Singer and Songwriter Neil Young

DATE March 30, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Neil Young discusses his musical career and his life
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Today we listen to part two of our interview with Neil Young. As Jon Pareles
wrote last summer in The New York Times, quote, "Mr. Young has followed no
logical path to become one of rock's most unpredictable and respected elders.
Since he made his name in the 1960s with Buffalo Springfield, Mr. Young has
written, recorded, performed and released his music as the whims strike him.
He has sung achingly vulnerable songs alone with his acoustic guitar, and he
has periodically plugged in to the distorted stomp of his band, Crazy Horse,"
unquote.

The interview we're going to hear was recorded earlier this month when Neil
Young was in a studio at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York, and, as
you'll hear, I had a cold.

Let's start with a song from his latest CD, "Greendale." "Greendale" is a
cycle of songs telling the story of three generations of a family in a
fictional small town. There's a movie version of "Greendale" that's opening
theatrically in 30 cities through the end of April.

(Soundbite of "Falling From Above")

Mr. NEIL YOUNG: (Singing) Grandpa said to cousin Jed sitting on the porch,
`I won't retire, but I might retread. Seems like that guy singing this song
has been doing it for a long time. Is there anything he knows that he ain't
said?' Sing a song for freedom, sing a song for love, sing a song for
depressed angels falling from above.

GROSS: You've said that you like to destroy what you've created and then move
on. Would you talk about why?

Mr. YOUNG: Did I say that?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. YOUNG: When did I say that? I probably did. I certainly can't say I
didn't.

GROSS: Maybe you've destroyed that statement, and that statement isn't true
anymore.

Mr. YOUNG: I'm working. All the wheels are turning a million miles an hour.
I'm trying to come up with a quick answer here, but I really think that, you
know, you got to move on. Whether you tear it down, whatever you built,
whether you tear it down, it's just--you know, I don't want to destroy what
I've done, but I want to destroy the feeling that I'm going to do it again. I
don't want people to think that just because I did this, that I'm going to do
that and I'm going to do it again, that they can say now I'm this, and that's
what I should do, and that's where I fit. I hate fitting. I don't want to
fit.

GROSS: Now are you that way in other parts of your life, or is it just music
that you don't want to kind of repeat things that you have done, or have
people base their expectations on your past and not your present?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I think it's part of my life. I think I've been like this
all along, you know. It's basically who I am. Even when I was in school, I
felt--I was always happy to wear clothes that had gone out of style. To me,
whenever they were really out, that's when they were really in for me.

GROSS: Oh. What'd you wear?

Mr. YOUNG: Like I was wearing white bucks like 10 years after Pat Boone, you
know.

GROSS: Where'd you get them?

Mr. YOUNG: And I had the little sting that--you know, where you paint them
white with this little spongy thing and ...(unintelligible).

GROSS: Oh, I remember that.

Mr. YOUNG: I'd do that, you know, and I'd take off to school, you know,
wearing my white bucks and red socks, you know. Maybe I was the devil or
something. I don't know, but you know, to me it was like I was a rock 'n'
roll guy. I didn't care about, you know, what was happening. I really didn't
like the preppy kids at school that much, and you know, I didn't want to blend
in with them and, you know, I look around. I see people today, I'm there, I'm
still in the classroom. They're still there, you know, my brothers in arms,
whoever they are.

GROSS: Although you have been unpredictable and always moving forward in your
music, there have been a couple of real constants in your life over many
years. One is Crazy Horse, a fairly constant part of your musical life, and
the other is your family. I mean, you even tour with your wife and usually
with your two sons.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah, my daughter, too.

GROSS: Oh, I didn't realize your daughter also.

Mr. YOUNG: So my daughter--well, she's in college, but she's on a break
right now so she's on the road with us and she's playing a part in the play
and it's a thrill to have her with us, and her friends are here, too, and so
we're having a good time.

GROSS: Did you ever expect that so much of your life would revolve around
family and around being a father?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I never thought about it.

GROSS: As a rock 'n' roll guy, you know, as...

