The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [47]
I wrote “Give My Love to Rose” about ten blocks from San Quentin prison. I was playing a club there one night in ’56, the first time I came to California. And an ole boy came backstage, an ex-con, to talk to me about Shreveport. He was from there. And I’m not sure his wife was named Rose, but his wife was in Shreveport and he said something about “giving my love to my wife if you get back to Shreveport before I do.” He had just gotten out of prison. I wrote the song that night.
“Big River”—I wrote it as a real slow bluesy thing. I remember sitting in the backseat of the car going through White Plains, New York, singing . . . “I ta—ught the wee—ping wil—low how to cry.” Real slow and bluesy.
I wrote “Hey Porter” when I was overseas. That was my homesick song for the South. “So Doggone Lonesome” was written with Ernest Tubb in mind. A lot of times I’d write songs with some singer in mind, never really intending to even let them hear it, but with them in mind. After I recorded “So Doggone Lonesome,” Tubb heard it and did record it.
I wrote “Get Rhythm” for Elvis. But I never did let him hear it before I recorded it. “Come in Stranger” was just my life-on-the-road song.
Didn’t you give Carl Perkins the idea for “Blue Suede Shoes”?
I remember the guys in the Air Force saying, “Don’t step on my blue suede shoes.” I thought it was a good line and told Carl he should put it into a song. But he wrote it all. It’s his song.
Do you think about the future much?
I just feel it as it goes. I do whatever I feel is right for me at the time. I don’t try to get the jump on anybody or anything.
Are you an optimistic person?
Oh, yeah. I sure am. I’ve had seventeen years of nothing but good times as far as my music has gone. It’s all been good for me. All the years have been good for me. And I see nothing but growth as far as the music business is concerned. I’m really optimistic about that, the fact that the best talents will be making it. Good talent will always be heard. There’s nothing going to take the place of the human being. They can get all the Moog synthesizers that they want but nothing will take the place of the human heart.
NEIL YOUNG
by Cameron Crowe
August 14, 1975
Why is it that you’ve finally decided to talk now? For the past five years journalists requesting Neil Young interviews were told you had nothing to say.
There’s a lot I have to say. I never did interviews because they always got me in trouble. Always. They never came out right. I just don’t like them. As a matter of fact, the more I didn’t do them the more they wanted them, the more I said by not saying anything. But things change, you know. I feel very free now. I don’t have an old lady anymore [Young had recently been divorced]. I relate it a lot to that. I’m back living in Southern California. I feel more open than I have in a long while. I’m coming out and speaking to a lot of people. I feel like something new is happening in my life.
I’m really turned on by the new music I’m making now, back with Crazy Horse. Today, even as I’m talking, the songs are running through my head. I’m excited. I think everything I’ve done is valid or else I wouldn’t have released it, but I do realize the last three albums have been a certain way. I know I’ve gotten a lot of bad publicity for them. Somehow I feel like I’ve surfaced out of some kind of murk. And the proof will be in my next album. Tonight’s the Night, I would say, is the final chapter of a period I went through.
Why the murky period?
Oh, I don’t know. Danny’s death probably tripped it off [Danny Whitten, leader of Crazy Horse and Young’s rhythm guitarist/second vocalist]. It happened right before the Time Fades Away tour. He was supposed to be in the group. We [Ben Keith, steel guitar; Jack Nitzsche, piano; Tim Drummond, bass; Kenny Buttrey, drums; and Young] were rehearsing with him, and he just couldn’t cut it. He couldn’t remember