Hawks & Doves (1980)
When I take on a character and write from that perspective, many listeners feel I am writing from my own soul and cannot understand what happened to me. The subtlety of writing from another perspective in the first person is lost on many listeners. Such is life. (Hawks & Doves, Album of the Week, Neil Young Archives, 5/29/19)
The above is a comment Neil made on his excellent Neil Young Archives site when Hawks & Doves was Album of the Week. He made this comment in reference to something the writer Jeff Giles said 5 years previously. The Archives quotes that writing and it’s worth going to the site and reading it for the valuable context it gives.
I’m glad that Neil gave this insight for Hawks & Doves because the second half of this album is quite difficult to wrap your head around otherwise. Neil is always a bit vague when asked what songs mean, so this statement is a buried key to understanding Neil’s songwriting.
Hawks & Doves is ostensibly an album split into two different viewpoints, the “hawks” of the incoming Reagan administration and the “doves” of Carter’s short-lived presidency. Despite the title, the “doves” come first in the song order, though. “Little Wing” is a somewhat well known Neil song. It’s very short here, a gentle and wistful ode to change. It has beautiful harmonica on it, something I don’t usually gravitate toward. I really like “The Old Homestead” and it’s veiled autobiographical theme.
While “Lost in Space” is too loose and half baked to do much for me (and that voice effect!), “Captain Kennedy” is just as good here as it was on Hitchhiker…ok, ok, that’s a a bit facetious, it’s the same recording! Still a big fan of this. Having this tale of how war effected a merchant captain’s ships close out the “doves” side is lovely. And I still love that picking. This is also a good example of Neil playing a character as it’s told in the first person.
Once we get to the “hawks” side, we really hear Neil play with character, as he parodies the nationalist, faux-patriotic, opposing side. While “Staying Power” is Neil and band just doing some good old country western, he quickly moves into some of the messages you might have heard in the early 80s. “Coastline” is pure macho bravado nonsense about not backing down, the Reagan hawk to Carter’s dove. Then we get a rip roaring lampooning of unions with “Union Man,” which essentially portrays unions as ineffectual and an excuse to be lazy. He uses a similar backing track for “Comin’ Apart at every Nail” which is basically “Proud to be an American” but much more country-fried than that nationalist NFL mainstay. The title track seems to suggest a country being preyed upon by both sides, and gets at the problems of “sides” in general. The over the top refrain of “USA” is another faux patriotic marker that gets put into context more by the quote I started this review off with. Neil plays with this a lot in the next decade, making for some strange sounds and stranger statements.
Top 3:
- Captain Kennedy
- The Old Homestead
- Little Wing
Cut song: Lost in Space