Greendale (2003)

Outside of the Neil Young Archives project and making Human Highway, Greendale is Neil’s most ambitious project. An “audio novel,” it takes Neil’s natural storytelling style to its natural conclusion, crafting an album length story about a whole cast of characters. Not only that, but he then filmed actors portraying these roles and lip syncing the lyrics. And then toured this album with Crazy Horse, complete with an entire stage show that played out while the band played through the album. And there’s a book and a comic, a documentary, a solo show… it’s a long list of formats that tell the story of the town of Greendale and the central Green family. I’m focusing on the core album, film, and book today.

First of all, some context. It’s two years after 9/11 and Bush’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan is raging on and parts of America are starting to realize this is not patriotic justice, but a long haul that will cost thousands of lives. Yellow ribbons start to divide the nation into “support the troops” and “un-American.” You either support the war wholeheartedly and express your support for the soldiers or you are some kind of unpatriotic, ungrateful traitor. Many of the fault lines we are experiencing 20 years later have their genesis in this conflict. It wasn’t enough to just disagree on policy, you were now judged by how patriotic you were (with a coating of how pious you were, too). Neil saw this divide happening and zeroed in on one particular string of it: fundamentalist views coming from the administration at the time:

This is a time, I believe, of great inner turmoil for the majority of the American people. There is a new morality coming out of this administration – fundamentalist religious views; a holier-than-thou attitude towards the rest of the world – that is not classically American. (Neil Young, Rolling Stone, 2003)

He goes on to say “Everybody is disturbed inside, because no one really knows what to believe.” One conflict in the story of Greendale is “Grandpa” Green not understanding why some things are changing and why some things need to change. He reads the newspaper and gives typical old man comments about the news of the day, but fails to acknowledge that his granddaughter Sun is making important points about government propaganda and corruption, while massive environmental issues are ignored. Sun’s cousin shoots a cop and the media frenzy that descends on Grandpa’s house results in Grandpa dying from a heart attack. This spurs Sun into more proactive activism, using the very media that caused his death to get attention to her issues. This is a very surface level summary, but it shows the complex layers of politics, family, and media that are at play in this small town. In the end, I think Neil saw this type of chaos being a direct result of the hysteria and heightened climate, but it was also an opportunity for younger people to stand up against the corruption they were seeing.

Neil and Crazy Horse soundtrack this story with some of their bluesiest rock to date. It’s quite fitting. “Falling From Above” introduces us to Grandpa and Jed with a little meta reference to Neil that plays best in the film/stage show where you can see Neil at the same time as the actors. It’s a stage setting song, in both story and sound. Neil is not using Old Black on this album (rare for Crazy Horse songs), but rather a slightly different sounding Goldtop that feels a bit more bluesy but also less controlled, more wild. More than anything, this gives the album a unique sound, a roiling mass of guitar. He’s also effecting his harmonica to give a bit of an airhorn quality. “Double E” continues the Jimmy Reed vibes (a favorite of Neil’s) and introduces us to Sun’s parents, but the song itself is light on story. Mostly it tells us that Sun is an energetic young girl and seemingly gets that from her Grandma.

Neil says that "the devil’s sidewalk'“ was the first lyric he wrote for this album and the song’s namesake expands the family to Grandpa’s brother. I notice the absence of Poncho on rhythm guitar. Not sure the real story of why Poncho doesn’t appear here, but I read an interview where he noted that Neil is basically doing rhythm guitar at the same time as lead. It’s a stripped down sound that might not have worked with a second guitar. The lyrics of this song hint at the underbelly of Greendale that is revealed in full on the next song, “Leave The Driving.” Jed is running a supply of drugs down to the border when he’s stopped by the police. He panics and shoots the officer. They find guns and maps in his closet, hinting at a dark character. He breaks the town open and the media descends. All of this is told in a loping sludge of harmonica and guitar. It gives this important event a sense of inevitability. “Carmichael” tells the story of the officer’s wife, who remembers her husband fondly but also angrily. Neil expresses this grief with his guitar in some of the most pronounced solos on the album. This album isn’t typical for Neil and Crazy Horse. While the songs can be long, he doesn’t start songs off with a long solo for the most part. This is one of the notable exceptions. It’s well done and a good choice, as Neil is at his most expressive when soloing.

