The Rebellious Neil Young: Cameron Crowe's 1975 Rolling Stone Interview.Whatever it's about, only Young could write a song so bizarre and brilliant. They've been through many tragedies, and now the authorities are moving in on them – explaining why the approaching boat has "numbers on the side." The 22-year-old son has been forced to deal with the situation because "Daddy's gone," "brother's out hunting in the mountains" and "Big John's been drinking since the river took Emmy-Lou." The young man is standing on the dock with a rifle in his hand when the boat begins firing, so he raises the gun to return fire – but it backfires and blows his head off. Neil has never explained the song in detail, but here's the general interpretation: It's about a family of bootleggers (or some other kind of backwoods criminals) somewhere up in the mountains. (Only "Cinnamon Girl" has been performed more). Young must agree, because he's played it 666 times. Nobody disputes that it's one of his best songs. "They had to go to special effects people who developed what they called a 'traveling booger matte' that sanitized Neil's nostrils and put 'Helpless' in the movie."įor 33 years Neil Young fans have been arguing over what exactly "Powderfinger" is about. "Neil had delivered a good version of 'Helpless' with a good-size rock of cocaine stuck in his nostril," Band drummer Levon Helm wrote in his book This Wheel's On Fire. That's probably why he didn't notice what was in his nose when he walked on stage. The night before the show Young played back-to-back shows at Atlanta's Fox Theater before catching a flight to San Francisco to appear at the farewell gig. The most famous performance of the song comes from The Last Waltz in 1976. It's where I first went to school and spent my 'formative' years." "It's not literally a specific town so much as a feeling," he said. In a 1995 interview with Mojo, Young explained that the "town in North Ontario" wasn't referring to one single place. Neil Young's most memorable contribution to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's 1970 classic Deja Vu looks back at his childhood in Canada.
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