Neil Young, 'Le Noise' and the threat of creativity

 
During my recent interview with Neil Young and Daniel Lanois about their collaborative new album, “Le Noise,” I asked Young about one of the thematic threads running through several songs. My question had to do with songs that address opposing forces and raise the prospect of balancing those forces.

In “Angry World,” for instance, he sings, “Some see life as a broken promise/Some see life as an endless fight/They think we live in the age of darkness/They think we live in the age of light.” In “Love and War,” broad topics commonly thought of as mutually exclusive domains, he says, “When I sing about love and war, I don’t really know what I’m saying/I’ve been in love and I’ve seen a lot of war/Seen a lot of people praying.” “Someone’s Gonna  Rescue You” takes aim at people who focus on the negative -- “Somewhere in a ray of sunshine, you find the dark” -- then suggests a way out: “Someone’s going to rescue you and bring you back.”

So I asked him: Has the idea of balance become more pressing as time goes by?

“Who knows? These things just came out in the songs,” he said, delving more into the creative process than directly analyzing songs' content. “I was just writing. I didn’t really think about it. That’s the weird thing about writing: They don’t seem to be my ideas; they just don’t seem to come off that way.

“And if they do seem like my ideas, then it’s different, it’s a totally different thing than this kind of writing,” Young said. On “Le Noise,” he said the eight songs came almost entirely by the method musicians often describe as channeling material from a higher source of creativity.

“The only one we were walking the line with, maybe transferring into the other zone, was ‘Angry World.’ We kind of skimmed the edge with that one,” Young said. “It has more of a literal, now translation: ‘the fisherman and the businessman.’ But that’s kind of vague."

That led into a priceless story of the inspiration for that song.

   

“It’s because of this guy in this bar,” Young said. “Everybody knows me in this bar, and I’m on my way out one night and he yells, ‘Hey, Neil!’ and he sounds pissed off. He’s a big guy -- a fisherman, who lives up in Alaska. He makes his living there and then comes down here, lives here and spends his money then he goes back up.

“He says, ‘Write a song called "It’s an Angry World" -- it is an angry world!’ You know, it’s like if I don’t write the song he’s going to kill me.” Young laughed as he recounted the incident. “I mean, he’s a good guy. But that’s the way it happened. So I felt like I could use ‘the fisherman.’ And now, there they are in the gulf, the fishermen and the oilmen.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Daniel Lanois, left, and Neil Young in Young's LincVolt electric-powered 1959 Lincoln Continental. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Nick Danger]

Time to take another ride on that mystery train called "Neil Young".....or in this case perhaps, "LincVolt"........this endeavor brings to mind the quote from the Cameron Crowe interview in RS back in the late 70's.... "Driving in the middle of the road soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch, it was a rougher ride, but I met more interesting people there.....". Anyway, I believe that is a close rendition of the how the quote read, but regardless, its point about Mr. Young is clear, the ride might not be smooth, but it will sure as hell be interesting......I'm not sure there's a lot more one could ask for from anyone.....

When my 18yr old daughter begs me to get tickets to the Bridge School Benefit so she can see Neil, well....I think the guy must be onto something...

[Bream]

U got it right Nick. I've seen Neil numerous times in many of his different bands. The man is just interesting and any ride with Neil is a good ride. And my 2 younger daughters who when they were first getting into music, and I introduced them to Neil, they said they didn't like him. Well now they are 19 and 20 and they love him and can't wait for me to take them to see him. Yo Neil- come to Columbus please!!!!