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I've broken a lot of the rock 'n' roll rules by being
married for 25 years, and--you know, I guess that's all because I have such a
wonderful wife. I mean, you know, we don't have a textbook kind of, you know,
Cleaver family type of marriage, but we have a--you know, we've got a rock 'n'
roll marriage, and it's great, and she's adapted and the telling thing about
our marriage, I think, and the proof of its goodness is the fact that I've
been able to remain creative, and that I've been able to change throughout.
Some people when they get married, they so-called `settle down,' and they fit
into something. And some people when they get into relationships adapt their
personalities to fit the relationship, and then they lose themselves. And,
you know, living with Peggy has never put the strain on me to do any of
those things, and it's always been a good thing, and she's always, you know,
been behind the things that I've done, even if she admitted that she didn't
understand what I was doing, or didn't know if it was the right thing or
whatever. She was still behind the creative part of what I was endeavoring to
do.

GROSS: We should mention she has a big part in your movie.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah. Yeah. And she does a great job. She just--you know, she
tries to help. She tries to support me, and she'll do any of the things that
I ask her to do. She's a good singer and she's a good actress.

GROSS: Now your two sons both have cerebral palsy. Your older son has a
milder case, your younger son a severe case that's left him basically a
quadriplegic, and he can't talk, either. Does he understand speech?

Mr. YOUNG: Oh, yeah. Oh, sure, yeah, he understands what's going on,
because, you know, even when you start spelling things that he wants to do, he
gets very excited about things. So if I was to mention something that he
really wants to do, he anticipates a lot, you know. So if we were to talk
about it, see, you just drop one word and he's going--jumping out of his
chair. So yes, he does understand what's being said around him, and he also
understands that--you know, he's learning how to spell, because we've stopped
saying certain things that would get him so jacked up, and started spelling
them, and he figured that out, so you know, he's all there in that way, and
he's a real good communicator. You just have to get used to how he's
communicating and learn how to communicate with him, and he's got a lot of
soul, the guy.

GROSS: In listening to you tell part of the story of "Greendale," it seemed
to me you really enjoy storytelling. Were you able to tell stories to Ben
when he was growing up?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, you know, I just talk to Ben about everything, so Ben
probably knows more about me than anybody, and you know, because Ben, I
figured that the best thing I could do is just tell him, you know, mostly
almost everything that was on my mind, unless I thought it was something that
might scare him or something, you know. So I just--Ben and I spend a lot of
time together, and you know, I'm always talking.

GROSS: I wonder if you think your music has been affected, like does Ben
respond a lot to music?

Mr. YOUNG: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's subtle in his response to it, but my music
has definitely been affected by being the father of Ben and Zeke and all the
kids. They're all--you know, it's about how hard things are for people with
disabilities. When you live with someone with a disability and you realize
what they have to go through to do certain things that we take for granted,
and then you see somebody in perfectly good health, or somebody, saying `Oh,
that's too hard. I can't do that,' there's something that snaps in me when
that happens. There's nothing that I can't try to do, if I want to do it. I
know how hard it is for my son to do what he wants to do.

GROSS: Do you think that helped you grow up? And I mean this in the sense
that there's a lot of rock stars who, in some ways, seem to have never grown
up.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I don't know how much I've grown up. Part of me might have
grown up a long way, and another part of me may just be way back there in
kindergarten or something. But you know, life--you know, mu life has been
very extreme, so I've learned to accept extreme things, and you know, to take
strength from them.

GROSS: You and your wife are very active in the school that your youngest son
went to, the Bridge School, and he's an adult now, but you still do benefits
for the Bridge School and I think your wife is still pretty active for--this
is a school for children with severe speech or physical impairments.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah, and the kids that go to the Bridge School, we try to teach
them how to communicate. That's the main thing, how to communicate through
technology or through all--there's a lot of different devices made for kids to
talk through, and they may be pointers or they may be, you know, finger
things, grids that they point at different icons and spell out things that
way, and then enter a talk button, and then the thing says what it is that
they want to say, and it's all very--sometimes it takes a long time to get it
out, but if you're patient, you know, these kids can tell you what's on their
mind, and there are a lot of very intelligent young people.

