Purple Words on a Gray Background

At this point, it’s pretty well acknowledged that Neil Young is one of the best songwriters of all time. We can wax poetically about the veiled references to CSN in “Thrasher,” the tragic storytelling in “Powderfinger,” and the heartfelt nostalgia of “Helpless” as evidence to that assertion. Much has been written about “Ambulance Blues” having the best lyrics of his career (although “it's hard to say the meaning of this song”). Neil uses evocative imagery to express his thoughts. Two early examples are “Mr. Soul” meditation on fame and the seizures he used to experience on stage, and the specter of death that is “Old Laughing Lady.” He has a special ability to use metaphor to evoke emotion, like the best songwriters. Like his guitar playing, it’s unique to him. And perhaps the most unique aspect of his lyrics is how he sometimes reveals things about himself through allegory.

Neil told me about going into other lives. He’d go to this same place every seizure, and all these people would go, ‘Oh, haven’t seen you around—how ya doin’?’ He was called by some other name. Neil was just in another world, another reality, and just about the time he started to adjust and adopt to that reality, he’d get yanked out of that one and find himself back in this reality again. It was really strange, because he didn’t want that other place to be all that familiar to him because he was here. But then he was there. It was out of his control.

I think that’s why he writes such weird shit. That’s the strength of his creativity—he’s been to all these far points where he’s had only himself to talk to. Most of his songs are just Neil talking to himself, really. The voice inside himself. (James Mazzeo to Jimmy McDonough, Shakey [emphasis mine])

When I read this quote in Shakey, a lot of things about Neil’s lyrics clicked for me. For example, I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the songs “Stupid Girl” and “A Man Needs a Maid.” On the surface, they seemed to be pretty chauvinist. However, if examined through the lens of Mazzeo’s insight, it seems clear that Neil is talking to himself in both of these songs and revealing something about himself. In “Stupid Girl,” he chastises himself for getting distracted. “A Man Needs a Maid” reveals how much he can’t cope with what’s happening to him (his back surgery).

Another major example to me is the epic “Cortez the Killer.” Is it solely about the horrific actions of the conquistador against the idealized Aztecs? I don’t think so, and the last lines reveal a bit about what this song might be an allegory for.

And I know she's living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can't remember when
Or how I lost my way

In the context of Zuma, this song is kind of the inverse of “Danger Bird.” Where that song is expressing anger about being wronged by a lover, “Cortez the Killer” positions Neil as a destroyer, gliding across the floor to a potential partner. Leaving sorrow in his wake and regretting it, he blames himself, calling himself a killer. Neil as a destructive force is not an interpretation. He’s admitted it himself more than once.

“Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)” is one of the most fascinating songs to me because of how multilayered the narratives are. The song title says it’s about one thing (breaking up the Rockets to form Crazy Horse), the lyrics say it’s about another (leaving a woman), but the sentiments work for both situations. He uses the trappings of a typical broken heart song to express his regret about breaking up the Rockets, and at the same time uses this “metaphor” to reveal the depth of his sorrow over the way he treated his first wife, Susan Acevedo.

A more recent example of this lyrical tactic is “Timberline” from Toast, a song ostensibly about a preacher questioning his faith. In the context of Toast, though, one can see this as a metaphor for questioning a relationship. It was a fraught time in his personal life, and he infamously shelved most of that album due to its emotional weight for him and his family.

The dichotomy between the words and what Neil means is why his lyrics are so fascinating. He has a knack for using contrast to elide what he’s actually saying. Take “Out on the Weekend.” When we hear “lonely boy,” we instantly see the frail, awkward troubadour in his fringe jacket and tall person’s hunch. We take it to mean he’s the lonely boy. However, Neil sees this as a happy song, and in particular, “can’t relate to joy” as a happy lyric. “[It] just means I'm so happy that I can't get it all out. But it doesn't sound happy. The way I wrote it sounds sad, like I tried to hide it." During the February 25, 1970 show at Cincinnati Music Hall, he said something that presaged that: “I just live uptempo but play downtempo.”

Additionally, Neil also plays with perception quite a bit, as he admits in this quote:

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)

Hawks & Doves was the point where Neil started slipping in to his Reagan era, and it was shocking to a lot of people. From the lens of the above quote, some of those more conservative leaning songs take on a new meaning. One of his later career highlights is “Ramada Inn” from Psychedelic Pill and there’s enough in the lyrics that relate to his life that it’s been speculated it chronicles the problems with Pegi that led to their divorce a couple years later. But perhaps Neil was taking on a character here to reflect his feelings about it more than telling a straight story.

There’s always something in Neil’s lyrics that make you wonder. Whether it’s “I have a friend I’ve never seen” (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”), or “Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself / When your old enough to repay but young enough to sell?” (“Tell Me Why”), which even made Neil pause:

That’s a hell of a question, isn’t it? I don’t understand it. It sounds like gibberish to me. I stopped singing that song because when I get to that line I go, what the fuck am I talking about? (Spin Magazine, June 1988)

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