Neil Young: Don't Be Denied

This programme contains some strong language

I only care about the music. It's sad.

Sometimes people are damaged by it,

but if people understand me, they can understand what that is.

# Back in the days of shock and awe

# We came to liberate them all. #

He's not trying to do what everybody else is trying to do,

which is to have a hit and then keep pulling that handle.

You know, he doesn't care about that. He doesn't!

# Back in the days of shock and awe... #

He's delightfully charming, wilfully erratic, and...

wilful.

Yes, he's had a reputation for leaving people behind,

but it was only a musical reason and not a personal reason.

ADDRESSING CROWD: OK, let's go back!

# When I was a young boy

# My mama said to me

# Your daddy's leaving home today

# I think he's gone to stay

# We packed up all our bags

# And drove out to Winnipeg... #

If you look at a map of North America,

dead centre is the town Winnipeg.

Or Canada, it's dead centre.

So it's the middle of everywhere,

and it's the middle of nowhere.

Cos the nearest city of any consequence is three or four hundred miles.

So when you're in Winnipeg, you're in Winnipeg.

The winters are six or seven months long.

So you grow up playing hockey,

you played outside on the ice and it was 40 below zero.

But when you've got to be 12, 13 or 14 and you're old enough to say

"This is crazy, we don't wanna do this, let's start a band",

then you'd go underground into your cellar or basement or old garage

and play rock'n'roll for six or seven months.

# Don't be denied

# Don't be denied... #

I think I just was different.

I wasn't athletic, and I just wanted to play in my band,

and I wanted to go and play on the weekends and write songs,

and I used to draw pictures of stages

and the way that the equipment would be set up to make a certain sound,

what would be the best thing I want... I spent a lot of time researching that in school.

I should have been doing other things.

# Pretty soon I met a friend

# He played guitar

# We used to sit on the steps at school

# And dream of being stars

# We started a band

# We played all night... #

I always liked the primitive rock'n'roll.

I mean, Link Wray, I don't know if you know who he is,

he's a great guitar player...

He was the...beginning of grunge.

Way before anybody, you know...

MUSIC: "Rumble" by Link Wray & His Ray Men

It was quite an influence from the Shadows, and the Ventures,

and the Fireballs from Texas.

There were these surf bands who played instrumentals that were really good.

We were mostly an instrumental band at first, so we paid a lot of attention to that.

I think our main first influence was definitely the Shadows.

Our bass player, Kenny Koblun, lived with an English family in Winnipeg,

across from Churchill High School.

But he received these beautiful British rock'n'roll records before the rest of Canada did,

so we were able to copy them or imitate them and go and play at community clubs.

And people thought they were ours.

Later on, Neil started writing tunes, instrumental tunes which were surely as good as the Shadows!

MUSIC: "The Sultan" by The Squires

What a great song that is!

What you're hearing is one of Neil's earliest compositions,

called The Sultan, that The Squires recorded in the CKRC Studios,

and when I think back to that, we were only 16 and we were damn good.

I think we were better than we thought we were.

Early vintage Neil driving guitar, a great rhythm guitar player in there,

a super bass player and a groovy drummer!

Doesn't get much better than that!

-We were good, weren't we?

-We were damn good!

But we just kept morphing and changing.

People would join, and then we'd go do gigs out of town,

and then they'd quit because they didn't want to leave town.

So eventually I got two guys that wanted to leave town

and were ready to take a chance, and they weren't, you know...

some of the guys I wanted to take, I couldn't take.

Because their parents would say "You're gonna screw up your life",

and suddenly the thing would derail.

Some good musicians who couldn't step out and take a chance that were left behind.

# Back in the old folky days

# The air was magic when we played... #

I used to go to a folk club in Winnipeg where I used to live,

and I used to check out the acts coming through town, and look at them...

That's where I met Joni Mitchell, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

Don McLean. Yeah, I met him. He had a Dodge van that he was living in,

and I thought he was pretty good cos he'd changed it to "DOG".

He took the letters out and it would just say "DOG" on the front,

which I thought was good. I remember that about him.