So that's what the school is all about, and Peggy's still at the head of the
school, and she was executive director for a number of years, and now she
heads up the board of directors and you know, I'm on the board of directors,
too, and we have a lot of our friends involved and then professionals
throughout the educational community and the academic community involved in
it, and we create methods for kids to--you know, we teach them how to use the
devices and we try to find the correct device for the kid. And then we have a
curriculum that they follow at the school, and our goal is to get the kids
back in to school, get them back mainstreamed, using their devices. And we've
got--a couple of our graduates have gone on to college, and you know, it's
just a very rewarding endeavor, and you know, of course it was my wife's idea,
you know.

GROSS: To start the school?

Mr. YOUNG: Oh, yeah. I mean, it was--the whole thing was her idea. She
didn't know how outrageous it was, and she just said, `Well, why don't we get
all your friends, and we'll have a big concert, and we'll have a concert every
year and we'll raise enough money, and we'll start a school, and we'll just
keep going, and we'll create ways to make it easier for our kids and for other
kids like them to communicate.'

GROSS: My guest is Neil Young. His latest CD is called "Greendale." There's
also a "Greendale" movie. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Today we're listening back to the second of the two-part interview I
recorded with Neil Young. He has a new movie called "Greendale" that's set in
a fictional small town and tells the story of three generations of one family.
The only soundtrack is the cycle of songs Young composed for the film. For
those of you who missed the first part of our interview, here's a short
excerpt in which he talked about writing and recording music for film. Let's
start with music he composed and performed for the Jim Jarmusch film, "Dead
Man."

(Soundbite of instrumental music)

GROSS: You did the score for the Jim Jarmusch movie, "Dead Man." Did that
teach you anything about the interaction between music and what's on the
screen?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, there are some similarities between "Greendale" and "Dead
Man" because the approach that I took to the--they're kind of off-the-wall
similarities, but they are nonetheless. The approach that I took to doing the
score to "Dead Man" was I went back to--the concept was that "Dead Man" was
basically a silent movie and that--you know in the old days, in the '20s and
stuff, when they had theaters, there'd be an organist or a piano player who
would play along with the film. And you'd get subtitles and the live music,
and that was it.

So when I did the score for "Dead Man," I had the film projected on TV screens
and I had like about 20 TVs all around me, big ones, little ones and tiny
little portables and wide-screens and everything hanging from the ceiling in a
big semicircle all the way around me in a full circle, and then I had my
instruments inside the circle. So the instruments were always close enough
for me to go from one to another and they were all set up and the levels were
all set and everything was recording. So the film started and I started
playing the instruments. So I watched the film go through and I played all
the way through live.

I'd put my guitar down and walk over and played the piano in the bar. When
there was a bar scene, I played the tack piano; then when that scene was over,
I'd walk over from the piano and go play the organ for another scene and
then--a little pump organ I have. And then I'd pick up the electric guitar
again and get all my distorted sounds out of that to go with the Indian drums
and the things that were happening in the film. And basically it was all a
real-time experience. And...

GROSS: Did you have it planned out before? I mean, did you compose things in
advance or was this all improvised?

Mr. YOUNG: I had a theme. Well, I actually had two themes that I used, and
one of them had to do with violence, because there was this string of
violence. So you'd kind of get the feeling that when you heard--you know,
there was one theme that went with that, and there was another type of
subtheme that went with some of the other feelings in the film. So that's all
I had.

GROSS: Wow.

Mr. YOUNG: And I just--you know, and the theme was very simple; it only had
three notes in it. So I just, you know, repeated it in different ways and
explored it live during the playback of the film. And I...

GROSS: Well, it worked. I think it really worked. So did you surround
yourself with TVs, you know, with video monitors when you were doing
"Greendale"?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, "Greendale" was completely different because it was a
record. I recorded the songs one by one, and I mixed them one by one, and I
wrote them one by one. So at the end of the first song, I didn't know what
the second song was. At the end of the ninth song, I didn't know what the
10th song was. But the story was unfolding and then I'd write the next song
and then we'd record it. Then we had a completely finished album, and then we
listened to the album and put the pictures on top of it. And the similarity
is that both of the films are kind of treated as a silent film with the sound
being added to it. Only it's backwards on "Greendale."

GROSS: Right.

Mr. YOUNG: It's like a silent film, but it's laid on top of the story.

GROSS: Now you grew up before rock videos, before there was this assumption
that there was always a visual that went along with the music. Do you think
that people who grew up in the age of rock videos expect that there's going to
be some kind of moving image to watch along with the music?

