The best songs age like fine wine, and Neil Young has plenty to offer in that regard. Even though some of his most ubiquitous songs came from his late teens and early twenties, these tracks have endearing and enduring qualities that make them hit even harder the older they (and we) get. Iโve noticed myself attaching new meaning and experiences to these six songs in particular.
โTell Me Whyโ
โTell me why is it hard to make arrangements with yourself? / When youโre old enough to repay and young enough to sell?โ
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This line has always struck me for the way it captures that in-between feeling of adulthood. You donโt feel young anymore, but you donโt feel old, either. You could stick to the life you know. Or you could start forging a new path from scratch. Sometimes, the sheer number of possibilities makes it impossible to make a definitive decision. The further down a particular path I go, the more and more deeply I find myself relating to the opening track from After The Gold Rush.
โRamada Innโ
โAnd every morninโ comes the sun / and they both rise into the dayย holdinโ onto what theyโve done.โ
โRamada Innโ from Psychedelic Pill paints a desolate portrait of an older couple who have fallen into a deep rut. They make their way through days that run together, ending it with not much to do besides drink some booze to unwind. In just a few lines, Neil Young captures what itโs like to get caught between the rock and a hard place that is burnout and boredom. A place where, despite your best efforts, you start losing sight of whatโs really important in life.
โOut On The Weekendโ
โThink Iโll pack it in and buy a pickup / take it down to L.A. / find a place to call my own and try to fix up / start a brand new day.โ
Who doesnโt love whimsically daydreaming about packing up your life and moving to sunny Los Angeles? The laidback groove of this classic Harvest track adds to the songโs unrushed, untethered vibe, inviting the listener to imagine what their little fixer-upper on the West Coast would look like. Thereโs a palpable loneliness to the song, too. An idea of โwherever you go, there you areโ permeates throughout, reminding us that our problems donโt go away just because we move to L.A.
โOn The Beachโ
โThough my problems are meaningless / that donโt make them go away. / I need a crowd of people / but I canโt face them day to day.โ
Sure, things could always get worse. But these Neil Young lyrics remind us that just because a problem isnโt the worst thing you could possibly experience, itโs still a problem. And weโre allowed to accept our struggles without judging ourselves for not handling something more severe. The title track to Youngโs 1974 album explores alienation and isolation in ways that seem as accepting as they are sorrowful. Life is hard. Sometimes all there is to do is to escape to the beach.
โOld Manโ
โDoesnโt mean that much to me to mean that much to you.โ
Like all of Neil Youngโs lyrics, this line from โOld Manโ is certainly up for interpretation. But the way I choose to see itโand the meaning that feels more authentic the older I getโis that Young is expressing the notion that we can mean more to people than we realize because it doesnโt emotionally or mentally impact us in the same way. Our influence on others is more prominent than we might realize, which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you wield that power.
โHarvest Moonโ
โBut now itโs getting late, and the moon is climbing high / I want to celebrate, see it shining in your eye / Because Iโm still in love with you / I want to see you dance again / Because Iโm still in love with you on this harvest moon.โ
The final entry on this โNeil Young lyricsโ list is one that Iโll admit to having a bias for, considering it was my wedding song. But thereโs something about the unique vantage point of โHarvest Moonโ that speaks to a couple thatโs already been together a long time that just ages like fine wine. The longer Iโm married, the more those lyrics mean to me. Connecting to that song is like a slow, delightful burn that gets stronger with each passing year.
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