The Neil Young song Patti Smith says “speaks for his generation”
Neil Young is one of those rare artists whose work transcends time and resonates with people from all ages and walks of life. Whether it’s the raw honesty of his lyrics, his mastery of acoustic melodies, or his title as the ‘Godfather of Grunge’, he has touched countless corners of music throughout his career. Yet, according to Patti Smith—an artist of similar stature who has watched Young’s journey unfold—there’s another often-overlooked aspect of his legacy: he stands as one of the last true spokespeople of the countercultural generation.
While the standard narrative surrounding Young places him at the forefront of influential countercultural music because of his work with Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere – his first record with Crazy Horse and that which laid the foundations of alternative rock – we often overlook that component of this was him informing the voice of the counterculture. For instance, cuts such as ‘For What It’s Worth’, ‘Cinnamon Girl’ and ‘Helpless’ didn’t just soundtrack the era. They had a direct hand in shaping its voice and context.
For Smith, everything Young does stands as a defiant monument to the countercultural era, with him refusing to bow to the winds of time or a rapidly changing world. This perspective might seem surprising, given that Smith herself is an artist deeply tied to the punk movement of the late 1970s—a genre that seemingly rejected and rebelled against what came before.
Yet, she shaped her worldview and musical proclivities in the countercultural era thanks to the likes of The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Young. Because of this, musically and philosophically, she has always been the bridge between these two eras that people erroneously separate. Punk is a counterculture in itself and wouldn’t have happened without the developments of the late 1960s.
Smith’s view on this is also substantiated by the fact that her late husband was Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, one of the guitarists in the proto-punk legends The MC5, who were a defining hippie band.
When speaking to ShortList in 2014, Smith was asked to name her favourite current songs. One of her choices was Young’s ‘Walk Like A Giant’ from 2012’s Psychedelic Pill. The song resonated for her because it “speaks for his generation”.
She said: “But the song I really love is Walk Like A Giant. I toured a bit with Neil, so I got to hear it live – I actually bought the record of this album. This one particular song, it’s like a song that speaks for his generation – which was also my late husband’s generation because Fred played with the MC5, they were a very political band, they wanted to change the world.”
Smith was quick to stress that she and Young are the same age and that he and her late husband were among those who, when they were still teenagers, were creating their generation’s “cultural voice”. This essence is what makes the number “so deeply touching”.
She interprets the song as Young remembering the youthful sensation of feeling like you can change the world before adulthood, and the world impresses upon the psyche. That makes this track so great for her; it fully embodies Young’s profoundly countercultural refusal to sit back and take no for an answer. Given the state of the present, these are words we could probably do with hearing.