But, you know, I met a few people and they were travelling musicians.

That was an influential thing.

I figured that some day I'd be able to travel around and do that too.

SLOW SURF-ROCK

Well, I had a hearse then.

We always used a hearse to carry around our equipment,

cos it was like a giant station-wagon.

It had rollers for the coffin in the back, so we just rolled our amps in and out.

It was fantastic! It was like they built it for us!

They're big. Going 70 in a hearse is not exactly, you know,

up and down hills and across country, it's not made for that,

but it's a big car, it's got all the pieces in it, it should be able to do it.

# Aurora! #

I listened to Bob Dylan, and I think, he's got a great voice, you know.

And he said, "Listen, I'm not a singer like Caruso,

"I have my songs. I sing my songs." That made sense to me.

So I figured I'd just sing and see what happens,

I'll just keep doing this.

And at one point I discovered that I could yell and play really loud.

And that was fun, I liked that.

And we were playing this club with a bunch of other bands,

and we were doing some song that I'd sort of half-written

and kind of like Louie Louie and something else...

Somehow I just spaced out playing the guitar for a really long time

and then I started yelling, about the lyrics, throwing it at the audience.

# I love the way she walks, I love the way she talks

# I love the way she moves, she moves it... #

When I was done, I was hanging out having a drink or whatever,

and a guy from the other band came up to me and said,

"Neil, what did you do? I've never heard you do that,

"I've never heard anyone do that. What were you doing?"

I said "I don't know."

I was playing, and I just felt like I kept on playing,

and just played one note for a long time,

and then I bashed it, and then the band the band started doing that,

and people started freaking out,

then I started singing it a lot higher and a lot louder than I was singing it before,

and a different melody... And it just changed. It all changed.

I found another part of myself... It was just a discovery.

# Farmer John

# I'm in love with your daughter, ohhhhhh... #

He was playing with The Squires,

and I was playing with a folk group called The Company.

He was doing exactly what I wanted to do, which was play folk songs on an electric guitar,

and songs he'd written himself, and he was the funniest person I'd met in years.

Cos he didn't have a gig until the next weekend,

so he stayed in Thunder Bay, and we played,

and he took us to see Buffalo and things.

And we lived on NW cheeseburgers and root beer. Very Canadian.

# With the champagne eyes... #

I went to Toronto, cos I figured if I could make it there, it would make a difference.

And when I got to Toronto, I realised that if went to LA, it would make a difference.

We drove down there, me and some friends of mine,

and I insisted on driving all the way, I think, which was crazy,

but I didn't trust anyone else, apparently.

So I chose to go down where I could be new,

and do it in a new place, and see what happened.

Would you be kind enough to act as spokesman, introduce yourself and let us know who else is involved.

-Well, my name is Neil Young.

-Right, Neil, how do you do?

I'm lead guitar player. How do you do?

This is Richie Furay. Good old Richie, from Yellow Springs, Ohio.

-Big Dewey Martin, Buffalo Dew.

-Hello, Dewey!

Bruce Palmer, from Toronto, Canada...

-Don't say anything...

-Don't say anything! OK!

-Steve Stills, from New Orleans.

-Hello, Steve, nice to see ya.

I look back on the Buffalo Springfield period very fondly.

We were very young, it was my first band that made a real dent that I was part of,

and I was part of it. It wasn't my band, but I was part of it.

MUSIC: "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield

Bruce and I came to Los Angeles in an old hearse

to try and, you know, make stars. We're gonna be stars.

So we were just about to leave, and I saw him in a van going the other way on Sunset

and he stopped me, and we stopped, and we all stopped, and then we started.

# Oh, hello Mr Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason

# For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season

# Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin'

# I'll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on... #

Mr Soul I wrote in my little cabin in Laurel Canyon where I was living,

and I wrote it on a newspaper, felt-tip marker I think.

# I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter... #

..and covered the whole paper.

I was getting ready to use it for a kitty litter,

but then I wrote the song on it.

Maybe that's what happened to it after that. I don't know what happened to it.