“Bandit” is the most unique sounding song on the album, with Neil on acoustic and letting the strings vibrate to great effect. This song tells the sad story of Jed as he remembers what led to his fate. In the film, it’s clear he was manipulated by a devil figure that haunts Greendale. It’s a lovely song. It leads into the truly epic and pivotal “Grandpa’s Interview,” another song led off with a solo. Over the course of 13 minutes, the media descends on Grandpa and Grandma to hound them about Jed’s actions, Sun talks to her cousin Jed in the jail, Grandpa has a heart attack while confronting the reporters with a shotgun, and his last words are:

"That guy just keeps singin'!
Can somebody shut him up?
I don't know for the life of me
Where he comes up with that stuff."

Oh, Neil.

“Bringin’ Down Dinner” is a short segue into the final act, Sun’s act. She catches Grandma on the way down with dinner to where Grandpa was, but instead finds out he died from a TV van, a short commentary on the interference of the media in normal lives.

The last two songs, “Sun Green” and “Be The Rain” are almost a completely different story. They seem more natural in the film, where you see Sun caring about media and the environment throughout. But up until now, that topic isn’t very apparent. Sun decides to take her knowledge of media and gain some attention for issues she’s passionate about. She chains herself to a statue and shouts through a megaphone (which Neil speaks through) about corporation corruption, war, and the environment. It’s not massively well thought out, but gains her coverage and attention from the authorities. I could really do without the hackneyed slogans and megaphone gimmick (especially since the music is so good on this song). With Neil speaking the lines, it just sounds like an old man yelling at kids from his porch. After her protest, the FBI follows her, searches her room, shoots her cat (complete with sound effects), and she meets a guy named…Earth Brown. The devil figure sprinkles some evil dust in his drink and he somehow convinces Sun to run off with him to Alaska that night. I really wish Neil had ditched the megaphone effect as this is a pretty epic song. Admittedly, this all works better in the film. The finale “Be The Rain” is a crazy psychedelic vision of Earth Brown going a little nuts from the devil dust, Sun spurring on a new eco-movement called the Green Army. It’s filled with megaphone proclamations of the cheesiest variety (“Save Alaska!/Let the caribou stay”). The film transitions between a stage show production and these visions in Alaska. It’s very weird, but picks up on the meta aspect of the residents of Greendale being aware of Neil singing this story. The song itself is the most poppy on the album, with a catchy refrain, harmonized elements, and more upbeat vibe. Perhaps he thought this would break out into an anthem that galvanizes the real life eco-movements. It very well could have, but old man Neil shouting into a megaphone kills that.

The film is a tough watch, due to its low budget and non-professional acting (the better implementation of the visual story is the stage show, which I’ll talk about next time). In particular, the extremely bad visual effects and proliferation of pasted on elements detract from what is a good, nuanced story that resonates heavily today. I’d love to see a modern prestige TV adaptation of this. You could take this story, apply modern politics to it, and it would have the same message. I do get a kick out of seeing Old Princeton Landing as Jon Lee’s Bar as I was just able to visit that place a couple weeks ago.

The big art book is nice, though. Along with the full lyrics, Neil’s long time friend Jim Mazzeo illustrates the story and the characters. It’s interspersed with Neil’s own explanation of the story. I referenced this book a lot to understand the story. Neil and Mazzeo really went to great lengths to create a fully realized town with backstories to each character, even characters we only hear about.

All of these things combined do tell a complex story with a lot of interesting nuance and I really like the overall style of the music. I would definitely have cut some of the cheesier elements and made different choices on the film, but you have to credit Neil and his entire crew for attempting something so ambitious and full of meaning. Not to mention, it’s incredibly prescient in how he talks about the media, corruption, and the climate.

Top 3:

1. Bandit
2. Carmichael
3. Grandpa’s Interview

Cut song: Not sure you can really cut any songs from this, but I wish I could cut all the megaphone stuff.

Note: I’ve decided to talk about the whole of Greendale in two parts. This is the first and covers the Greendale studio album, the original film, and the art book. The second part will cover the Return to Greendale live album, the concert film, the Live at Vicar Street film, the Inside Greendale documentary, and the Greendale graphic novel.

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