The 1972 single that made Neil Young glad he hasn’t “had that much success”
The thing that Neil Young values more than anything else in the creative world is authenticity.
It doesn’t matter how good a musician is or how good a songwriter someone is, so long as they are true to themselves and their music is a genuine reflection of what they’re feeling within that moment, then Young will have a lot of time for them. He practices this both in the music he makes and the music that he listens to.
He once called Eddie Vedder the nicest man in music, not just because of Young’s seemingly strong affiliation with grunge, but also because of how much of an authentic artist Vedder was. “He’s a unique kid. There’s nothin’ false about him,” said Young, “He’s a little unbelievable in his naïve ways, his openness—but it’s real. Music is his religion, that’s what he told me.”
Because of this affinity for the authentic, Young has always tried to make music that is constantly changing depending on what he likes and what he’s going through at that particular time. It’s great for fans, as they’re constantly getting to listen to new styles of music, changing in tone and sound, but united with Young’s exceptional songwriting.
While the majority of artists are always hoping that their songs will take off and become successful, Young looks back on his career and his biggest hit record from 1972, ‘Heart of Gold‘, and breathes a sigh of relief that it was one of his only top 30 releases. The reason? Because the moment you have too many hit records, labels and fans expect you to continue doing exactly the same thing, which in his eyes, is the antithesis of how a decent musician should be behaving.
“That’s what success does – it will categorise you,” he said, “But luckily I haven’t had that much success. That was the one time and the first thing an artist will do if he doesn’t want to be categorised is to react and fight back. There’s a spirit inside you that’s like an animal. And it’s cornered when it’s categorised. So we’re not dealing with thought here. It’s an animal reaction.”
While we all love ‘Heart of Gold’, I think I speak on behalf of Neil Young fans when I say it’s a good thing that his records following haven’t been mere attempts at recapturing the sound, but have instead been him spreading his musical wings. We consider him one of the best songwriters on the planet because he is willing to change his style and sound around without worrying about the ramifications too much.
This has, of course, worked to Young’s detriment occasionally, though. One of the biggest arguments he had with one of his record labels was during the making of Landing on Water, an album that he was sure his fans would hate, given how much he was essentially just recreating the classic Neil Young sound. This is what his label had asked for, and so he had to sacrifice his honesty in a bid to appease the higher-ups; however, the hints were there that he hated the record. Even the title, Young admitted, was a blatant nod towards his hatred for success and categorisation.
“You see, the cover and the title of that album, it’s directions on how to survive an insurvivable thing: how to land on water, in a jet that’s crashing,” he said. “The most ridiculous damn thing you’ve ever heard of. You’re really landing on water where there’s no clear floor underneath you: everybody dies. That title was there because I knew where that album was going. I knew the process and the thought behind the people who were putting the album out; what they wanted me to do.”
We all love ‘Heart of Gold’, but we should also love that it was one of Neil Young’s only hits.
