Neil Young > Quotes

“It's better to burn out than to fade away.”
― Neil Young

“If you follow every dream, you might get lost.”
― Neil Young

“Once I thought I saw you
in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light
from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam
I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes
turning once to fire.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

I am just a dreamer,
but you are just a dream,
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

You are just a dreamer,
and I am just a dream.
You could have been
anyone to me.
Before that moment
you touched my lips
That perfect feeling
when time just slips
Away between us
on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.

The song was written in July 1975 after Young had just undergone an operation on his vocal chords after a cocaine-fueled night with friend. "We were all really high, fucked up. Been out partying. Wrote it sitting up at Vista Point on Skyline. Supposed to be the highest point in San Mateo County, which was appropriate. I wrote it when I couldn't sing. I was on voice rest. It was nuts - I was whistling it.

I wrote a lot of songs when I couldn't talk.”
― Neil Young

“Keep on rockin' in the free world.”
― neil young

“It doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to you.”
― Neil Young

“And as an afterthought, this too must be told: Some people have taken pure bullshit and turned it into gold.”
― Neil Young

“Don't let it bring you down. It's only castles burning, find someone who's turning, and you will come around.”
― Neil Young

“Give a hippie too much money and anything can happen.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“when we were strangers, I liked you from afar
when we were lovers, I loved you with all my heart”
― neil young

“This old world keeps spinnin’ round; It’s a wonder tall trees ain’t layin’ down.”
― Neil Young

“There was a band playing in my head, And I felt like getting high”
― Neil Young

“I love it when people yell at me about the environment and then I tell 'em I'm burning 90% cleaner than them.”
― Neil Young

“So I spoke to my old friend Bruce and told him I was feeling it, his loss of Clarence. We talked for quite a while, and there is no need to go into what two old friends had to say to each other at this point, except to say that two old friends spoke to each other about their music, their muses, their partners in crime, their proof, their friendship, their souls and their lives. Ben Keith was my Clarence Clemons. Clarence Clemons was Bruce's Ben Keith. When he died last year it touched me to the core. I don't want to ever think of any one else playing his parts or occupying his space. No one could. I can't do those songs again unless it's solo. So I told Bruce, "Waylon once looked at me and said, 'There's very few of us left.'" He liked that. I told him when he looked to his right I would be there. That's enough. I'm not talking about that anymore.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“As soon as you start talking about mystique, you have none.”
― Neil Young

“A job is never truly finished. It just reaches a stage where it can be left on its own for a while.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream”
― Neil Young

“Pearl Jam is a band I have a lot of respect for. Nirvana and Sonic Youth I feel the same way about. Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Givers, and Foo Fighters are just some of my favorites. I respect bands that give me something of themselves that I can feel. ("Posing" bands turn me off generally speaking.) It all has to do with a feeling I have about them. That is what music is to me, a feeling. It's similar with people too.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio.”
― Neil Young

“It's better to burn out than it is to rust.”
― Neil Young

“I used to walk like a giant on the land. Now I feel like a leaf floating in a stream”
― Neil Young

“I looked around out the driver's window of the hearse. It was Stills! We got out and hugged right there on Sunset Boulevard in the middle of traffic. Horns were honking! To us it seemed like everybody was celebrating! Something was happening, but we didn't know what it was. It was fucking Buffalo Springfield, that's what it was.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“Our family was starting. We kept on moving with our young lives, shortly afterward and took Ben Young with us everywhere. But pretty soon Pegi started noticing that Ben was not doing the things some other babies were doing. Pegi was wondering if something was wrong. She was young, and nothing had ever gone wrong in her life. People told us kids grow at different rates and do things at different times.

But as Ben reached six months old, we found ourselves sitting in a doctor's office. He glanced at us and offhandedly said, "Of course. Ben has cerebral palsy."

