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Home , Ben Keith

1985 er july – septemb

The guy drew a gun on us, told us to get the fuck out. Those were the good him, probably because he’s seen several friends die from drug abuse. old days.” “David says that he loves to play music with Crosby Stills Nash & Young Nearly 20 years later, had returned with his latest ensemble, more than anything in the world. I told them that when they could prove a squad of veteran Nashville musicians called The International to me that that’s really what he wanted to do with his life and give up Harvesters. His new country album, , is, as its author sees it, the drugs, I would go out with them. I told them that three years ago, and it third in a sequence of records which began with the best-selling Harvest hasn’t happened yet. in 1972, continued with the winsome in 1978, and after “The way I look at it, either he’s going to OD and die or we’re going to play assorted diversions has brought him back to the road in 1985. together sometime. It’s pretty simple. But until one of those things Old Ways is a skilfully crafted piece of work, full of perfectly assured happens, until he cleans up, I’m not gonna do it. Live Aid was an exception melodies and impeccable performances from familiar Young sidemen to the rule which I made up on the spot. They all know how I feel. like steel guitarist Ben Keith and Drummer Karl Himmel. More “I will not go out with CSNY, have everyone scrutinise , how big significantly, the record captures the state of mind of a man who’s shot it is and how much it meant, and see this guy that’s so fucked up on drugs, the rapids of rock’n’roll, lost some good friends along the way, wilfully and who’s not really so fucked up that he can’t come back – because we’ve turned his back on the charts and pop stardom, and who has managed all seen him when he’s been clean recently, where he’s very sharp just like to become an adult in a field where the odds are stacked against it. Neil he always was. Young has survived, and he’s grown, too. And changed. “But he seems to feel like he wants to do that, or he would stop doing it. “I think in some ways – only in some ways, but in some ways – rock’n’roll So, y’know, until he has more respect for life and his effects on the young has let me down,” he said. “It really doesn’t leave you a way to grow old people… why should some young person who loves CSNY’s old records gracefully and continue to work.” from listening to their parents play them, some young kid 12 years old, Why’s that? Because you’re supposed to die before you get old? why should he see CSNY on TV and know that this guy’s a cocaine addict, “Yeah, right. If you’re gonna rock you better burn out, ’cos that’s the way been freebasing for fuckin’ years and years and years, and he looks like they wanna see you. They wanna see you right on the edge where you’re a vegetable but they’re still on TV and they’re still making it and they’re glowing, right on the living edge, which is still big stars? I don’t wanna show anybody that. where young people are. They’re discovering That’s something no one should see.” themselves, and rock’n’roll is young people’s On the recent Live Aid broadcast, Young and music. I think that’s a reality, and I still love “Rock’n’roll his band were seen delivering a song called rock’n’roll and I love to play the songs in my set “Nothing Is Perfect”. It’s not included on Old that are sort of rock’n’roll, but I don’t see a future is young Ways and is a strikingly forthright declaration of for me there.” Young’s current absorption with family life and Young paused, his lank black hair flopping an almost gung-ho enthusiasm for Ronald forward, and rubbed his chin, which was people’s music. Reagan’s America. Young in the main steered covered in a heavy overnight stubble. “I see clear of the loudmouth leftish politics of Crosby , I see people who take care of Stills & Nash, but wrote the scorching “Ohio” their own. You got 75-year-old guys on the road. I think that’s after National Guardsmen shot four students at That’s what I was put here to do, y’know, so I Kent State University. It’s something of a shock wanna make sure I surround myself with a reality” to find him supporting Reagan’s arms build-up. people who are gonna take care of me. ’Cos I’m The Loner has turned Republican. in it for the long run. “In the Carter years, everybody was walking “’s 54 years old and he’s a happy man, doing what he loves around with their tails between their legs talking with their head down, to do. I can’t think of one rock’n’roller like that. So what am I gonna do?” y’know, thinking America’s been so bad, we’ve done all these things Old Ways features guest appearances from country luminaries Waylon wrong. But, especially militarily, we had a lot of disasters and a lot of Jennings and Willie Nelson, both of whom will be playing some support things that never should have happened and that maybe were mistakes dates with Young on his current tour. A lot of the performances find in the first place, although it’s hard to say. Young and his International Harvesters playing to family audiences at “People were being killed everywhere before we went over to try to help, state fairs, huge day-long gatherings of people, animals, carnival and we went over and tried to help them and we fucked up. But y’know, sideshows, food and drink, where everyone turns up for the you can’t always feel sorry for everything that you did. Obviously I wish entertainment in the evening. It’s miles away from the rock’n’roll crowds no one had to die in any war, but war is, ah, is a dirty game. who’ve flocked over the years to see Young play with Buffalo Springfield, “It seems like the Soviets, it doesn’t bother them that much to walk into Crosby Stills & Nash or his perennial backing band, Crazy Horse. Afghanistan and kill people left and right and take the fucking country and do all that shit. You can’t just let them keep on fucking doing that oung is still best known among non-partisan observers without saying enough’s enough. So to do that, to have the strength to do as the laid-back whiner who had a hit single with “Heart Of that, you have to be strong. YGold”in 1972. His early-’70s albums, After The Gold Rush and “Ten years ago, the US was starting to really drag ass, way behind the Harvest, provided a melancholy soundtrack for any number of mentally Soviets in build-up. All that’s happened lately is more or less to catch unbalanced young people to ponder suicide to. His work with Buffalo up, just to be equal, reach equality in arms. At best it’s a bad situation, Springfield in the ’60s brought him into fierce creative proximity with but I think it would be worse to be weak when the stronger nation is the Stephen Stills, and among a bunch of fine songs recorded by the group, aggressor against freedom. it’s still Young’s dreamlike mock-symphonies “Expecting To Fly” and “So I stand behind Reagan when it comes to build-up, to stand, be able “Broken Arrow” that remain the most haunting and inexplicable. to play hardball with other countries that are aggressive towards free Young joined Crosby Stills & Nash as additional instrumentalist and countries. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” dark horse. His stint with them barely lasted a year, but it got him some But would you have thought that way in 1967? prime exposure on their album Déjà Vu and set Young up perfectly for his “No, no I wouldn’t have thought that in 1967. But I’m an older man now, subsequent solo career. The association also proved to be something of I have a family. I see other people with families. There’s no immediate an albatross, but as the years passed and Young’s own albums pursued threat to American families, but there is an immediate threat to other a grim and tortuous path, it became clear that while CSNY had given families in free countries, y’know, a lot of the countries on the borders him a priceless commercial boost, it had scarcely hinted at the depth of the Iron Curtain. To stand there and say it could never happen is wrong, and range of his talent. because it’s happened. We just don’t want it to happen any more – at least, Records like Tonight’s The Night, On The Beach and I don’t.” were to prove emphatically that Young could hardly have been less like It seems utterly insane when you think of the billions of pounds or the hippy peacenik the media fondly imagined him to be. dollars that have been spent since 1945 on weapons that have never been Crosby Stills & Nash are still playing together and grossing wads of used, surely? dollars, but Young won’t have anything to do with them until “It is crazy, it’s fucking nuts,” growled Young. “At least in our countries kicks his cocaine habit. The topic brings out a hard puritanical streak in we have the fucking freedom to stand up and say it’s crazy. And that’s

108 | HISTORY OF ROCK 1985