think Nashville Skyline is Dylan's only really country album, and Neil's only really country album is Old Ways. Nashville Skyline wins, by a lot.

when will lou make his country album

i guess he dabbled in country rock from time to time ... "cowboy bill," "one of these days" ...

"betrayed" from alfred's beloved Legendary Hearts ...

I dunno, I think you can say that dylan/young came out of a certain musical tradition (/and created some new ones) and when they decided to go country it was something of a conscious decision to switch to a different tradition w/ a certain artistic goal in mind. I don't think that's a bad thing or anything, but I also think that on some level when an artist quickly appropriates a huge tradition like that, it feels fake on some level. but dylan is fake on all levels anyway.

i dunno, i think Nashville Skyline is Dylan's only really country album

I don't know the record, but isn't Self-Portrait all Nashville studio musicians...?

xpost yeah, but at the same time, if you looked at dylan and young's earliest influences, ten to one they'd be country music. all kinds of hanks, i think is how Dylan described it.

tbh Young never understood country (neither did Dylan, to a lesser extent). When they Sit Down And Play a country song they sound obtuse and patronizing.

"betrayed" from alfred's beloved Legendary Hearts ...

I love this one least of my children.

well, self portrait has tracks with the Band, too. but it's mainly session guys, yeah. xpost

i don't know, i think Dylan and Young *understand* country music fine, but maybe when they approach it as a "genre" they lose something. like, listening to Young play "Too Far Gone" recently, I thought he captured perfectly this lovesick Hank Williams vibe, without explicitly writing a "Country" song.

I don't think the Band ever really understood country music either, at least not as pop music: there is always a distance there (hence the historical tropes in Robertson's songwriting, & the abstractness of Manuel's): but they picked up on something pretty closely related, with the blues & folk mixed together.

but dylan is fake on all levels anyway.

i never understand this argument; as if pop music hasn't been appropriated from any and all sources going back to the nineteenth century at least
xpost

They understand country music as a kind of folk music, rather than pop music...though those categories are somewhat suspect, I think the point's clear: more Hank Williams than Patsy Cline, say.

yeah, well put. It's like they have an idealized folk version of what country is that doesn't really encompass a lot of actual country artists/albums, it's kinda narrowly defined for them (Dylan leaning towards Hank Williams and maybe Hank Snow and Lefty Frizzell, Neil leaning more towards the Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings axis). But when they "went country" they didn't particularly approximate the sounds of country records very well, imho.

xp

Comes A Time comes off best because it's a pop-inflected country move. It's what he knows!

I don't want to bang on about Neil and Reagan anymore but I was away from the thread for an hour and this quote…

But because I agreed with that one thing and similar types of points

…is very disingenous. In various 80s interviews he approved loudly of Reagan's belligerent foreign policy, criticised welfare recipients and said some very odd things about people with HIV. Fair enough if he subsequently changed his mind but it's pretty weak to pretend he only liked Reagan as a cosy community organiser.

On an entirely different matter, why did all rock veterans have to look like shit during the 80s? That Lou Reed cover is crushingly banal.

i never understand this argument; as if pop music hasn't been appropriated from any and all sources going back to the nineteenth century at least

right but you can still have different levels of appropriation

"Four Strong Wings" and "Field of Opportunity" aside, this is late seventies studio rock with banjos and fiddles.

On an entirely different matter, why did all rock veterans have to look like shit during the 80s?

One exception, as usual:

http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/85027592.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA5482CA6EE0EB59BFEBCB703012D8F8D23294FA8F46D09BE28AD

On an entirely different matter, why did all rock veterans have to look like shit during the 80s? That Lou Reed cover is crushingly banal.

also generally made their worst music

lou's old buddy was looking good
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii111/diskochimp/CaleSunset-1.jpg

they definitely lose the pop end of country - which, tbh, is a HUGE swath of it. All those backing choruses, swelling string ensembles, pedal steel licks, short verse-chorus-verse structures, concise vocal hooks, tight guitar picking etc. These are not the things Bob and Neil are particularly interested in or good at

why did all rock veterans have to look like shit during the 80s

lol this is a whole other thread!

cale was so far ahead of his time -- he could be in a chillwave band!

late seventies studio rock with banjos and fiddles.

you could say the same thing of a lot of recent country music.

lol at the shirt with geometric patterns. Very eighties!

