Neil Young: His Mournful Kurt Cobain Tribute
What might it be like to be quoted in a suicide note? In Kurt Cobain’s final missive, he wrote that he didn’t have the passion for music anymore, saying, “Remember, it’s better to burn out than fade away.” This was, of course, a line in Neil Young’s classic “My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue).”
Millions were shaken by Cobain’s action, and Young was certainly among them. He seemed to work through his feelings on Sleeps With Angels, released on August 16, 1994, just four months after Cobain’s passing. In his 2012 memoir Waging Heavy Peace, Young wrote, “When he died and left that note, it struck a deep chord inside of me. It f—ed with me.”
He added, “I, coincidentally, had been trying to reach him. I wanted to talk to him. Tell him only to play when he felt like it.”
It’s heartbreaking. And Young channeled that heartbreak into Sleeps With Angels, an excellent if uncommercial album (even by Young’s standards). It wasn’t a concept album; in fact, if you listened to the album without context, you might not know what inspired it. The album wasn’t a photograph of an event. It is more like an impressionist painting; it captures a feeling.
As the album begins, you feel like you’re walking into a saloon in the Wild West with “My Heart.” Far from a raging guitar alternative-rock tribute, it sounds like a song someone dusted off from the 1800s. You feel like you’re at a wake. “My love, I will give to you, it’s true,” Young sings, sadly. “Although I’m not sure what love can do.” It’s something so many who have endured such a loss can identify with.
Young’s longtime backing band, Crazy Horse – the rusty but gold standard for garage rock – awakens for the second song, “Prime Of Life.” Again, the lyrics are a bit vague, but Neil sings, “Are you feeling all right? Not feeling too bad myself. Are you feeling all right, my friend?” To me, it felt (and feels) like a reminder to ask that question to those who may be struggling.
The title track is dissonant and unbalanced and feels influenced by Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth opened for Neil on his 1990 tour; they were promoting their major label debut, Goo, on Geffen Records. Nirvana signed to Geffen, in large part, because of their admiration for Sonic Youth. The song is a short blast of dissonant punk rock; Cobain would surely have loved it.
“Change Your Mind” is Crazy Horse at its Crazy Horse-est: it’s a fourteen-and-a-half minute shambling jam, punctuated by Young’s stabbing guitar solos and his interplay with guitarist Frank “Pancho” Sampdero. Here, Young is maybe empathizing with Cobain… or maybe with all of us: “When you’re confused, and the world has got you down/When you feel used, and you just can’t play the clown.”
“Piece Of Crap” is so punky you could imagine the Sex Pistols singing it; Young rails against products that we don’t need, that aren’t good for us, and that don’t work anyway. “Saw it on the tube/Bought it on the phone/Now you’re home alone/It’s a piece of crap!” I often wonder what this song would sound like if Neil wrote it today about our online experiences. Spending hours arguing with people (or bots) you’ve never met over identity politics, as if it’s a sport, while providing corporations with more and more data about you? It’s kind of a digital piece of crap. Sites that turn people’s lives – and their worst moments – into “content” for our enjoyment, it’s the ultimate piece of crap. (I’ve often thought that Cobain’s line “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous/Here we are now, entertain us” hits differently in the social media/TMZ era).
I always thought this was Neil pointing out that there’s a lot of crap in this world. You don’t have to buy into the crap, and you don’t have to let it bring you down.
There’s one more song: “A Dream That Can Last,” which brings us back to the saloon piano and adds a thumping bass drum that sounds like it just wrapped up a funeral march. Young sets the scene: “And all the lights were turned down low/And no one wondered or had to go/Out on the corner the angels say/There is a better life for me someday.” It’s sort of optimistic, but not in a trite way. It gives a glimmer of hope without promising you eternal and constant happiness.
When Neil Young released Sleeps With Angels, he shared a work of art: he didn’t make any promotional appearances, he didn’t do interviews and has rarely performed any of those songs live. And they’re great songs: as Eddie Vedder pointed out when he presented Young at his 1995 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, “Some of his best songs were on his last record.” That was a bold statement, but Eddie was right.
In an interview with British magazine Mojo, Young was asked about the album. “I’ve never really spoken about why I made that album. I don’t want to start now. I just don’t want to talk about that. That’s my decision. I’ve made a choice not to talk about it, and I’m sticking to it.” It’s something that Cobain surely would have appreciated. Young wasn’t trying to turn someone else’s tragedy into “content.”
What he did create is an LP in the classic sense. Sure, you can listen to the songs individually, and they hold up, but it works best when you listen to them in one sitting. And it was (perhaps) inspired by something specific. It’s written in vague enough terms so that it works for anyone feeling sadness, grief or loss. And really, that’s art’s highest calling.