Mr. YOUNG: I don't know what they think. I really don't. I have no idea.

GROSS: Right. Do you think if it wasn't for rock videos that you wouldn't
have thought of doing a movie like this?

Mr. YOUNG: No. I don't think it makes any difference. The only thing that
really ties this in with rock videos for me is the fact that thank God I don't
have to lip sync myself in this thing.

GROSS: Have rock videos always been more of a chore than anything else to
you?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, you know, I tried my best to make rock videos and I tried to
adapt to what was going on. And I had an album called "Trans" and I had
created scripts for every song on the album that I wanted to do, especially
the computerized voice songs on the album. And I had a whole story that I
wanted to tell. And I had the concepts and everything. And when I tried to
sell the concept to the record company, they basically said, `No, you can't do
that,' and, `That's not what we're doing for videos.' And I said, `Well, wait
a minute, it's not about what you're doing for videos, it's about what I want
to do with my music.' And that was the beginning of the end with that record
company.

And basically that's when I started feeling like, you know, video is not going
to be my friend if I can't do what I want to do with it and I can't explore it
in my own way. Why do I have to make videos that have me in them? Why do we
have to have a bunch of dancing girls? Why do we have to have, you know, a
certain measure of violence or guns or something? Why do we have to have all
of these formulatic expressions imposed on my music? Why?

GROSS: Right.

Mr. YOUNG: So there was no answer.

GROSS: Neil Young. His new CD and movie are called "Greendale." We'll hear
more of the interview in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. YOUNG: (Singing) Are you passionate? Are you living like you talk? Are
you dreaming now that you're going to the top? Are you negative in a world
that never stops turning on you, turning on me...

GROSS: Coming up, Neil Young talks about his childhood and learning to play
guitar, as we continue the second of our two-part interview.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Let's get back to the second of the two-part interview I recorded with Neil
Young. He has a new movie called "Greendale" that is set in a fictional small
town and tells the story of three generations of one family. The only
soundtrack is the cycle of songs he wrote for the film. Those songs are also
on his new CD, "Greendale." The movie will have opened in 30 cities by the
end of April.

Let's hear one of Neil Young's classics from the early '70s. This is "Tell Me
Why" from "After The Gold Rush."

(Soundbite of "Tell Me Why")

Mr. YOUNG: (Singing) Sailing my ship through broken harbors out on the waves
tonight. Still, a little searcher must ride the dark horse tracing along in
his stride. Tell me why, tell me why, is it hard to make arrangements with
yourself when you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell? Tell me
lies later. Come and see me. I'll be around for a while. I am lonely, but
you can free me all in the way that you smile. Tell me why...

GROSS: Here's more of the interview I recorded with Neil Young earlier this
month when I had a cold.

Now I read some place, and I don't know whether this is true or not, that you
had polio when you were a child.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah.

GROSS: You did?

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah, I did. I was six.

GROSS: How did it affect you, I mean, physically?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I had to learn how to walk again at six, and that's
basically all it was, you know. Part of my body's not quite as sensitive as
the rest of it, my left side. But it's no big deal. I just learned how to
deal with it.

GROSS: Were you listening to music yet when you were that young? Because I
know sometimes when kids are sick, they just--like, they read a lot or they
listen to music, and it really changes them.

Mr. YOUNG: I can't remember when I wasn't listening to music, OK?

GROSS: What were you listening to when you were young?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, the first thing I remember was--you know that song "The
Three Bells," a French song about, you know, "The Three Bells" it's called?
The Browns did a version of it about four years ago.

GROSS: Oh, yeah.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, the original version was a French version, and, God, it was
so beautiful. And we had it on a 78. I used to listen to it over and over
and over again. And that and we had a version of "Greensleeves" that I used
to listen to all the time. It just...

GROSS: Can you sing a couple bars of "The Bells," so the listeners will know
the song you're talking about?

Mr. YOUNG: You know the one: (Singing) In the little congregation, you
know, pray for guidance from above.

Remember that song?

GROSS: I do. I do. It was like a hit...

Mr. YOUNG: Little Jimmy Brown, the story of Jimmy Brown or whatever it was.

