by Neil Young
There was something about that set that still haunts me. I was ready for the echo. The sound was like I was in another world. Every note just hung there in space. I drew them out and felt them all lingering and fading. Somehow, just by myself, I had become so free that it was almost transcendent. The place was not that great of a venue, really. It had everything going against it until I stopped fighting it and dropped the onstage monitors. When I did that, it was like the gates of heaven swung open. I swear that sound was like being in a hallowed place. I was so free and unencumbered, really a very rare thing, very rare. Especially solo. “Golden,” as Briggs used to say. I love it when it works. That echo was a gift from the gods.
Earlier in the day I had gone out for a walk around the grounds with Carolyn Mugar, Farm Aid’s wonderfully dedicated executive director and a good friend, accompanied by some security people. They (security) were pretty subtle, and it all was good. I kept moving. I have learned how long I can stay in one place in that kind of situation: Not very long. I listened to the music playing from the stage as I walked around the concession area through the crowd, wondering how I would sound with just my guitar and harmonica. Pretty good, I thought to myself. Then I saw a guy with a really old and cool Neil Young and Crazy Horse T-shirt. He was lost in thought. I walked up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Really nice shirt.” He looked up and I caught his eye. Then I kept moving. People were beginning to notice me, and a little crowd was following me. We disappeared into an elevator and went back to the bus.
—
The Zen art of paddleboarding has been creeping up on me now for months. Recently my friend Rick Rubin, a great record producer, has taken up the pastime. Rick is quite Buddha-like, and to think of him on his paddleboard is a very harmonic vision. I went out this morning and only fell off five times, which I am feeling very good about. My knees were shaking as I stood for the first time and surveyed the great open expanse before me on the bay by our Hawaii home. I paddled for a long time until some disturbance in the force overtook my groove and I plummeted face-first into the welcoming sea. Doggedly, as in “like a dog,” I climbed back on board with my beautiful Koa paddle resting on top of the deck. Then, on my knees, I resumed paddling until the nerve to stand assembled itself in my balance-challenged form. Suddenly I was up again and under way, gleefully rejoicing in my newly found existence as a man of the water. I approached a rock outcropping and had deftly avoided getting too close to it when a subtle swell rolled beneath me, completely throwing me off balance and into the welcoming sea again. The water was relatively calm, and the swell was a little like jelly when it came through. I vowed to be more aware and reasserted myself, standing once more with paddle in hand, looking out on the distant shoreline and feeling at one with the board.
The time had come to make a turn, an adjustment in course, and I was experimenting with this, first paddling on one side, then reversing the flow on the other side, making the craft unwieldy, and once again I found myself in the welcoming sea. On my knees, I continued toward the launch point, thoroughly worn out and totally invigorated by my new experience.
This, I felt, was the beginning of a new chapter for me, the basis of a more broad understanding of my place in the universe. Perhaps I was taking it a little too seriously, but the bottom line is I had a great time out there. On this journey, my maiden voyage, I was accompanied throughout by my neighbor and friend Greg McManus on his paddleboard.
I told you before that Greg and his wife, Vicki, own and operate the Napa Valley Wine Train, which he repairs himself, among other feats of engineering. Previously Greg’s engineering prowess had been demonstrated many times, notably in the design and implementation of a system he developed for getting Ben Young into the ocean via a system of wires and pulleys that was tied off on the shore to a tree and in the water to a big lava rock under the surface. The system was devised because carrying Ben into the water over lava rock was obviously a source of danger and concern. So, with this new idea, we would get Ben Young in a giant sling with pulleys on it connected to an overhead wire and let him glide down along the wire until he splashed into the water and the waiting arms of his dedicated support team, Dustin Cline and Marian Zemla. Of course, Ben Young was laughing his ass off all the time and having a wonderful water experience! (Since Ben had his feeding tube implanted, we have not been doing this sort of thing, but I am not so sure we need to stop it. We are getting familiar with the tube, and it’s really quite stable. It just takes some serious getting used to. Ben should still have those ocean activities, and I see no reason to stop if it’s safe.)
