Dusty’s Record Review
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Rust Never Sleeps
By Hunter60
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Rust Never Sleeps
By Hunter60
Hey hey, my my – rock and roll can never die…
When Neil Young’s ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ hit the airwaves in 1979, the music scene had been thumping through a schizophrenic time. Disco music was still selling well, New Wave had been touted as the ‘next big thing’ and the punk scene had moved from the shadows and in towards the mainstream. Hard, essential, rock and roll had seemingly become watered-down and anemic. There were a few blips on the radar of some seminal talent on the rise when Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits released their first album but even the decades powerhouses seemed to be putting limping dogs on the airwaves. It was a somewhat dark time for the rock and roll fan.
Then we clicked on the radio and heard the line ‘Hey hey, my my – rock and roll can never die’ done in Neil’s strange liquid falsetto over a sweet acoustic bed. And we listened. Later that same day we heard the same lyrics played over some of the most vicious distorted hyper-gain guitar that cut clean to the bone. It was the guitar equivalent of a roiling jet wash that rolled over our collective consciousness. Consider that most radio was bouncing a heavy bass beat with cheesy lyrics and soaring horns for the crowds to dance too and here was Neil ushering in something we hadn’t heard in quite a while. It was rock and roll the way we wanted it. The way we remembered it.
The album was cleanly cut into two distinct sections; side one all acoustic and somewhat typical musically of Neil with one noted exception. Lyrically, it was a change. ‘Thrasher’ showed maturity and a certain wink and a cryptic nod to being a rock and roll star in the dying days of the seventies. ‘Ride My Llama’ a weird, trippy little ditty about an encounter with an alien butted up against ‘Pocahontas’, a beautifully haunting song that weaves a painful portrait of the Native American. The final track on the first side, ‘Sail Away’ was an outtake from the ‘Comes A Time’ sessions in 1977 and has the added dimension of vocal depth with harmonies supplied by Nicolette Larson.
Side two opens all electric with what is often thought of as one of Neil Young’s most memorable songs. ‘Powderfinger’ manages to tell, in first person, the death of a young man during the civil war. It seems even more poignant now in our post – 9/11, Iraq war world. ‘Welfare Mothers’ is a thinly veiled shot at the late seventies economy and the forever circular system of public assistance in this country. ‘Sedan Delivery’ is just rock and roll – simple, fierce and brutal. The album finishes with ‘Hey hey, my my – into the black’ with the hollow refrain ‘rock and roll will never die…there’s more to the picture than meets the eye…”
Indeed.
‘Rust Never Sleeps’ was recorded as a live album with the sounds of the audience later removed which left it with an immediacy that is often lost in studio albums and it was the first album done with Crazy Horse since Zuma in 1975. In listening to it again now, I am no longer surprised by the pronouncements of Neil Young’s influence on the grunge movement of the early 90’s. Neil was doing flannel and fuzz-tone ten years before Seattle got into the act. If Kurt Cobain sired the grunge sound, then Neil Young was it’s kindly Uncle that would let it drink beer in the basement when its mother wasn’t home. And this is more than evident on Rust Never Sleeps. Some see the album as a nod to the punk movement (Johnny Rotten is mentioned by name ) and a salute the old (Elvis mentioned by reputation) but I have always seen it as Neil Young’s way of showing what he had done in the past and what he wanted to do in the future. It was a sign of a musician who was not content with the status quo but not so smug as to not acknowledge it.
Some albums sound dated when you listen to them almost twenty years later. You can feel the time cut into the grooves. But every once in a while, you find one that sounds as fresh and strong now as it did when it was first issued almost twenty years ago.
Given his current status as one of the remaining grand old men of Rock and Roll, I suspect that Neil Young had no intention of either burning out or fading away.
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