All those backing choruses, swelling string ensembles, pedal steel licks, short verse-chorus-verse structures, concise vocal hooks, tight guitar picking etc.
well, this is kinda what Old Ways is like, except sucktastic.

you could say the same thing of a lot of recent country music.

mmmmmm yes and no. "Some of it." Another "some" dig mid to late seventies FM stuff with power chords.

There's an Old Ways song on Lucky Thirteen which is the worst thing I've ever heard. I mean -- worse than the stentorian Aldo Nova clones on Landing on Water.

underrated cale album btw

mmmmmm yes and no. "Some of it." Another "some" dig mid to late seventies FM stuff with power chords.

well yes of course. and some dig kelly clarkson and ashlee simpson. i'm just saying that neil is/was a lot closer to at least some elements of country music and nashville than a lot of people are giving him credit for. he may or may not actually be trying; that's kind of beside the point.

also, some people (Neil and Bob) just don't fit neatly into categories, in general...
had that Cale on cassette once. played it once. i loathed it.

It takes a magic touch to play music you think is kinda hokey w/o seeming distant, and I think Neil (and Dylan) don't usually have this touch. It's what I hate about bands like the Beachwood Sparks, who friends tried to turn me onto in the late 90s. What's interesting to me is why they want to play country, anyway. I understand that an easy answer is, "because it sounds great & it's fun to play". But their songwriting changes when they write country songs, so I'd like to understand better what it is about the "country voice" that appeals to them. I think I'd better understand why they fail at country if I understood that better.

it's not immediately likeable or as good as his classic material but there are a lot of interesting ideas in it. cale's always been a solid songwriter and most of his bad 80s songs sound much better w/ alternate arrangements.

xp

always loved the title track of caribbean sunset ...

i think Dylan and Young *understand* country music fine, but maybe when they approach it as a "genre" they lose something

Absolutely agree. I'm not a fan of country music newer than late-'60s Johnny Cash, and probably shouldn't wade into this discussion, but when Neil tried to make an Official Country Album with Old Ways, the result was predictably bland and pointless. When he was doing "The Emperor of Wyoming" and "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and his Don Gibson cover--not to mention Harvest's best songs, and "Bad Fog of Loneliness," and "Albuquerque"--he had his own version of country that was just great.

man I find 'bad fog of loneliness' to be such a boring song, I dunno way

why

love that song -- "come back, maybe I was wrong!" ha.

Bad Fog, get back here and set this man straight!

'm just saying that neil is/was a lot closer to at least some elements of country music and nashville than a lot of people are giving him credit for

Never said he wasn't! But, as has been remarked already, his music is stronger when he produces an amalgram of folk and country than when he's reproducing straight country.

Bad Fog, get back here and set this man straight!

What can I say, I think it has a great melody and expresses a vulnerability in a way that only Neil can. Would have made a great addition to Harvest. But I can see how some might find it a bit hippy-dippy.

there is no commonsense, sane approach to politics that allows you to support reagan in any way

Only if you ignore the semiotics of the presidency, of which Reagan was a master -- and, let's not forget, with rare exceptions, signs and symbols are all that comprise a presidency. Lots of people my parents' age who aren't Corner-ites still remember him fondly.

right, I mean he supported the idea of reagan and didn't care about the details - basically was an average american in the 80s

If I may weigh in....

80s: Lou Reed. The Blue Mask alone is enough to seal it. I love Freedom and some random 80s Neil songs like Mideast Vacation and Wonderin', but Lou had the hot hand in the 80s. We'll forgive that godawful motor scooter commercial... "Hey...don't settle for walkin."

90s: Neil Young. Lou had a rough 90s, and Neil really got cooking, in a musical sense. I'm The Ocean alone is enough.

So we go to the tiebreaker:

2000s: Neil. No record was as good as Lou's Ecstasy from 2000, but Lou sat the rest of the decade out, while Neil was flying under the radar with some hot stuff.

