“I always feel bad”: Neil Young’s stolen masterpiece, ‘Ambulance Blues’
Fans have always celebrated Neil Young for his originality. After all, he’s ‘The Godfather of Grunge’, the man who invented alternative rock, and a poet of gilded status. He’s supplied many memorable moments and is as adept at extremely emotional ruminations as hard rock glory. It reflects his individuality that one of his most important cultural additions, 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, was far ahead of its time.
From weaponising dissonance in a textural, artistic way to his use of meaty drop tunings and discussing deeply personal matters in his lyrics, Young stepped out from behind the safety of music’s parapets before many of his generation did and pushed on into the unknown land that lay ahead. It was a risk, but given his character, it was one he was more than glad to take; and unbeknownst to him at the start of his journey, it proved to be an abundant choice. This gutsy but honest spirit was so refreshing that it’s no surprise that subsequent alt-rock innovators such as The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Radiohead are all ardent followers of his.
While some of his best efforts might have arrived over five decades ago when the world was a much different place, the fact that they remain so important and effective indicates Young’s musical force and how being authentic is the key to continual success. After all, the pretenders get sniffed out in the end. Ever wondered why so many acts of his generation came and went so quickly?
When you add this originality to the fact that Young is one of the most prolific artists ever, releasing 47 studio albums to date, including this year’s Early Daze—which was recorded in 1969 with Crazy Horse—his already remarkable story becomes even more so. He’s approaching his ninth decade on the planet, a point which shouldn’t be overlooked, and still works tirelessly on his craft, retaining a quality that has seldom dipped over the years.
An inherent component of authenticity is honesty. While this has underpinned many classic songs that analyse personal matters with an intellectual microscope, Young has also been open about the times when he thinks his works aren’t up to scratch and even, in one specific case, when he might have stolen a melody from another artist.
Ironically, the song in question is ‘Ambulance Blues’. It is one of his most heartbreaking songs, taken from the perennially maudlin On the Beach, the 1974 second chapter in ‘The Ditch Trilogy’. Constructed by a songwriter who was grappling with the death of close friends Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, and coming to terms with the intense Carrie Snodgress romance nearing its sad end, in the song, we find him trawling through his past in the Yorkville area of Toronto, when he was just another young, hopeful folkie. Not only is the stark juxtaposition between the two iterations of Young effective, but the central, regret-filled melody is too.
It’s the melody that Young confesses to accidentally pilfering from folk pioneer Bert Jansch. In his autobiography Shakey, Young says he feels that he stole the melody of Jansch’s best-known track, 1965’s ‘Needle of Death’, and that “I always feel bad” about it.
He writes: “I always feel bad I stole that melody from Bert Jansch. Fuck. You ever heard that song ‘The Needle of Death’? I loved that melody. I didn’t realise ‘Ambulance Blues’ starts exactly the same. I knew that it sounded like something that he did, but when I went back and heard that record again I realised that I copped his thing… I felt really bad about that.”
Young can be forgiven for such an unconscious hiccup; at least he admits it. Many others of his generation blatantly ripped off their heroes and only confessed to it after they were forced to by fans and well-paid legal teams. To have amassed such an extensive amount of material and only done so once that we know of is an achievement in itself.