I was in shock. I walked around in a for for weeks. I couldn't fathom how I had fathered two children with a rare condition that was not supposed to be hereditary, with tow different mothers. I was so angry and confused inside, projecting scenarios in my mind where people said something bad about Ben or Zeke and I would just attack them, going wild. Luckily that never did happen, but there was a root of instability inside me for a while. Although it mellowed with time, I carried that feeling around for years.

Eventually Pegi and I, wanting to have another child after Ben, went to se an expert of the subject. That was Pegi's idea. Always organized and methodical in her approach to problems, Pegi planned an approach to our dilemma with her very high intelligence. We both loved children but were a little gun-shy about having another, to say the least. After evaluating our situation and our children, the doctor told us that probably Zeke dis not actually have CP-he likely had suffered a stroke in utero. The symptoms are very similar. Pegi and I weighed this information. To know someone like her and to make a decision about a subject as important as this with her was a gift beyond anything I have ever experienced. It was her idea, and she had guided us to this point. We made a decision together to go forward and have another child.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“You know, the future's a huge, gigantic place. I have no idea what's going on out there, I'm just going to walk into it and see what happens.”
― Neil Young

“Be great or be gone.”
― Neil Young David Briggs, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It's a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That's a real danger.”
― Neil Young

“Being a musician enables a person to bend the notes and express things that are inside you, no matter what.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“There's a lot of people saying we'd be better off dead. I don't feel like a satan but I guess I am...keep on rockin' the free world.”
― Neil Young

“So now here we were with David's second big bout against whatever it was, and it had pretty well gotten him. He was taking a lot of morphine for the paid and looked terrible, although the spirit was still in his eyes, weak as it was.

"Do you have any advice for me on my music going forward?" I asked David.

"Just make sure to have as much of you in the recording as you can," he said. "Stay simple. No one gives a shit about anything else."

He tole me to keep it simple and focused, have as much of my playing and singing as possible, and not to hide it with other things. Don't embellish it with other people I don't need or hide it in any way. Simple and focused. That is what I took away. He didn't exactly say that, but I got the message. I have failed to do that in some instances. "Be great or be gon," his famous phrase, choes in my head. I have to remember that for sure. Damn.

So I left the apartment after a hug. It was devastating. He died a week later. He wanted to go. His body was all fucked up and it was not easy. His tenacious spirit would not let him go.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“I lit a fire and sat there in my rocking chair. We lit a candle for him. It was as simple as that. I knew that what I had done may have been a catalyst in Danny's death, but I also knew that there was really nothing else I could have done. I can never really lose that feeling. I wasn't guilty, but I felt responsible in a way. It's part of what I do. Managing the band and taking care of the music is very painful at times. It's a sad story. A moment I will never forget, years I can never replace, music the world will never hear, all gone in the turning of a second.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

“Ben Young is out on the deck with his team, having breakfast through his tube. I wonder how that feels. He seems to be content with it, although I am having some trouble reconciling the fact that Ben does not get all the big tastes anymore. He used to love Milanos and milk after every evening dinner. It was a tradition. Sometimes we still give him a tiny taste just for old times' sake. He is so accepting. It's a marvel. He is the most accepting human being I have ever met, and he is very happy. Not all the time, mind you; he has a flair for impatience if he is going somewhere and there is a delay. He just yells! You know he is pissed. There is no stopping him. More power to you, Ben Young!

We had to stop feeding Ben Young by mouth because his lungs have become compromised by all the aspirating he does. It's a complex thing, eating. The body does a lot of work to protect itself and keep food out of the lungs. Ben's body is not working like a normal body does. Ben and Dustin and Uncle Tony are out on the deck listening to tunes on the computer and grooving. Ben's next support team is incoming for a shift. Uncle Marian and Ben Bourdon arrive in Hawaii today from the mainland, and the switch takes place around twelve-thirty. Time marches on. Because of the support, Ben has a very full life and keeps moving around, doing things, seeing people and going to events. I reflect on this. Life is good.”
― Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream