[Today: Neil Young faces down the punks...]
When punk rock came roiling out of the mid-70′s gutter like a thousand headless horsemen of the apocalypse, most established rock stars were horrified at the prospect of the safety-pinned upstarts, and fled for the security of their velvet-lined mansions. Many of them disowned punk racket as non-music, and most saw themselves as something apart from these noxious noisemakers. This fear and disgust suited the punks just fine, as mainstream acceptance wasn’t really part of their agenda.
But no sneer ever scared Neil Young. Because he was never striving for a toehold on mainstream acceptance himself, he had little to lose in the punk rock revolution. Indeed, he seemed happy enough to join in firebombing the Top 40 and watching the suckers run. “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten/This is the story of a Johnny Rotten” he sings on ‘My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)’, the opening cut on Rust Never Sleeps. Leave it to Neil to draw a simple, straight line between the death of Elvis Presley and the ascendance of The Sex Pistols.
Far from being intimidated by punk rockers, Neil actually sought them out for collaboration. He worked with Devo on early versions of several of the tracks on Rust Never Sleeps, and even nicked the album title from them. According to Young biographer Jimmy McDonough, “The slogan… dated back to Devo’s graphic-arts days, when they were promoting an automobile-rust-proofing outfit.” In Young’s hands the phrase became a rallying cry against the corrosion of the creative spirit that had overtaken so many of his self-satisfied Laurel Canyon peers.
Side One of the album is acoustic, but it burns with an intensity that far outstrips the electric Side Two. The message laying in these lyrics is ‘You might think rock stars are worthless husks of braindead ego, but I know some, and they’re worse than that‘. On ‘Thrasher’ he sings “They had the best selection/They were poisoned with protection/There was nothing that they needed/Nothing left to find.” He compares rock stars to statues, old people on park benches, and dinosaurs – in short, the kind of has-been designations that he has spent decades deftly avoiding.
As fate would have it, Johnny Rotten turned into the old dinosaur, while Neil himself just keeps getting younger and younger.
Listen: Thrasher
Tags: Devo, Neil Young, Punk, Rust Never Sleeps
15 May 2008 at 10:38 am |
“Johnny Rotten…dinosaur…don’t make me get all “Bob” on you dk! Lest you forget the PIL days of Johnny Rotten (one of the biggest Chili Pepper influences). Granted he’s no Neil Young, but let’s not lump him into the Billy Joel category – for God’s sake!
15 May 2008 at 11:16 am |
PIL is about as current as Hall & Oates…
It pains me to say so, but Mr. Lydon has turned into an old fart who shows up on way too many reality TV programs (in the UK), and hasn’t made anything resembling relevant music in approximately… how long have the Sex Pistols been broken up??
I personally love the guy’s moxy, but he lost his creative muse a long time ago.
15 May 2008 at 5:04 pm |
I’m hungry.
Lydon’s a twat.
16 May 2008 at 8:09 am |
dude, don’t even get me started about the musical genius of Daryl Hall & John Oates…insult them and I’ll challenge you to a duel…
22 April 2010 at 12:02 pm |
[...] Wind) – both ranked ahead of usual suspects such as Electric Ladyland, Ramones, Rust Never Sleeps and Led Zeppelin II. That showing speaks volumes about the kind of musical contender Parker was [...]