Neil Young

A master, a crusader, a regular Joe…

By: John Denson, john@densononline.com

Published On: June 25, 2010

This isn’t a concert review, if so, it’d be woefully late. This is my opinion of Neil Young and how much more a man he is than the guy who sang “Southern Man.”

I don’t understand how some folks think people are either pro-worker or pro-corporate; pro-war or not; radical hippie or not. In other words, we categorize people into all of one thing, like: if you are against the war, you can’t also support the troops; if so, then you’re screwed up.

Not so.

The other night, in a concert at the Ryman Auditorium, Neil Young, a tireless spokesman for farmers, workers, sick kids, the environment, and soldiers, and a vehement anti-racist, sang and played eloquently about all of the above. Of course he doesn’t like Halliburton—who could? But he supports their laborers and their families right to work there or anywhere, and, after the Gulf explosion, Young will support those families affected to be rightfully looked after and compensated, as they should. Many fishermen lost their livelihood for years to come, not to mention the families who lost loved ones in the explosion.

Young has sympathy for young soldiers who find themselves in impossible situations due to bad decisions by politicians. Yet he rails against the war itself. Any war.

He asks, in “Ohio,” a song about the late 1960s Kent State/Nixon/Mitchell massacre, “what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?” All she’d done was protest the Vietnam war in a country founded on free speech, then got shot down by federal troops sent in to “quell the riots.” One girl was killed when walking to class. I have two daughters around the same age.

Young’s an anomaly in these areas: he supports farmers and workers to have their rights, yet these are voters, often, who fall into the demographics of those who supported Nixon, Bush, Cheney, et al. I wonder if the fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico support Bush policies still?

Regardless, the music Neil Young produced the other night, live and alone, mesmerized. The stage got dressed up like a carnival of sorts highlighting not Neil, but the song or instrument used. There were three electric and two acoustic guitars, a grand piano, a stand-up piano and a “pipe-organ” looking right out of a Tim Burton film. The grand piano had a giant lamp and lampshade hanging over it. There was a wooden Indian, life-size.

And the music: whether an acoustic “Tell Me Why” or a very electric “Cortez the Killer,” told us all, whether aged 18 or 68 or in between, why he’s just so damned talented. His famous humility, (there’s a phrase), aside, Young moved from song to song and instrument to instrument as if playing with Legos. He had fun. He played gently, and he played so loud I’d never heard anything like it, especially at the Ryman. And this is coming from a guy who’s seen everyone from Led Zeppelin to Bruce Springsteen.

It was Young and country rebel Willie Nelson who started Farm Aid. Why do conservatives dislike people like them? Were we not founded as a nation of mostly farmers?

I’m sure after “Ohio,” which became a No.1 song, Young landed on Nixon’s enemy list. And God only knows how long Nelson was on it. These are harmless, helpful, inventive, energetic (Young’s now 65) people, still out there with a voice (and, in Young’s case, Fender amps and a fuzzbox).

So what if Willie likes pot and hates taxes? Wouldn’t you if you could? And Young, who wrote one of the best anti-drug songs ever, “The Needle and the Damage Done,” just won the national MusiCares award for his contributions in that area. Young also wrote and played a song for his grandchild. He writes pop, melodies, folk, and is considered the “Godfather of Grunge,” a great music style out of Seattle (most famous: Nirvana and Pearl Jam). It’s loud, and really damn good.

There are not too many people like this walking around, or, in his case, lumbering. He’s a big man in physical stature, too.

So, add it up: one of the best anti-war singers ever, one of our tireless defenders of the troops, of farmers, of children. And still playing “Down By The River,” something he wrote over 40 years ago, as if it’s new.

What a show. What a guy. And may Kitty Wells and Roy Acuff rest in peace, because last night Neil Young took the roof off of the Ryman and shook its bones to the core.

And so be it.

Lord am I glad I was there to feel it.