Although Ben will not be able to paddleboard with me, I know he will enjoy watching. He always likes sharing himself with us by watching, which is one of those gifts he has. He just enjoys what we’re doing through our joy. He has become a master of that. Life is short and should be lived to the fullest. We will be trying to do everything we can to get back in the ocean again with Ben Young.
Chapter Sixty-Four
So now I find myself rolling down a California two-lane highway listening to the Pistol Annies’ Hell on Heels, which I first heard on Rhapsody. The old fields and new factory farms fly by, the road full of cars I don’t recognize, with young people behind the wheels talking excitedly about things of which I have only some understanding. A long grade approaches. My generator is cycled off and I’m running silent at about forty-five miles an hour. Visions of the future and past jostle for position in my coffee-soaked mind while the sun starts having its first warming moments. My windows are not as clean as they were when I started my journey, so I’ll have to try to do something about that soon. I like looking and listening. The music is really good! I crank it up and lament the streaming quality, wanting to download the album from Pono as soon as I can so I can hear what they heard, but I love the songs. Finally I am hearing something that makes me feel good! I love the vibe these girls have! The way they talk about real things.
“Trailer for Rent” comes on and I strain to hear all the words, making a note in my mind to Google the lyrics as soon as I can. The ones I can make out are really good, and the harmonies are just great. It’s all about struggling with life at a young age, trying it out, discarding it, and grabbing for more. I love hearing this energy. I recognize it from my own youth, and it gives me faith in life and makes me feel. Feelings, once awakened, can take me anywhere, and they do. Now happy, now sad, reliving the past again.
I’m noticing the approaching grade as the generator cycles on and my speed holds at forty-five miles an hour. I am in my element, traveling past the small towns now on a side road that reminds me of the highways my family used to take when Daddy drove us down through Georgia to Florida every fall. Actually it is the same vintage of road, but it is seldom used now. That is all on the interstate a couple of miles away, running more or less parallel. This two-lane with the faded yellow line is soothing somehow, although the roughness of the surface harkens back to smoother times. Rolling down the side window, I feel the air rush in and smell the grass in the fields as they fly by. Life is good!
Now I notice a bad smell and it gets worse immediately. Up goes the window. Cresting a small hill I see the factory hog farm that is the source of the foulness. In a few minutes it is past and I am upwind. I try lowering the window again. Now the sweet smell of the fields returns as I see a few small family farms roll by. I love this road. I wonder how long that factory farm has been there and how the locals feel about it, what it would be like to live downwind. Damn, that music is good, something about her husband being a hunter and never being home, always out with his coonhounds. I realize that I am loving this music because it’s talking about a life that I can’t see, kind of a mirage from the back country of the South.
“Boys from the South” comes on and again I am taken by this music. It appears from nowhere as a new release on Rhapsody. No radio play. No hype announcement. Just real good country. I suddenly realize that things have changed so much that I might be getting lost. The old w
ays I know are losing ground. My way is fading. But I still feel. No one can take that away from me. It is a gift I still have and I want my own music to feel as alive and vibrant as what I am hearing now. Will that happen? Will I just be reliving my glory days when I record again? Will anybody hear it? Doubt enters the picture as I slow to thirty and cruise by a horseshoe-shaped complex on the side of the road. RETIREMENT MOTEL, reads a neon sign. The vacancy light is there, but I can’t make out whether the sign is lit or not because the sun is hitting it.