GROSS: Yeah, it was like a hit in the early '60s or something.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah. Yeah. And that was the English version. The French
version, the first one, was just sensationally great and really beautiful.
The English one was good, too, but the one I heard was the French one. So, I
don't know, I can't even remember how I understood what it was, but it didn't
seem to matter.

GROSS: Did your parents buy you a lot of kids' records?

Mr. YOUNG: Did my parents buy me a lot of kids' records?

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. YOUNG: No, I bought my own records. I went out--you know, I used to have
a couple of businesses when I was a kid, chicken business; I raised chickens
and sold eggs and everything. And I also would, you know, go find golf balls
at the golf course and sell those to the golfers. Quite often the same ball
the guy hit I'd sell to him.

GROSS: What a racket.

Mr. YOUNG: That's where I got my sales expertise. And so after that, you
know, I had a little bit of money, and I'd go down and buy the latest 45 RPMs
or whatever. And, you know, I think I bought a lot of records when I was a
kid. And I used to listen to WLS out of Chicago; even though I was way up in
Winnipeg, I could still pick it up. And I used to listen to, you know, Dick
Biondi and, you know, Alan Freed when I could get that, the old rock 'n' roll.

GROSS: So this is great. So you raised chickens and sold eggs, and you sold
golf balls so that you could buy 45s.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah. More or less, that's it, yeah.

GROSS: What were the very first records you remember buying?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, the first records that I--one of the earliest ones I think
was old Jerry Lee Lewis records and Little Richard and those records. And
then about the late '50s--in the early '50s, you know, I bought records by The
Monotones and Buddy Holly and--What's that--Ronnie Self and The Chantels, all
these great records, you know, R&B type records. And then Jimmy Reed--I
bought all Jimmy Reed's albums when I was in grade eight or nine or something,
high school. And I have all his early records. And, you know, I just
bought--I really liked R&B.

GROSS: And when did you get your first guitar?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, my dad bought me a ukelele. I guess I was around eight.

GROSS: Why did he get you a ukelele as opposed to a guitar?

Mr. YOUNG: It was small.

GROSS: Oh, sure.

Mr. YOUNG: Small enough for me.

GROSS: Sure.

Mr. YOUNG: It was just a little plastic Arther Godfrey one. Then he played
it for me, and he sang all these sad songs, you know, "Bury Me Out On The
Prairie" and all of these ridiculous cowboy songs that he knew from God
knows where. And he'd smile and he'd play it along. And then after that, my
uncle came by, and, of course, he was really good on the ukelele and he played
the thing and played all these chords. And then it turned out he could play
anything. He played piano, guitar, ukelele, horns. And then he even played
his three daughters; he had them singing.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. YOUNG: He had them in three-part harmony singing background for him while
he was singing, and he taught them all these things. It was amazing, you
know. And so my cousins all sang in, you know, harmony, you know...

GROSS: So when did you switch from ukulele to guitar?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I think after the ukulele, I got a thing called a banjo
ukulele, which plays like a ukulele but it looked like a banjo. I think it
cost about 15 bucks. I got it for Christmas one year. Then I got a baritone
ukulele, which is like a ukulele, but it's bigger, kind of like a really small
guitar. And then I advanced up to the guitar because the first four strings
on a guitar are the same notes as a ukulele, basically. So slowly advanced...

GROSS: Did you get lessons on any of this?

Mr. YOUNG: I had two guitar lessons in 1962.

GROSS: Well, it took you a long way, I guess (laughs).

Mr. YOUNG: Right. Well, it took me a long time to get to the place where I
had to take them. I hated those lessons. I never could understand what they
were trying to show me.

GROSS: What'd you hate about them?

Mr. YOUNG: I don't think I learned anything there.

GROSS: What'd you hate...

Mr. YOUNG: I don't know.

GROSS: ...about the lessons?

Mr. YOUNG: I didn't remember. I tried to block it all out of my head. I
don't even remember what they were trying to show me.

GROSS: It...

Mr. YOUNG: It's one of those things that I didn't enjoy that, luckily, my
mind works such that now I don't remember any of it. I don't even remember
walking in the door ...(unintelligible).

GROSS: Are there any things that you taught yourself that are officially
wrong?

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah (laughs). Yeah, sure, all kinds of things. Officially wrong
for guitar playing, you mean?

GROSS: Uh-huh, yeah.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, playing out of tune is pretty wrong.

