 The
Ballad Of Geffen & Neil
(4:40)
[9/30/00]]
For Neil Young.
MP3
Liner Notes
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Neil's tour for Tonight's The Night:
The price was right,
So he offered to invite the throng
For free rounds at the Roxy Club,
Which he was opening up,
Which made the owner wish he'd just shut up
And song his sings.
But that didn't change a thing
When owner David Geffen inked a shakey deal with Neil, the Old King
Of Grunge, some five years later.
But it was far from paydirt,
'Cause Young would not just cater
When they tried controlling his post-fader.
They had tires & candy sharing space
At the Fox Valley Shopping Mall.
It's a pleasant enough smell when you're new:
Radial's like a brand new doll.
& the Muzak goes piping out the land of grace,
& it's the best thing you've ever heard.
When your dry-erase mind is still learning you:
There's nothing there yet to smear the words.
But those of us born after the reruns were the brand new shows,
But those of us who hadn't heard "Suzanne" or "Blue
Raincoat",
Maybe we who have seen the future but no murder's past
Were born at just the right time to appreciate their next-to-next-to-last.
The trouble started back in '81:
It was the first time Young
Tried releasing Island In The Sun.
They said, "Your labelmates are doing techno-pop,"
But his didn't sell as hot,
'Cause he vocoded his vox to sound like a robot.
They said, "Why don't you stick to straight-ahead rock?"
So he produced a mock-
David Alvin album Geffen tried to block
By pressing as few copies as they could,
So when it fell with a thud,
They could say, "We always said it would."
You'd sooner find a Jesus freak amongst the infidels
Of Barrabas' louder crowd
Than see at Neil's 1990 shows a ragged shirt
With Sonic Youth's logo worn proud.
The heart's articulate speech & bones will gell to tell
What you go ga-ga for when you're young;
Here's to fading in with your best work when they assert
That you're burnt out and your last song's sung.
But those of us born after the reruns were the brand new shows,
But those of us who hadn't heard "Suzanne" or "Blue
Raincoat",
Maybe we who have seen the future but no murder's past
Were born at just the right time to appreciate their next-to-next-to-last.
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This
is the Ballad of Geffen and Neil.
It's not the name that matters, so long as it feels,
As long as the song we're playing gives song chills for real,
This is the Ballad of Geffen And Neil. |
It was the
summer of 1984;
Some company man was banging down his door:
Geffen was suing Neil for $3 million cash
For not staying commercial, like Crosby, Stills &Nash.
But what's "characteristic" of an artist like Neil?
They forgot his genre-hopping is a part of his appeal.
& what exactly is "The Neil Young Sound"?
The way that he stayed vital was to never stick around
Like those other did.
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The
lawsuit was "amicably resolved",
But Neil kept making albums that were pissing David off.
They said, "Why don't you try that hard-edge shit
Like Guns 'n' Roses did?"
So he made Life, & was for all time rid
Of Geffen Records, who had only viewed
Him as a product who
Had threw their market scheme a bit askew.
So he wrote the crowd-pleasing "This Note's For you";
They sing like cockatoos,
From Ohio to Fontainebleau:
"Don't write songs for MTV or roller rinks,
Don't sing for cola drinks,
Don't sponsor someone's club or someone's Inc."
But those of us born after the reruns were the brand new shows,
But those of us who hadn't heard "Suzanne" or "Blue Raincoat",
Maybe we who have seen the future but no murder's past
Were born at just the right time to appreciate their next-to-next-to-last. |
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Not only does this song chronicle Neil Young’s legal & artistic
struggles in the 80’s with David Geffen, but it also makes it impossible
for us to ever get signed to Dreamworks. See if you can find some of
our favorite “midlife crisis” album titles hidden amongst
the verses describing a then-10-year-old Dan’s epiphany when hearing Graceland on a local mall’s Muzak.