I keep rolling along, and the grade has gradually started. I try to call home but the cell reception is gone for the moment. Checking the GPS, I decide to cross over a few miles and join the interstate to make the long climb. When I get to the big road, the pace is much faster, and I am cruising at seventy or seventy-five with the generator cycled on at maximum. Fuel is a bit low, and I start wondering if I’ll be able to get E85 (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) or if I will have to refuel with pure gasoline. This is a big grade, really long. The interstate seems to stretch for miles in a straight line as the fields and farms give way to a more barren landscape. “Loneliness has been good to me” is playing on my personal radio, where I hear songs before I write them, and I wonder if this is just another mirage I will forget or if this will become a real song. It has been a long time since I’ve written a song, and the visits from the muse seem to be lessened by something. I still keep my faith that the muse knows best and when I am ready the inspiration will be there. I am trying not to look too ready. I know that just invites false promise.
I pass a hitchhiker going the other way, on the other side of the big road. You don’t often see those anymore, especially on the interstate. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I can’t see him anymore, or maybe it was a her. I am sure I saw someone, but I know looking backward is not a good idea, so I abandon the thought and continue on my way up the grade. The big Lincoln holds steady at seventy-four miles per hour, displaying the legendary power that makes it a true Continental, even though it is totally electric at the prime mover. A soft whine comes through the rear set as the two hundred kilowatts does its work.
A lot of insects have met their demise and the windshield is even harder to see through than it was earlier, so I try to clean the glass with the wiper wash system. Initially it leaves some big streaks, so I keep pushing the button until I can see clearly again. The only clean area is where the wipers are. The rest is really pretty useless for anything other than windshield protection. Halfway up the grade, the road begins to turn and I see a fuel station. Taking the exit, I cruise into a modern fuel stop where there is no E85, so I fill up with gasoline. Using the towels and cleaning tool available there, I clean all the Lincoln’s windows and even the headlights, as well as the front of the car, which is packed with dead insects, the victims of my passage. A few minutes later I return to the big road and the long climb. The summit is somewhere ahead.
Looking for another dose of that great music, I try to restart the Pistol Annies’ Hell on Heels on Rhapsody, but there is not a clear enough signal to stream it. Cruising along, I see the pollution from LA lingering at the summit ahead and remember the first time I smelled LA air in 1966. It was new to me then, a smell I was unfamiliar with.
It wasn’t bad, but it sure wasn’t good. I was twenty years old at the time.
—
Walking in the forest for me is like going to church. It is my cathedral, and I haven’t been doing that enough lately. With the cougars getting so close to our house recently (we found some cougar shit fifteen feet from the back door), I suppose I have become a little fearful of the forest. I’m going to have to let that go. I need to connect again. Walking the forest floor is one of the most spiritual things I can imagine. Just thinking about it now makes me wonder why I haven’t been there in a couple of years. I used to take Ben Young into the forest all the time. We would fasten his chair into the old blue jeep and off we would go together. We both enjoyed it a lot.
Next time we’re on the ranch we’ll load up and go for a trip together. Just like old times. Rolling slowly down the old jeep road, giant redwoods surrounding us, Ben and I will see the God-rays streaming down through the trees and landing on the forest floor. The old jeep crawling along the pathway silently in low gear, effortless in its motion, creates just enough noise to warn the residents of our arrival, and that is the way. Every now and then we stop just to listen and smell the forest. The birds become silent, then slowly start their chirping, warbling, and finally, as if triggered by some unknown event, a jay cries a warning into the forest. All becomes quiet, and then the cycle begins again with a few warbles and chirps.
I have learned through walking with my dogs here that there is an unspoken law. Always send a warning. Never surprise the animal life in the forest. So walking along without the noise of the jeep, it is wise to whistle a little tune and give the creatures some kind of an idea that you are approaching their area. This gives them a chance to adjust and find a place to hide, so they can watch you from their position out of your view. It is wise to follow the rule of the forest.
