11/3/21
Spending some more time with Neil Young's Archives Volume 2 today and it took me back to the fall of '85 when I first heard him. Seeing him on that first Farm Aid I couldn't shake him from my mind and I went searching for any singles I could find, but he didn't seem to have a lot available. I didn't have much money to get albums, I just allowed myself to get Stones albums, that was my budget, but I kept looking at Neil's albums at the store every few days and his greatest hits album at the time, Decade, was actually a triple album. It seemed a fortune to spend and quite a leap, but weeks went by and the desire just grew. Finally one night in November I walked in frigid cold to the record store and took that leap and I never returned to earth the same person. Neil was my red pill that broke open the pop music bubble I had been in until then. He didn't pretty things up, musically or appearance or lyrically. Whether it was societal ills or losing friends to drugs or his own vulnerabilities, he opened up wide and let me in. That is about the kindest thing an artist or anyone can do for others.
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