GROSS: (Laughs)

Mr. YOUNG: I do that regularly. And I will continue playing out of tune if I
think it has some kind of a sound. And, you know, usually I'm--you know, my
sound mixer, Tim Mulligan, has been working with me for about 30 years. He
comes up to me and says, `Now, listen, your guitar sounds a lot bigger'--he
just told me this yesterday. He said, `You sound is a lot bigger when you're
in tune. So why don't you just take a minute and tune up in between songs,
you know, if you'--so the other night I actually stopped and I gave my guitar
to Larry, my guitar tech, and he tuned it right in the middle of--you know,
I'm not that good at tuning. I got these strobe tuners, and I use them.

But it's distracting. Tuning is distracting. There's something about--and
then when I have to take my guitar off and have somebody else tune it, I feel
like I'm naked up there. I don't know what the hell to do with myself
standing there in front of all these people screaming and yelling because we
just tore the house down doing something. And then I don't have my guitar;
I'm waiting for it to be tuned, you know. It's a very kind of a vulnerable
moment there when I don't have the guitar. So rather than tune or do
anything, I just want to keep playing because I know how to play, you know.
So that's--I get in trouble there. That's majorly wrong to play out of tune,
and I do that a lot.

GROSS: That's great. So you play out of tune because you can't give up your
armor (laughs).

Mr. YOUNG: That's right.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. YOUNG: I try to keep it in tune, and, you know, I have a lot of ways of
hiding being out of tune.

GROSS: Your guitar-playing just keeps evolving, and, I mean, there's so many
different voices and styles that you can use to such kind of dramatic and
emotional effect. I'm wondering, do you think that that comes, in part, from
always listening to new things, or is what you're playing not related to
what's coming in as input?

Mr. YOUNG: You know, guitar-playing is--you know, I guess a metaphor for
guitar-playing would be deep-earth mining or something. You know, you just
keep banging away, blowing through and trying to get to the core, just keep on
going, melting through layers and just keep pushing and, you know, try to keep
an air hose going, so you can get back and so you can get a breath. But
you've got to get as deep as you can and go down and keep digging, and that's
what guitar-playing is like for me. Every solo I'm looking for a way to go
deeper. I'm looking for which--`How am I going to lose myself? How can I get
to a point where nothing matters? How can I stop thinking? How can I lose
track of what's going on and still be in sync?' Those are the goals of
guitar-playing.

GROSS: Now do you want to stop thinking in a kind of meditative sense,
though, that feels good and it's a kind of good state to be in to stop
thinking? Or do you want to stop thinking because thinking interferes with
playing?

Mr. YOUNG: Thinking's in the way. It's just in the way. It's all about
feeling. And there is some kind of an ability to play that happens because
your mind is doing something. It's saying, `OK, now you can do this, now you
can do that.' But that's more like tools that I have when I'm boring into
something.

GROSS: My guest is Neil Young. His new movie and CD are called "Greendale."
Let's hear his guitar solo from "Like a Hurricane" as recorded in concert
on the CD "Weld."

(Soundbite of "Like a Hurricane")

GROSS: We'll hear more from Neil Young after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Let's get back to the second of our two-part interview with Neil
Young. When we left off we were talking about his guitar-playing.

When you were younger were you obsessive about technique, and did you get
enough kind of technique through obsession that enabled you to, like, stop
thinking and go for emotion?

Mr. YOUNG: The first time, you know, I remember--maybe I was 17 or something,
and I was playing. And, you know, I worked on things, I learned songs, I
wrote a lot of instrumentals myself and I practiced them and get to play them
and everything. But they didn't have a lot of improvisation in them, you
know. And they had melodies, and I liked the melodies. And then I started
singing, and I liked the way it felt when I sang a certain melody and got a
certain sound. But, really, God, guitar-playing and thinking is so deep. I
just--the guitar-playing itself is--you know, when I was young, I think I was
about 17, I was playing in this little club. And I had my band, and we were
doing a cover song. We played a song by The Premieres called "Farmer
John." And there were some other musicians around, and one of them was a
really, really good guitar player, and he really could just bend the strings
on his Telecaster, and he really just made the thing sing. I thought he was
fantastic, and he had to be, like, 21 or something. I was, like, 17.