Once I was walking with my dog Carl, a golden doodle, in the forest cathedral when I realized that he was not with me. I looked around and called softly. I heard a little yelp. Then I retraced my steps about a hundred feet back on the path around an outcropping on the canyon side and found Carl, just sitting there in the path. I called him softly again. He came forward and sat down about ten feet from me, indicating that he would not come closer. When I turned to continue up the path, beckoning him to follow, he let out a soft bark. Carl was a very quiet dog, and to hear him talk was unusual, yet there he was, sitting on the path, unmoving in his resolve. It was then I realized what Carl was telling me. We were trespassing. There was something ahead on the trail and we were not supposed to go there. He was warning me of the danger. When I felt that and grasped it, I immediately reversed course and headed back along the way I had come. Carl ran on ahead, happily wagging his tail.
Carl is gone now, and Nina is with us today, but I think that the same will hold true for her should she choose to go for a walk in the woods with me. So Nina, that is the plan. When Pegi and I return to the ranch, I will take you into the forest for a new experience and a little religion. You can be my guide. You will instinctively know the language. I am reticent to enter the forest without guidance. I will take you to my beautiful church, the place where I find myself.
I really need to do that now. I feel it. Something is missing.
—
I read on the blogs that legacy artists (i.e., artists with long histories and large catalogs) are just trying to hold on to what they have and keep their money. There is some blogging jerk out there who feels he can generalize his way to validity. I don’t like being put into any group. This guy thinks he knows the motivations of artists like me. I am a legacy artist, like it or not; I have my history, for what it’s worth. I love streaming. What a great replacement for radio! But radio used to pay mechanical royalties every time a song got played. It was a minuscule amount and artists were happy. Just because I would like to know the formula for artists getting paid by streaming services does not make me a greedy person. I have been trying to find out what the formula is for these services paying the artists/record companies, and you’d think I was trying to infiltrate the U.S. Mint. I get a letter asking me if I want to be “in or out” of streaming, with absolutely zero information with which to make my decision. Like I said, I am not trying to get rich here; I am trying to make an informed decision. It is my art, my creation, that is being served here, and I deserve to know.
Yet I have been told that the deals are so new that they are changing all the time, and my music is being streamed on multiple services in the meantime. That does not seem like good business to me. I’m wondering what the heck I should be thinking about when I make these decisions. There certainly is a lot more to music than technology, and the creative flow of songwriting does not revolve around a com
puter. I would like some answers.
My friend and manager, Elliot, is going to Warner Brothers today to find out what the deal is and get me a copy of it so I know what I and other artists are doing. Every artist everywhere deserves to know these things. It is the right of the artist. That does not make legacy artists and record companies greedy. Listen, I love the new technology. It fascinates me. Steve Jobs was a genius, and I was deeply saddened by his death. What a pioneer. His death marked the end of an era. I was so close to getting to talk with him in person about the future of music, after one or two telephone talks and a few e-mails, but now he is gone. I hope he knew what a wonderful thing he had accomplished, and I only wanted to help him make it better by bringing quality sound along with it. Thank you, Steve.
(As an aside here, I want to say that I have now learned the basis of the formulas for payment of streamed-music royalties, and they seem to be pretty fair. Remember, there are different formulas for different streaming services. Someone needs to explain these models to artists so they can feel good about the knowledge. Artists need a representative and a clear message. It’s a brand-new way of dealing with the payment of royalties, and it has been carefully worked out so far, although there may be adjustments to the formulas as time goes by and everyone concerned begins to understand the impacts of these new models on their lives and businesses. Time will tell. This is the beginning. Some things will work, and some won’t.)
Personally, from what I can see, I would hate to be in the position of dealing directly with the technology companies without a buffer if I was an artist, which I am. I would say neither legacy artists nor record companies are the buffoons some self-righteous music newbies have made them out to be. This is an evolving picture. It needs to be watched.
—
I have been clean now for seven months. That is a good long time. I still feel cravings. Maybe I’d like a beer, maybe a joint. I heard the Pistol Annies sing about reasons why they’re broke and so who would invest in their future? One’s drinkin’, one’s smokin’, one’s taking pills. Well, they are writing their asses off. I know that. I haven’t written a song in more than half a year, and that is different for me. Of course I’ve written over ninety thousand words in this book, and that is different for me, too.