# She said, you're strange, but don't change, and I let her... #

Everything was intense at that time.

We were just getting started, and making our first records,

and feeling the first blush of some kind of success and notice,

it was a very exciting time to be around.

And there were a lot of inner things that were going on,

we were expressing our innermost feelings through the music.

And we kept splitting,

at very important points... of Springfield.

Right before we could go on the national television show,

the Johnny Carson show. We were going to be the first band that ever been on.

And he quit two days before we should leave.

So we had to cancel that.

My first job is to follow the musical course.

It's always to the detriment of everything.

Relationships, projects - they get derailed.

There's gonna be a lot of collateral damage and you'll create a lot of things you wouldn't create

if you didn't do that.

I don't think he would ever have been...

going on too long being constrained by a group.

But I must say the timing was awful.

# Know when you see him

# Nothing can free him

# Step aside, open wide

# It's the loner

# If you see him in the subway

# He'll be down at the end of the car

When I first played with them, they were called The Rockets.

There were six of 'em.

They were real primitive but they had a lot of soul.

But there were too many of 'em for me.

I loved the guys. They lived in Lower Canyon and I was playing with them when I was still in the Springfield.

I didn't make any records with them but I jammed with them all the time.

Crazy Horse.

They are real and they don't really have anything other than er...

soul.

It's all coming from the soul.

And something happens - there's a chemistry when I play with them.

It frees me to go places I don't go with anyone else.

It's just a matter of choosing the ride.

David Briggs and I had made the first record

and we made the second right away.

It was completely different from the first record.

I liked that.

I felt good because we made a left turn and we were...

Everything that was missing from the first record was in the second record.

So one leads to another.

I chose them from a group of guys

and we got together and started making music.

It's not the same as what happened with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

I had my relationship with Stills from the Springfield which was great and we loved to play together.

We were like brothers, we fought like brothers.

We were great friends and he's still one of my best friends on earth.

He ranks right up there with my very best friends.

# What have you go to lose?

# Tuesday mornin'... #

So we had this sound.

We made that first record at Wally Heider's here in Hollywood.

We were extremely happy with it.

OK, now then what do you do?

Now you have to go live on the stage.

There was nobody, either me or David, who could provide

the poking, the stimulus, that Neil does when he plays electric guitar with Stevie

which they'd been doing in the Buffalo Springfield for years.

We thought about various people.

We thought about Stevie Winwood. We thought about Jimmy

because we were all friends then.

But it was settled on Neil.

# You take my hand I'll take your hand, babe

# Together we may get away

Neil's like a force of nature.

It's like having the wind in your band.

He's adding nitro-glycerin to the mix.

He's pretty powerful.

# It's impossible to make it today

# Yeah... #

And so I never really had the same feeling when I was with them as I did with Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse was like a custom-made machine for me.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

were four different individuals playing together.

And it wasn't like a band.

It's very personal with him.

He's not very political in the sense of politics.

He doesn't trust politicians very much.

Bt if you show him that picture of the girl leaning over the kid in the pool of blood at Kent State

then he writes Ohio.

# Four dead in Ohio

# Gotta get down to it... #

It's very personal.

I watched him do it.

He was pissed and sad.

Clear this area immediately.

# What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground

# How can you run when you know?

Well...

Truth be known, I think Neil saw the success that I did with...

for what it's worth you write a song that night and have it out the next day.

And tried to replicate it and it almost did as well.

But I thought the song needed one more verse.

But then what do I know?

The reaction to Crosby, Stills and Nash and Young was ridiculous.

It was so over the top and we all became distracted by that.

It was a showy thing.

Because we had no idea what we were doing!

It's not because there's anything wrong in the band.

What we were confronted with changed us.

It changed us. The crowd. Adulation.

Roaring sound.

It changed us.

It just... With Crazy Horse it didn't change.

Nothing could change that.

I remember one record toward the end of the Deja-Vu record where we were arguing.

There were too many drugs involved.

Stephen was staying up all night trying to mix, write and create.

