Does Neil Young still think it is better to burn out?
Is it really that wise to take your life advice from Neil Young? The answer is debatable, as he may be one of the most celebrated and visionary musicians in the world, yes, but he’s also temperamental and fiery and all round quite a pain in the arse. You only have to look at his saga of headlining this year’s Glastonbury Festival to find a prime example of that.
In that sense, if you ever hypothetically found yourself on the receiving end of Young’s opines on how to live your life, you might be best placed to take it with a pinch of salt. He has, of course, learned the tricks of the trade of the music industry long ago and knows more about the price and repercussions of fame than most. But that doesn’t ultimately mean that he is the total overlord of the scene, whose every word we must bow down to and take as gospel.
Naturally, Young is all too acutely aware of just how perilous a game rock and roll can prove to be—the breakneck hedonism of the lifestyle can, as has been evidenced countless times before, often prove too much for many, with myriad careers ending in obscurity or, more frequently, tragedy at far too early an age. The ‘Godfather of Grunge’ is bound to have seen many of these stars blaze too quickly, and in certain ways, it’s natural that this would skew his vision somewhat.
Emphasising this, he looked to the plethora of rock’s fallen soldiers in an interview circulated in 2023, as he explained, “Jimi Hendrix burned out, bang, he was gone. Kurt Cobain burnt, bang, gone. That’s the way everybody remembers them. And that’s what rock and roll is all about—that itch, the peak, the thing. So, you look at that, and you think, ‘Well, maybe it is better to just burn out than it is to fade away in rock and roll’.”
It’s certainly controversial food for thought. Young references the ’27 club’, which a eerie number of stars, from Hendrix to Cobain to Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, tragically found themselves members of, but it undoubtedly leaves the impression that some of the world’s most prodigal talents were never intended to grace Earth for long. In some ways, they are all the more iconic for being struck down in their prime.
On the other hand, there is so much more to one’s purpose than fame, drugs or money, and perhaps age has allowed Young to come to realise that. “Life has children, it has family, it has relationships, it has nature, it has beauty,” he continued, “It has all of these other things which rock and roll is part of, but rock and roll is its own thing. It’s an animal all to itself.”
In that sense, he is absolutely correct in what he says, that there is a whole lifeblood outside of music, and entire existences shouldn’t depend on its every whim. Rock and roll shouldn’t be the be all and end all, even though it sometimes is, and if there’s one thing that Young has learned over the years in the industry, it’s that you need to protect your sanity in order to have any chance of making it out alive.
