Neil Young used a song to confess to stealing Crazy Horse: “My band had been taken”
Neil Young, the enigmatic troubadour of rock, has engaged in a perennial dance of musical matrimony, leaving a trail of shattered bands in his wake.
Like a restless muse, Young’s creative spirit seems perpetually at odds with the stability of long-term collaborations. Across his career, the musician’s singular genius persists, ever resilient amid the wreckage of transient musical unions.
To have spent over five decades at the top of the rock world is a feat not many artists can achieve. Neil Young has done it not with gimmicks or pop prowess but by continuously writing songs which are deliberate, artistic and authentic. There are a few artists who feel as genuine as Neil Young.
But while he might have used his art to deliver honest representations of who he was at that given time, it doesn’t mean that he has always been the most virtuous of songwriters. Young’s career is littered with moments of regret or underhanded behaviour, including nabbing a band from another bandleader.
From Buffalo Springfield’s turbulent demise to the erratic comings and goings of Crazy Horse, Young’s artistic journey has been punctuated by a series of band breakups. Each disintegration, akin to a tempestuous love affair, reveals a complex interplay of artistic differences and personal dynamics. Usually, what is left behind, as the dust settles on yet another difficult breakup, is a collection of fantastic songs.
‘Running Dry (Requiem for The Rockets)’ is one song that celebrates a band’s dissolution but champions another’s formation. The Rockets released a self-titled album in 1968 on White Whale Records and received a smattering of critical applause. Their song ‘Let Me Go’ was given a little extra spotlight when it was picked up by Three Dog Night on their debut in the same year. The group may not have launched into the atmosphere, but the jets were beginning to fire.
It was in 1968 when The Rockets would meet Neil Young. The songwriter, who had already enjoyed success with Buffalo Springfield, was now looking for some musical collaborators following the ‘For What It’s Worth’ band coming to an end. Three months after Buffalo Springfield had ended, Young jammed with The Rockets at the infamous Whisky A Go-Go and quickly signed them up to help out on his upcoming album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, not all of The Rockets would join Young in the studio, but the talents of Danny Whitten, Ralph Molina, and Billy Talbot all happily went along. It’s unsure whether Young had ever truly expected the musicians to join him as the temporary measure he had suggested. It soon became apparent that the former Rockets were to be a pivotal part of Young’s solo project. They would become Crazy Horse.
George Whitsell, one of the members of The Rockets who didn’t follow Young, recalled to Songfacts: “My understanding was Neil was gonna use the guys for a record and a quick tour, bring ’em back and help us produce the next Rockets album. It took me a year and a half to realise that my band had been taken.”
Whitsell may have been taken by surprise with how Young operated, but he need only have listened to the lyrics of ‘Running Dry (Requiem for The Rockets)’ which sees Young make an admission of guilt, “I’m sorry for the things I’ve done / I’ve shamed myself with lies / But soon these things are overcome / And can’t be recognised.”
The sentiment sees Young lamenting his inability to follow his own determinations, lying and hurting people along the way. But as he told Jimmy McDonough in Shakey: “Hey, you can either be true to your art or be a good public relations man.” Considering the number of bands Young has started and finished, few can call the musician anything but an artist true to himself. However, one group, Crazy Horse, in a few different guises, has persisted longer by Young’s side than most.