Los Lobos - “I Walk Alone” / Warren Zevon - “Down At
The Mall” / Neil Young - “Around The World”, “We
Never Danced”, “Mr Soul”, “Sample & Hold”,
“Hard Luck Stories”, “Someday”, “Jell Roll
Man” & “Too Far Gone” / Emerson Lake & Palmer
- “Bo Diddley” / The Dambuilders - “Delaware” /
Bo Diddley - “Pretty Thing’ & “Bring It To Jerome”
/ Slum Village - “Players” / "NBC Theme" / "CBS
Theme"
"The
artist looked at the producer
The producer sat back
He said, 'What we've got here
Is a perfect track
But we don't have a vocal
And we don't have a song
If we could get these things accomplished
Nothin' else could go wrong'
So he balanced thie ashtray
As he picked up the phone
And said, 'Send me a songwriter
Who's drifted far from home
And make sure that he's hungry
Make sure he's alone
Send me a cheeseburger
And a new Rolling Stone.'
Yeah."
- Neil Young, "Crime In The City (Sixty To
Zero Part 1)" (1989)
"Q: When Graceland was released to almost unanimous critical
acclaim, the press often praised it by putting down your past work.
Did you notice that?
A: Yeah, there was a revisionism and Graceland in a way brought
it out. But the style of music had changed a lot. And a generation of
writers who were writing, they were coming from the same place . . .
And I know this: if they tend to dismiss a piece of work, it'll be rediscovered.
Q: You do feel that?
A: Yeah, I think Hearts and Bones is a great flop. What
I learned having had Hearts and Bones and Graceland come
right next to each other, and it was a hard lesson: [softly] it didn't
matter that much whether you had a flop and it didn't matter that much
whether you had a hit. The only thing that mattered was the power to write the song."
- Paul Zollo's interview with Paul Simon, Songwriters
On Songwriting (1997)
"This song ["Heart Of Gold"] put me in the middle of
the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.
A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there."
- Neil Young, Decade liner notes (1978)
"'What do you paint, when you paint on a wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you paint just anything there at all?
'Will there be any doves, or a tree in fall?
'Or a hunting scene, like an English hall?'
'I paint what I see,' said Rivera.
'What are the colors you use when you paint?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Do you use any red in the beard of a saint?
'If you do, is it terribly red, or faint?
'Do you use any blue? Is it Prussian?'
'I paint what I paint,' said Rivera.
'Whose is that head that I see on the wall?'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson.
'Is it anyone's head whom we know, at all?
'A Rensselaer, or a Saltonstall?
'Is it Franklin D.? Is it Mordaunt Hall?
Or is it the head of a Russian?
'I paint what I think,' said Rivera.
'I paint what I paint, I paint what I see,
'I paint what Ithink,' said Rivera,
'And the thing that is dearest in life to me
'In a bourgeois hall is Integrity;
'However . . .
'I'll take out a couple of people drinkin'
'And put in a picture of Abraham Lincoln;
'I could even give you McCormick's reaper
'And still not make my art much cheaper.
'But the head of Lenin has got to stay
'Or my friends will give the bird today,
'The bird, the bird, forever.'
'It's not good taste in a man like me,'
Said John D.'s grandson Nelson,
'To question an artist's integrity
'Or mention a practical thing like a fee,
'But I know what I like to a large degree,
'Though art I hate to hamper;
'For twenty-one thousand conservative bucks
'You painted a radical. I say shucks,
'I never could rent the offices -----
'The capitalistic offices.
'For this, as you know, is a public hall
'And people want doves, or a tree in hall
'And though your art I dislike to hamper,
'I owe a little to God and Gramper,
'And after all,
'It's my wall . . .'
'We'll see if it is,' said Rivera."
- EB White, "I Paint What I See" (1938)
"To
the streets of New York from my tower of song,
I come down to work where the common folk throng.
In my famous blue shirt with its patch that says, "Len,"
Then I go back to write songs again . . .
I'll beg if I must, 'cause I'm aching to hear your story,
As I check your brakes front and rear.
Can you play a sad waltz on your cheap violin?
Did you have a good time in Berlin? . . .
Leonard Cohen is working a day job they say,
It's part of the price every artist must pay,
And I swear by the crud and the blood on my hands,
If you need a tune this afternoon,
I'm your man."
- Hank Card & Kristin Nelson Card, "Leonard Cohen's
Day Job" (1999)
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