There was one point towards the end there where I'd started crying.

And I said to all three of us, four... No, the three of them and me

that we were blowing this.

There wasn't nearly as much in-fighting as they like to talk about.

It's like...

Today it would be all over the news, all over the tabloids,

the paps would be chasing us,

and I would be in jail for murder cos I'd shot one of them!

Young guys, big egos, lots of money.

Very easy, very unstable, very easy for it to come unglued at any point.

Well, I don't need that son of a bitch. I won't work with him.

In my case, hard drugs

were damaging me enormously at that point.

It made it difficult for me to do a good job.

Or to be a good brother to my brothers.

# We've been through some things together

# With trunks of memories still to come... #

When I got to LA it was strange. I hitch-hiked out to Topanga.

Somehow I found Neil's home.

He was going back into town.

And being 17 and shy I made the mistake of not asking for a lift.

He said, "Oh, I've gotta run. Come see me tomorrow."

He drove away and I'm sitting at the top of this mountain.

Long story short, I would get out to Topanga every day

and start getting to know Neil and David Briggs.

# Well I dreamed I saw the knights in armour coming

# Saying something about a queen

# There were peasants singing and drummers drumming... #

He had a beautiful patio overlooking incredible vistas and forests,

mountains. It was very peaceful.

And underneath, there was a nice, cosy recording studio,

just a beautiful wood room where we all kinda...it was tight.

Being in his home was...

a very friendly, like, kind environment for us, emotionally.

# Look at mother nature on the run

# In the 1970s

# I was lyin' in a burnt-out basement

# With the full moon in my eye... #

Well, we'd just been though the Kennedys,

within a year or so of that,

I think Woodstock had happened...

So there was a... there was a period there,

the '60s were almost over when After The Goldrush was made.

So...there was a lot of momentum.

But I just, you know, I was enjoying my music.

I can remember stepping outside

of my studio and standing down in the car park with my car,

listening to the music coming down the hallway, the stairway,

through the open door with the wind blowing,

and listening to it and going, this is what I...I think I'm there,

I think I'm done.

# Old man sitting By the side of the road

# With the lorries rolling by

# Blue moon's sinking from the weight of the load

# And the buildings scrap the sky

# Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn

# And the morning paper flies

# Dead man lying by the side of the road

# With the daylight in his eyes

# Don't let it bring you down

# It's only castles burning

# Find someone who's turning

# And you will come around... #

Well, from my experience, growing up in Topanga,

cos I was 17 when I moved there,

it was kind of a coming of age for me.

David Briggs, Neil Young and all their circle of friends

became my big brothers, big cousins, whatever.

I learned as much from them, just like, you know,

if you're like... in seventh grade hanging out with the high-school boys or something,

it was that kind of thing.

# ..Through the window in the rain

# Can you hear the sirens moan

# White cane lying in a gutter in the lane

# If you're walking home alone

# Don't let it bring you down

# It's only castles burning

# Find someone who's turning... #

You know, it's very open and... open and expressive.

I still try to be that way, but I'm not 21 or 22 or whatever I was at that time.

It's like, Bob Dylan says, you know, he doesn't know who that was -

who wrote Blowing In The Wind,

he's not sure he knows where that person is.

You know, that was a long time ago,

and he's...you know. So that's how I feel. I look at it,

and I go, "That was us," and it's proven that it was me,

but I'm not sure that I could recreate that feeling.

It has to do with...how old I was,

what was happening in the world,

what I'd just done, what I wanted to do next,

who I was living with, who my friends were,

what the weather was.

Umm...I can't even remember if I enjoyed it.

I was just experiencing it, and it was very intense.

People saw something in me that I didn't see in me.

But how many sensitive songs can you write before you're just writing sensitive songs?

And then it's not sensitive, because it's not real.

So...you can't live up to expectations.

The producer of Crazy Horse felt like that was like a sell out record,

you know, that I did this for everybody else,

just did what everybody wanted.

The fact is, nobody wanted it, I just did it because I was on tour,

and I toured and I got to Nashville,

and I met some people so I went in the studio

and recorded the songs that I'd done.