The winner: Neil Young

That's about right. '70s Neil >>>>> '70s Lou

and

'80s Lou >>>>>>>> '80s Neil, except Freedom >>>>>>>>>>>> New York

In the nineties it's more complicated. Neil made two great to excellent albums (Ragged Glory and Sleeps with Angels), one boring one beloved by a lot of people (Harvest Moon), and a lot of throat-clearing, some of which is great ("I'm the Ocean").

Lou meanwhile recorded Songs For Drella and Set the Twilight Reeling in the win pile. A draw that decade, I'd say.

Good point about the 70s, but...

60s Lou >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>x10 billion 60s Neil.

Tough to compete with the Velvet Underground.

i grew up listening to a cassette of landing on water on road trip to san diego; so i've got a fair bit of nostalgic affection towards it.. i love how un-calibrated and off-center it sounds. the overall production values/loud-ass gated drums clashing with neil's distorted guitar tone.

i'm glad "hippie dream" was brought up; always thought it was his best 80s song pre-Freedom. i love "violent side" as well.. a great evocation of the struggle to recognize and overcome anger. and oh my.. "weight of the world"... the imbalance of the mix (as well as the slightly fucked up drum pattern) inadvertently heightens the 'shuffle my feet'/'dance all night' verse struggle.

as far as life goes, "long walk home" is a great bombastic precursor to the kind of thing he would do on freedom. and, yeah, "mideast vacation" is a great weird thing.

Yesterday I said that Neil & Dylan both fail to understand country music as pop music, & that this is why both struggle to make good country music. I think I can make the point I was trying to articulate better as follows. For both Neil & Dylan I think they understand country music nostalgically: that is, to play it is to interact with a music of their past. Whereas others in their age cohort---think of Dolly Parton & Johnny Cash---who do understand country music, don't understand it reactively like this: instead, it's just what they do. Whatever they do is country. That's something they might struggle against at times, since it puts their art in a box. But it's a different relationship to the music than Neil & Bob have.

In the case of Neil in particular, it's not just nostalgia for the (idealized) country music of his youth, it's nostalgia for the people he's played music (not just country music) with before. So you get latter-day songs like "Buffalo Springfield Again", and that whole album which is played with people like Ben Keith that he's been playing with his whole career, and reuniting the Harvest band for Harvest Moon. Actually, lots of Neil's career moves are nostalgic like this: getting Crazy Horse together repeatedly, or playing with CSNY again & again. & what I'm suggesting is that Neil's approach to country music is about this nostalgic urge. & as a result he doesn't really understand country music, since this isn't all there is to country music.

as a result he doesn't really understand country music

i think you're trying too hard to ascribe particular intentions to neil's music (not to mention johnny cash's or dolly parton's music). with the arguable exception of the genre exercise old ways, i doubt he sits down with a guitar or piano and says, "i shall now write a country song" or "i shall now make a country album." he makes neil young songs and neil young albums. there's no doubt a lot of nostalgia in there. a lot of folk and rock influences. a lot of stock chord changes and melodic ticks he keeps coming back to. a lot of hippie dreams. but to suggest he doesn't understand country music because "heart of gold" or "comes a time" or "harvest moon" don't sound like patsy cline or crystal gayle or randy travis or jamey johnson or whatever it we think they're supposed to sound like ... seems very strange to me.

man i dunno cuz i pretty much fuckin' love nashville skyline, so breezy

Going back to Neil's politics. I'm not well versed on all of it, but perhaps some of his political ambiguity stems from his Prairie upbringing in Canada. Politics in this part of the country have often swung madly from conservative to very social liberal. Its generally seen as the redneck wild west and our current conservative prime minister is from here, but its also the home of our most liberal political party (the NDP via the old CCF). I have no idea how much of that stuff shaped his youth of even what his father's politic views are, but its a thought.

his father was pretty well known as a writer in his day in canada, not sure what his politics are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Young_%28writer%29

Yeah I have a copy of Neil and Me, but haven't read it yet. I was under the impression he is best known for sports writing so maybe he's not very politically minded anyway.

Scott Young was primarily a hockey writer. That's what we write about here in Canada.