Forever Young

Rip It Up, Issue 24, 1 July 1979, Page 10

Forever Young

Ken Williams

Neil Young & Crazy Horse Rust Never Sleeps Reprise * Rust NevGf Sl£?ps is arguably Neil Young's finest album since his 1370 Classic, After the Gold rush,' no mean feat for a man who has produced some of the best music of the last decade. Like Goldrush. the new album is a veritable feast of evocative melody and imagery. And, like Goldrush and only a few other Young albums, it is consistently rewarding and enjoyable. Neil Youqg has always been, an enigmatic figure. The twists and turns of his career often seem erratic, even self-destructive. Despite the occasional; tangents and periods of marking time, Young remains (with Joni Mitchell) the most enduring and - talented of the singersongwriter proliferation of the early seventies. . Is Young feeling that at age 34 it is time for another journey through the past? Rust Never Sleeps is rich in images of America, frontier and urban. Young mourns the loss of the pastoral idyll to inexorable 'progress' and in so doing traverses a. continent and several cen-

furies of America. If this is Neil Young’s bicentennial album its message is not of optimism. The album title refers to a line in the album's closing song (in fact, a reprise of the album opener but in more apocalyptic mood): It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps The king is gone but he's not forgotten Which king? Elvis? The song, “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" (reprised as “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"), has as key lyrics Rock and Roll is here to stay/lt's better to burn out than to fade away and This is a story of a Johnny Rotten. Does Presley equate with Johnny Rotten, a faded away, rusted one-time iconoclast? Or is this how Young views America of the seventies? It's to Young's credit that the album is free of the uncomfortable self-pity that has marred earlier work. Musically, this is as tight as American Stars and Bars was sloppy (enjoyably so, let me add). Side One is almost totally acoustic. The shimmering sound of one or, more often, two acoustic guitars makes Comes a Time seem over-orchestrated. What Young manages to do with acoustic guitar is a salutary lesson in these days of synthesised electricity. Neil is in great voice and his songs are crisp and crystalline. Given that songs are for performance and not the printed page, try this, from “Pocahontas”, an angry recounting of the genocide of the American Indian.

Aurora borealis The icy sky at night Paddles cut the water In a long and hurried flight From the white man to the fields of green And the homelands we Ve never seen Side Two opens with “Powderfinger", a miniature of conflict on the frontier (much of the album harks back to the superb “Cripple Creek Ferry" from After the Goldrush). the album shifts gear entirely, with Young and Crazy Horse discarding the delicacy of the acoustic tracks for all-out garage band rock, replete with no-frills drumming and guitar distortion of a kind not heard since the pre-San Francisco 'psychedelia' of such yobbo bands as the Blues Magoos and Count Five. There's.a lot of “Psychotic Reaction” in “Welfare Mothers" and “Sedan Delivery". The music is screechy and edgy, real white rock and roll. The sounds gets heavier and even more distorted for the final tune, a cacophonous and tremendously exciting reprise of the lilting opening song: Rock and roll can never die There s TV,OTP to the picture Than meets the eye In five minutes Young says all there needs be said about the spirit of rock and roll. His stinging guitar sounds as if it’s wired straight to his heart and he sings with the pain and joy of creation, harrowing and exultant. Like his fellow Canadian Robbie Robertson, Neil Young remains fascinated by America, but while Robertson's vision is largely of an America Past of Norman-Rockwell hue, Young draws on Hollywood and television, urban drabness, drug casualty and endless highway as well as the pastoral (but not peaceful) frontier. Rust Never Sleeps is his American pilgrimage, rich and evocative, rare in its beau-