Then I went home and I went to the ranch,

and I recorded in the Barn.

And then I went back to London and recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra,

and that was Harvest, and I just kept on going.

# ..If I was a junkman

# Selling you cars

# Washing your windows

# And shining your stars

# Thinking your mind was

# My own in a dream

# What would you wonder

# And how would it seem?

# Living in castles

# A bit at a time

# The king started laughing

# And talking in rhyme

# Singing words

# Words

# Between the lines of age

# Words... #

The next song is a song I wrote about an old man I know.

Neil asked us to play on... on a couple of those Harvest

songs - Old Man,

and Heart Of Gold.

And I sang on them and I played the banjo on Old Man.

# Old man, look at my life

# I'm a lot like you were... #

That was my real introduction to Neil, those sessions.

# ..I'm a lot like you were... #

He's like a...a source, you know,

it's like somebody struck a rock and water flowed out.

You know, he's just...so prolific.

# Old man, look at my life

# 24 and there's so much more... #

I really don't know where that comes from, I just see the pictures.

I just see the pictures in my... just see the pictures in my eyes

and I start...sometimes I can't get them to come, you know,

but then if I just get high or something, if I just sit and wait,

all of a sudden it comes, and it just comes gushing out.

I've just gotta get to the right level.

It's like having a mental orgasm.

# Old man, take a look at my life

# I'm a lot like you

# I need someone to love me The whole day through

# Ah, one look in my eyes And you can tell that's true... #

So all of those other people I've been working with

are going, "What happened?"

And I'm...I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking, "This is what's happening",

I'm trying to stay on top of what's going on,

and I'm recording and I'm mixing and I'm moving on.

# ..Look in your eyes Run around the same old town

# Does it mean that much to me

# To mean that much to you... #

Something to avoid repeating, is how I looked at it.

I...I said, this is good, now everybody liked this,

I could probably make another one, but I'd hate myself for it.

I didn't want to make another one.

-And you didn't?

-No.

It wasn't what people wanted - I made a record that nobody wanted and I put it out.

And it didn't do nearly as well.

So people thought that I'd failed.

But I knew that I'd succeeded, because I succeeded in moving on.

I wasn't dragged down by the success.

# World is turning

# I hope it don't turn away... #

I remember doing that,

we went out and bought all the furniture,

went to a junkyard and bought the fin from the car,

got the clothes...went down to the beach, put on the clothes,

set up the furniture.

# All my pictures are fall... #

That was the tail fins of a '59 Cadillac

we got in a junkyard - a nice yellow one.

You know, got the newspaper, just happened to be the right one,

something about Nixon resigning.

# World is turning

# I hope it don't turn away... #

It was a sign of the times.

# I need a crowd of people

# But I can't face them day to day... #

I played it for Crosby, and he said, "Don't sing about that.

"That's not funny."

# Well, we live in a trailer at the edge of town

# You never see us Cos we don't come around

# We've got 25 rifles Just to keep the population down... #

It spooked people.

They were spooky times.

I knew Charlie Manson, so it spooked the hell out of me.

-Are you sane?

-Sane? That's relative.

He wasn't what you'd call a song writer.

He was like a song...spewer.

# ..I won't attack you But I won't back you... #

But he got turned down, got turned down by record companies.

He got turned down by Reprise,

and I remember I told them, I said, "This guy...

"you know, he's good."

It's just a little out of control.

But when he got turned down, you know, that really pissed him off.

He didn't take rejection well.

# It was such a drag to hear him Whining all night long... #

It was the ugly side of the Mahariji,

you know, there's this one side of the nice flowers

and white robes, and everything.

You know. Something that looks a lot like it but just isn't it at all.

# And feed them on your dreams

# The one they picked

# The one you'll know by

# Don't you ever ask them why

# If they told you, you would cry

# So just look at them and sigh

# And know they love you... #

You know, you can only be that band for so long

before you gotta be something else, I mean, you can't stick...

you can't just do it again.

It doesn't work.