And I did something on my guitar--well, we started playing this song, and then
we got into the instrumental. And I just basically went nuts, and I think it
was the first time that ever happened. And I just kept playing, and I just
kept going and going and grinding and just pounding away at this rhythmic
thing and exploring little nuances of it. And I think we--I don't know how
many minutes it went on and on. And then when I came off stage, the guy
walked up to me and he says, `Where the hell did you learn how to do that?'
He said, `What are you doing?' And I said, `What do you mean what am I
doing?' I said, `It's the same thing I've been doing.' And he said, `Oh, no,
no.' He said, `No, I don't know what you're doing.'

GROSS: (Laughs)

Mr. YOUNG: You know? And he knew, like, 200,000 more chords than I did and
all the scales and everything. And he just said, `I just don't know what
you're doing.' He said, `What did you do?' And at that point, you know, I
realized, `Well, there's a place I can go,' and I just kind of fell into it by
accident. And I think I've spent the rest of my life trying to get there.

GROSS: Now can you compare that to singing? Is there a place vocally for you
like that?

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah, but I'm not a very good singer, you know? Like, I don't
have real good pitch control and especially have trouble singing freely.
Like, I can sing a melody and I can sing words, and I can put them together
with chords and get a feeling going. But Roy Otis Redding(ph) sang, you know,
that soulful, free-flowing expression. I have trouble with that. I have
trouble opening up enough to really open up my soul and let things go. I
really, you know--and when I try to do it, every once in a while I get there,
and it kind of feels like that first guitar solo felt to me. But, you know,
when I try to go back, it's like, `Oh, you're just trying to do the same thing
over again that you did before.' It's not like I'm entering a new domain.
It's like I'm copying something. So I still haven't figured out how to get to
that space.

GROSS: But I love your singing.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, thank you. I'm trying.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: You know, I'm listening to your speaking voice, and I'm thinking about
your singing voice and that, you know, you have a pretty big range singing,
and you sing lower and you sing higher up. But your higher-up voice is, you
know, considerably higher, I think, than most of your speaking voice.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I've been on the road here for the better part of a year,
and I just finished a show last night, you know, about 150 miles away from
here, and I did a show the night before that about 300 miles away from that.
And I've driven to those places and driven back to the city, and, you know--so
my voice is a lot lower right now than it naturally would be if I wasn't on
the road.

GROSS: Speaking of voices, I feel like apologizing for my voice. I had a
cold, so I'm a little hoarse (laughs). So my apologies if it sounds a little
raspy.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, you sound good to me.

GROSS: Well, thanks. Some of the images that you've used today are so good,
like your image about guitar-playing and about, you know, going deeper down.
I mean, just a really nice image. And I was wondering, I know your father was
a sports writer, and do you think you were influenced at all languagewise
being the son of a writer?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, I think there's always that influence.

GROSS: And, of course, there's your lyrics, too; I'm just thinking about
hearing you talk.

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah.

GROSS: But, I mean, you've, you know, written lyrics throughout your whole
career.

Mr. YOUNG: Well, you know, my dad wrote a lot of stories, and he...

GROSS: Fiction?

Mr. YOUNG: Yeah, fiction and non-fiction, but he did write a lot of fiction,
and he used to try to write a little bit every day. And I'm not like that. I
only try to write when I feel like writing. But if I feel like writing--I
don't care what else is going on, I won't do it--I will write. And I think
that's why I've written so many songs. If an idea comes to me out of nowhere,
I look at it like a gift. It's not a distraction. Everything else in the
room is a distraction, I don't care what it is. So in that way I'm committed
to the muse; I roll with the muse. Wherever it goes, if it comes to me, I'm
going with it. That's what got me where I am today, and that's what made it
so that I could create all these things and so that I could put all these
people to work that I have. And I have an effect on a lot of people. And
just all the things I've been able to do are all because of being faithful to
that one thing and realizing that all of this is all coming from somewhere
else. And you just have to be there and ready with open arms to take it in
and then send it back out in a form that people can understand or that people
can enjoy.

GROSS: Neil Young, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. YOUNG: Thank you.

