At the
Berlin Film Festival, which this year attracted a record number of rock
stars, one German newspaper discovered a novel angle: it asked a
behavioural biologist to observe this frisky species on the red carpet.
The findings? A sharp contrast between Neil Young's tentative body
language and the assertive, splashy vogueing of Madonna and the Rolling
Stones. Young's body "is as strange to him, as full of surprises, as
probably the whole world", the writer concluded.
"His walk is relaxed, but he is open to astonishment. He knows
unfamiliar things can happen at any time, even on familiar territory."
Three years ago, Young, now 62, confronted the unknown in the form of a
life-threatening brain aneurysm. But he is back. His European tour
arrives in Britain on Monday for his first performance here in five
years.
There is also a new album, Chrome Dreams II, and (the project that took
him to Berlin) a new documentary, CSNY: Deja Vu. The film is directed by
one Bernard Shakey, a shadowy figure who has often collaborated with
Young but never been seen in the same room as him. It is a revealing
film that takes the measure of the musician's status in the early 21st
century.
CSNY follows Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on their "Freedom of Speech"
tour across America in 2006, when they were performing songs from
Young's polemical anti-Iraq War album, Living With War.
They were turbulent times. Although much had changed since the Dixie
Chicks were vilified for making an anti-Bush crack at a 2003 concert,
Young still ran into extreme reactions, especially in conservative
states.
In Atlanta, Georgia, the show began well - then broke into boos, cheers
and a stampede for the exit when the most inflammatory number, Let's
Impeach The President", began.
"We knew that was going to happen," says Young, who received death
threats (though these aren't mentioned in the film).
"There were other towns that were equally violent - Atlanta was just the
one we captured the best. It was the most nerve-racking experience I've
been through on stage and the most dangerous thing I've done. The thing
most likely not to be repeated.
"It's almost personal. People don't even mention the music. It's: 'Who
does he think he is? Is he trying to reinvent himself and make himself
seem important? He's lost his mind! He had an aneurysm. When people have
a near-death experience, they do all kinds of weird things afterwards.'"
I ask Young if such criticism upset him. He hesitates.
"Hm. I don't know. A little bit. But not that much. It's a sign that I
perforated the outer exterior of someone. The idea is to get people
talking in the car on the way home about what's going on in the world.
Maybe someone will discover who they really are. There's a lot of guilt
[about Iraq], a lot of hidden feelings. We wanted to bring them out."
The documentary is not Young's first experience with film. Two leading
independent directors have made films with and about him: Jim Jarmusch
(Year of the Horse, 1997) and Jonathan Demme (Heart of Gold, 2006).
"Jim has an amazing presence; you know this is someone who has a
vision," Young recalls
"Jonathan is exuberant and positive - he nurtures every little thing
that goes right, like it was the biggest thing in the world."
And Bernard Shakey - what was he like? Young shoots me an unreadable
sidelong look.
"Reclusive. Business-orientated. A slave-driver."
The Freedom Of Speech project was, he says, "a mission. Focused. The
rehearsals were like boot camp. The others kept trying to break the
mould, saying 'We'd like to do a song about the whales.' No way! We're
doing songs about war and politics and the human condition. That's it.
There was no tolerance for being distracted. Talking off the cuff was
not permitted. Don't let people off the hook. Just keep slamming 'em
with the same information."
In the film, David Crosby speaks of a benign dictatorship.
"It was a little like that," Young admits.
"But it's really not the way CSNY is. Maybe I've been more aggressive in
my later years than they have. Maybe I've been more creative in my
output. So that gives me a certain clout.
"But we're all basically coming from the same place, though we have
different ways of expressing ourselves. Stills is a hard-line Democrat,
a political person who works within the system. Crosby is a rebel - he's
prone to spouting things that maybe I don't agree with, not always.
Graham [Nash] is very eloquent and has more of a world view because he's
from England."
The others endorse the film, even if they grumble good-humouredly about
the decision to quote the ruder reviews describing the band as balding
hippy millionaires or likening them to a gaggle of pensioners comparing
prescriptions.