Couldn't even if we'd wanted to. We couldn't.

He doesn't leave it, he just puts it on hold,

he cycles through different entities, one after another, to keep it fresh.

There's part of me that doesn't like that part of him,

because I know that people get hurt. I mean, if you...

if you only earn a certain amount per year and you're going on a Neil Young tour

and then the day before it gets cancelled,

your life changes desperately, and that makes me uncomfortable.

But, I have to admire Neil,

for sticking so true to the music.

I only care about the music.

It's sad.

Sometimes people are damaged by it,

but if people understand me they can understand...what that is.

That when the music is finished with me, that I'll be back,

if they can wait for me.

But if you can't see that about me then you don't understand me, and there's no relationship anyway.

Oddly enough, I probably understood better than anyone

and once we'd done Deja Vu a couple of times,

I was ready to go do my own thing again too.

You know, I've never been a heroin addict,

I've never...experimented with heroin.

But I've been close to heroin.

And I've seen what it's done to people's lives

and...and the results of experimenting with it,

I've seen it kill people.

So, you know, but it's a human thing.

Some people just have to do things like that to survive,

and sometimes it gets them.

Well, when we did Tonight's The Night...

er...everyone was so upset about Danny's death

and then subsequently Bruce Berry's,

who was a well-known roadie

in our circle that was out with Steven Stills.

His brother owned Studio Instrument Rentals and that was where he worked,

and everybody worked there, so we went there and made a record.

We just made it in the middle of the night. We'd just drink tequila until we couldn't walk,

and then start recording at one in the morning.

And we had the truck there, and we put a hole in the wall

to connect the truck with this rehearsal hall, and we...

I wrote the songs there, and we just started going, you know.

Just telling the story.

# Bruce Berry was a working man

# He used to load that Econoline van

# A sparkle was in his eye

# But his life was in his hands. #

It was just shocking,

cos he was kind of healthy, surfer, California guy, as Danny was.

# He used to pick up my guitar. #

Their spirit seemed to permeate everything we did on that record.

# In a shaky voice

# That was real as the day was long. #

If two of my friends die... I'm sure there were lots of other people whose friends had died

and a lot of worse things, people went to war and didn't come back,

and went to Vietnam and came back, and half a body.

All of these things happened to people, so I figured, "This happened to me. I'll write about it.

"If I write about it from my heart, other people who had things happen to them will relate to this."

# Early in the morning at the break of day

# He used to sleep until the afternoon. #

It's audio verite is the concept for Tonight's The Night,

compared to cinema verite, it's like people are experimenting,

they're going with it, they're not locked into...

I mean, Godard was not locked into cutting,

he didn't like cutting, he liked one long shot.

And just let reality play out.

# When I picked up the telephone

# And heard that he'd died

# Out on the mainline

-# Tonight's the night

-Tonight's the night

-# Tonight's the night

-Tonight's the night... #

We were playing an album that he wanted to turn people on to

that hadn't been released.

He was an icon already in England. Everyone expected to hear his hits.

And he played none of them.

He played the record from beginning to end,

starting with Tonight's The Night, finishing with Tonight's The Night,

and the English audiences were really not OK with it.

They started yelling a lot, they started booing,

they started complaining, and whining every show.

He'd get to the end of the night and he'd say,

"All right. We're gonna play something you've all heard before."

Everyone would go crazy, thinking it'd be Like A Hurricane

or a Buffalo Springfield hit, and we'd play Tonight's The Night again.

# Tonight's the night

# Tonight's the night... #

HE SINGS

It really didn't mean anything to me. Just these were the new guys.

They're rocking. They're doing it.

Believing in it. They're living it.

I don't care what they sound like.

If that's where they're coming from, I'm behind 'em.

That was a great time in music.

And a lot of my compatriots and my peers felt threatened

by these people.

They didn't see themselves in them.

But they didn't look deep enough.

If they'd gone back, they could have seen themselves,

and what these people were doing in them,

and realised that this new generation of artists were reflecting the time

that they grew up in, not the time we grew up in.