GROSS: Neil Young recorded earlier this month. He spoke to us from the
Museum of Television & Radio in New York. His new CD and new film are called
"Greendale." This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New Nancy Drew novels fall short of earlier versions
TERRY GROSS, host:

The character of Nancy Drew, girl detective, is 74 years old this year. Her
adventures have been updated for the 21st century in a just-released, new
series of mystery novels. But critic Maureen Corrigan renders a verdict of
foul play.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN reporting:

People who look down their noses at genre fiction do so, in part, because they
think it's always the same old, same old: `Once you've read one horror story,
sci-fi novel, romance or mystery, you've read them all.' Not so. Much of the
pleasure of reading a good work of genre fiction derives from appreciating how
it rings changes on the classic formula. Of course, sometimes the tinkering
goes too far resulting in the literary equivalent of, say, Michael Jackson's
face. Call me a traditionalist, but I'm afraid that what the makeover artists
at Simon & Schuster's Children's Division have done to Nancy Drew is a crime.

Nancy debuted in 1930, and her adventures have been gently updated every few
decades or so but never as drastically as in this just-published series of new
novels. Let's start with the mantra of magical words that every red-blooded
American, Nancy Drew fan can recite as effortlessly as the Pledge of
Allegiance. Nancy's hair is no longer titian; it's strawberry blonde. She's
older here, no longer frozen at 18, although it's not clear to me whether
she's enrolled in college, like her steady boyfriend Ned Nickerson, with whom
she's now allowed full frontal contact. Her blue roadster, that vehicle of
liberation that transported Nancy, her chums Bess and George and her adoring
readers to countless adventures is now an environmentally friendly, hybrid
car. All of this mucking about has been done in an effort to make a new
generation of preteen girl readers think that Nancy is cool, which is a word
that our girl sleuth now uses. As squeamish Bess would have said in one of
the original mysteries, `Eek.'

The story lines of these first four new Nancy Drews still inclined heavily
toward finding missing treasure. And Nancy still daintily sips tea, along
with her new addiction, lattes. But the powers that be undertook a revision
that, more than any of the others I've mentioned, all but destroys the core of
the Nancy mystique; that is, a radical change in voice. The Nancy Drew
adventures have always been narrated in the third person. In the new
mysteries, Nancy speaks to us in the first person. Here are the opening words
of "A Race Against Time," the second book in the new series: `My name is
Nancy Drew, and I've always had this rule: If you're in the game, you play to
win.' Contrast that hard-boiled confession to this random passage from my
vintage 1955 edition of "The Witch Tree Symbol": `From their years of
friendship with the young detective, Bess and George had learned to let Nancy
act as spokesman. She seemed to know just how much to reveal, whereas they
were afraid they might give information that Nancy would prefer to keep secret
for the time being.' You hear the difference.

This new Nancy is someone who wants to be the reader's friend. She spills her
guts to us throughout this novel, confiding that she feels annoyed with Ned
Nickerson and a wee bit rattled by a witchy female competitor. In the
traditional books we readers were kept at a white-glove's distance from Nancy
by the third-person voice. It's the same narrative voice that Dashiell
Hammett uses in the greatest American mystery of them all, "The Maltese
Falcon," to maintain the air of inscrutability surrounding his cipher of a
detective, Sam Spade.

I began reading Nancy Drew at eight years old, and I remember the thrill of
stepping into her patrician, 1930s world of tea rooms and people who said
words like `alight' and `that's grand' in conversation. Her surroundings had
little to do with mine, a small New York apartment where "Meet the Beatles"
was spinning on the record player nonstop. But despite the class and
chronological discord, I remember cherishing Nancy as a fantasy refuge,
another way to imagine being, a girl who could win the admiration of adults as
well as her fellow teens by her cool, aristocratic intelligence and neatly
attractive way of dressing.

I think these updated Nancy Drew mysteries that try so hard to be friendly and
relevant signal a lack of faith both in their young readers and in the power
of books themselves. A good story makes a reader want to venture outside of
his or her world to read about something other. I have a hunch that the new
Nancy Drews represent fallout from the prevailing identity politics approach
to literature, whereby books are valued to the extent that they mirror their
readers. That's just about all these new Nancy Drews do, hold a shallow
mirror up to a preteen's world and plead, `Identify with me,' whereas the old
ones created a rich, strange, alternative universe of petit fours, jewel
thieves and possibilities.

GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.