Certainly, they don't try to emulate the Rolling Stones'
rams-dressed-as-lambs style. I ask Young - one of the quartet's better
preserved members - how he thinks Jagger's lot look compared with his
lot, and he simply shakes his head and smiles and says, a little
ruefully, "Fabulous. Fabulous."
The film suggests parallels between the Noughties and the late Sixties,
when Young was in the forefront of the anti-Vietnam movement. But does
his generation of artists retain its power to sway hearts and minds?
At a Berlin press conference, Young declared tersely that the time when
music could change the world was gone. His remark was much debated, and
so I ask him to explain why, exactly, he feels the protest song is in
decline.
"I think I said something else," he replies, fixing me sternly with his
gimlet gaze.
"The songs are still there. But the effect is not as vivid. It's part of
a media explosion. Music is not distributed the way it used to be
distributed."
Wary of the mainstream, Young offered the original album - which he
cranked out at high speed, writing three songs in a day - as a free
download. The film, shot on video, was a similarly grass-roots affair
made with DVD and online distribution in mind. But its successful launch
in Sundance and Berlin has led to talk of a theatrical release, in the
hope it might stir debate in the run-up to the presidential elections.
Young's present tour features "personal songs". There will be no
campaigning. Nothing about the elections (though he says he "puts his
faith" in Barack Obama).
"I don't want to be like CNN. I already ran that story. Besides, I'm not
an American citizen, I'm a Canadian, although, as a member of the planet
Earth, I feel I have as much of a voice and a valid opinion as everybody
else."
He is sometimes painted as a knee-jerk pinko hippy peacenik. Is that
really accurate? He has, at moments, spoken out in support of Ronald
Reagan and the Patriot Act. Some see the Shakey pseudonym (it is also
the title of his biography) as denoting a propensity to vacillation -
or, more positively, the ability to change his mind.
Young later qualified his Berlin remark with a note on his website: "No
one song can change the world. But that doesn't mean it's time to stop
singing."
He has a credibility with younger musicians that few of his generation
can match.
In a tribute four years ago, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist, Flea,
wrote: "Neil is the guy I look at when I think about getting older in a
rock band and still having dignity and relevance and honesty."
As it turned out, the Stones and Madonna were in Berlin on lightning
raids: their armour-plated publicity juggernauts were quickly out of
town.
Over the next few days, though, I cross Young several times, in a hotel
lift or wandering around the streets, blending in unremarked with the
grey winter scenery. He nods at me cordially, keeping a proper distance:
a solitary, self-contained figure, still puzzling over the state of the
world.
Neil Young's UK Tour runs from Monday. Info: www.neilyoung.com
TOP FIVE NEIL YOUNG ALBUMS
Harvest
(1972) £8.99
This is the solo album (with its single Heart of Gold) that put Young
into the rock star super-league - something he hated. Harvest's
easy-listening country style has been criticised but the beauty of songs
such as Old Man and The Needle and the Damage Done makes sniping
redundant.
Tonight's The Night
(1973) £8.99
In 1973, after the deaths of his roadie friend Bruce Berry and the
guitarist Danny Whitten, Young recorded a set of songs in a rage of
upset. His record company deemed the results too morose but, on their
eventual release in 1975, they revealed an artist dynamically exorcising
ghosts.
On The Beach
(1974) £8.99
Young cut this rough-and-ready album over a series of debauched sessions
in LA. Featuring the broken-hearted Ambulance Blues and with subject
matter including the Manson Family (Revolution Blues) this was Young at
his rawest, bidding farewell to the utopianism of the Sixties.
Rust Never Sleeps
(1979) £8.99
Invigorated by his new electro-punk pals Devo, Young let rip with a
blasting tough rock sound and questioned his own relevance. Includes the
song Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), quoted in Kurt Cobain's suicide
note. The fierce live album from this period, Live Rust, is also a good
buy.
Ragged Glory
(1990) £8·99
Like many of his generation, Young was a bit lost in the Eighties, but
he built momentum with 1989's Freedom, and the next album, Ragged Glory,
harked back to the best moments of Sixties folk and Seventies rock but
with an utterly contemporary distorted guitar attack. As grunge waited
in the wings Young was, once again, ahead of the curve - as he remains
to this day with his latest fine album, Chrome Dreams II (2007).