So, their reflection was different. It made ours seem like old hat.

And that's the way it goes.

The next wave, you know.

There's always another wave.

Neil Young, when we met him,

we just thought he was the grandfather of granola,

and as soon as we talked to him,

we realised all of our preconceptions were wrong.

He was really far out.

I mean, really loopy. Almost like a mad scientist.

So, when he asked us to participate in the movie,

and he said he wanted us to be nuclear waste workers,

any resistance we had to saying yes was gone.

# Everything is fucked up It's all coming down

# And it takes one man how to sing our worries away... #

At that point...

they treated me like I was grandpa granola.

I mean, I was the old timer.

But once I found them, I got on right on to them.

I was fascinated with them.

Where?

Neil came to the studio and...

we all agreed we'd jam.

He wanted us to jam on this song he had.

So, he showed us the song, and we started jamming.

The cameras started rolling.

-Devo jamming?

-Devo jamming.

Of course, right away,

we go for this really angular, bizarre inorganic rhythm,

and Neil's just like...

..playing like Neil Young rock and roll lead over the top of it,

and boogie boy's in his playpen with a synthesiser

just making a cacophony of noise.

And it went on and on.

A t-shirt campaign that Mark and I did back in Ohio...

..for RustOleum.

Rust never sleeps.

We screamed these logos, these t-shirts.

And we gave Neil one.

It's a paranoia thing. Rust never sleeps,

like, you know, there's always germs, there's always decay,

there's always something trying to get you,

death is knocking at the door, right?

When we put that out, we put it out as a single,

the radio stations called back, saying there was something wrong with it.

They said, "It's distorted, give us another one.

"We really like the song, but it's so distorted."

We told them that's it, that's what it is. It's distorted.

# Hey hey my my. #

The message is distorted.

# Rock and roll can never die

# There's more to the pictures

# Than meets the eye

# Hey hey

# My my. #

'Er, new bands that interest me.

'I like to listen to Flock Of Seagulls

'and what's that group, Human League.

'They've got this thing... All that stuff with the drum computers

'and synthetic things, that's what I like.'

The '80s were really good.

The '80s were artistically very strong for me,

because I knew...

I knew no boundaries and I was experimenting

with everything I could come across,

sometimes with great success, sometimes with terrible results.

But nonetheless, I was able to do this,

and I was able to realise that I wasn't in a box.

And I wanted to really establish that, you know.

What I loved about Trans in typical Neil fashion,

he had the first Synclavier synthesisers

and, you know, we'd do computer age and I'd be singing in this voice he'd call Sylvia,

this high female voice would be coming out of my mouth.

HE SINGS IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE

It was very ground-breaking stuff with computers,

mixed with old school.

At that time, people were judging me based on the style of music

I was doing...

They were criticising me for not being genuine,

because I was changing my style so much and people couldn't comprehend

that you could believe what you were doing if you didn't do the same thing over and over again.

And they said, "Neil, you've got to make a rock and roll record.

"You just have to."

And I said, "Do you know what rock and roll is?"

And there was kind of a silence and I tried to figure out what it was.

So, I thought in my mind,

"Well, rock and roll, what the hell is rock and roll?"

You know, let's go back in time

to when rock and roll started and see what it is.

# No matter where I go I never hear my record on the radio

# It goes like this... #

Originally, it was like rockabilly and then it

kind of transferred into this thing called rock and roll.

But I think they wanted me to make a hard rock record.

But they didn't ask for that.

And if you're going to tell me to do something and yell at me and sue me,

then you'd better tell me to do exactly what you want

or you might get exactly what you ask for.

# Ain't singin' for Pepsi

# Ain't singin' for Coke

# I don't sing for nobody Makes me look like a joke

# This note's for you... #

Neil will not have it.

He simply won't have it.

He won't take a sponsor and do that.

# Ain't singing for Miller... #

You look at Elvis Presley,

we got two good years and then occasionally some great stuff,

a lot of it great because it's camp.

But really, they just did their best to shackle him,

you know, bury him under two inches of acrylic or something.

