Neil Young “Walk With Me”

I have, what is practically a yearly ritual with Barbara.

After some thoughtful, but resigned listening, I bring the new Neil Young CD to her and say, “Well, we should play it, right? I mean, it’s Neil Young.”

I guess I’m looking for her to deliver, what the Catholic Church might consider “dispensation.”

Regardless of the quality of a new song by, say, Neil Young or Jack Johnson or Sheryl Crow, if we didn’t play it, people who listen to mvyradio regularly, would find that weird. Sometimes, you play a song in rotation, for a short time, and then drop it, just to let people know the record exists, and this is what it sounds like.

Neil Young has made more great records and written more great songs than near-about any person who has ever lived.

But Neil Young also has a pretty insouciant attitude toward commercial viability. He goes in the studio, he makes the record he makes and he puts it out. Some are better than others.

The singles off “Prairie Wind” where pretty single-y. But for much of the last decade, Young has released some material that could be described, generously, as “loose.”

I mean, there’s a charm to unedited garage rock. It just doesn’t always lend itself of radio play.

So I gave a quick listen to the new track, “Walk With Me,” and wandered to the studio where Barbara was, prepared to have our usual conversation:

PJ: What do you think?
BD: It’s a little rough. But it’s Neil Young. We probably should play it.

But instead, I got an entirely different response.

She had listened far more intently than I had, I guess. Because she started talking about his detailed playing and the repeated musical phrase under the surface of the song and the complexity of it all and about how great it sounded.

I have to admit, I hadn’t heard all that. Did you?

More listening is required.