Neil is known as the ethical one, you know,

the one who won't let business, erm... Kill him.

So what I wanted to do then was genres,

styles, become different people,

become different personalities, become different art types.

# Don't need no cash Don't want no money

# Ain't got no stash

# This note's for you... #

I saw my albums as pictures in a gallery,

it didn't make any difference what happened to them then,

it's how they're viewed in 30 or 40 years that I was thinking of.

# Come a little bit closer

# Hear what I have to say

# Just like children sleeping

# We could dream this night away

# Ooh

# But there's a full moon... #

So you've gotta just realise that you're gonna go up and down

and waves are gonna keep coming -

every once and a while, you're visible to the world,

and other times you're in a trough, nobody cares.

Everyone's looking at the whitecaps, you know.

They don't see ya.

# We know where the music's playing

# Let's go out And feel the night... #

But then you come up again. Writing something -

where the hell did they come from? I thought they were gone.

That's the way I look at it - there's nothing you can do about it

except just hang in there and keep on going.

# When you get weak

# And you need to test your will

# When life's complete

# But there's something missing still... #

I don't play with Crazy Horse all the time.

You can't wear it out.

You know, it's like, you can't constantly be doing everything.

You have to give it a rest - it's like planting stuff.

You gotta let the field rest for a year.

# ..And change your mind

# Don't let another day go by

# Without the magic touch

# Distracting you... #

I'm brutal.

I only do it for the music.

If the music is saying to do one thing, the people are secondary,

you just have to do what you have to do.

And if you're always like that, people begin to trust that,

they realise it's not a personal thing.

Thank you, that's all I can say. Could never do this without you guys.

For some reason I feel very emotional about this night...

That's OK. We truly believe in your music

and that's what we're doing here.

When he looked in the mirror and said, you know,

I'm waiting for the new Bob Dylan to be writing all these anti-war songs

and stir the people up, it wasn't happening for Neil.

No-one was filling that role. So he looked at himself in the mirror

and said, "I guess I have to do it."

So it was thing outpouring of rage,

and trying to wake people up to the fact of what was going on.

The songs I wrote about the war in Iraq, my last album,

that's a whole other thing.

That stands in a complete other place from everything else I've ever done.

# Let's impeach the President for lying

# And sending our country into war... #

A melody that everybody already knows,

that's how you get in their head.

They got the melody and you got the words.

You put the words to the melody and they start whistling and go,

"I know that" and they start singing the words or whatever.

It makes it easy for people to sing the same thing over again

and some of the melodies are not good melodies,

they're not friendly melodies and they don't make you feel good.

But they do the job, they get the message across.

Some of them are meant... to piss people off.

# Flip...

"Osama Bin Laden is a prime suspect..."

# Flop...

# Flip...

"I want him to know I want justice."

# Flop... #

That was the worst concert I've ever been to.

We came here to hear the songs

that they sang with great singers and a great band,

but to do this political stuff and that's all they're here for

is a political rally, that's bullshit.

I'm hoping a lot of those people in there

screaming and yelling in anger against Bush are faking it,

because if not, our country's in a lot of trouble.

"War is my last choice."

"..Smoke 'em out. Bring 'em on."

This whole concert was great

until he's got that song just now on there.

He can suck my dick, the son of a bitch.

I'd like to knock his fucking teeth out, that's what I'd like to do.

Because he's a stupid son of a bitch.

No, he's delightfully charming,

wilfully erratic,

and...wilful.

Even though I know there'll be disappointments,

I still trust him more than anybody.

Is it a case of you just not being denied?

No, it's just a case of following the musical course,

whatever it is.

I just want to do that, that's always been good to me,

I try to take care of it, I respect it. It's a gift,

If it shows up, I ignore everything else and go with it.

-That's... That's it.

-People love you for that as well, equally?

Well, not everybody does, but I...!

Some people do!

But the main thing is, it enables me to keep on doing what I do.

But I'm getting to be a real blow-hard now, you know,

so you're asking me these questions, I'm starting to not like myself!

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