One constant over the time I've kept this blog is that Neil Young will issue an album with an interesting story behind it. Greendale, his rock opera/film soundtrack about environmentalism preceded it by a bit, but Prairie Wind, his post-aneurysm album, and Living With War, his anti-war screed, helped me to fill some space in 2005 and 2006, respectively. It's 2007, and Young has delivered yet again, issuing Chrome Dreams II, his (not really a) follow up to the unreleased 1977 album Chrome Dreams. You can read elsewhere about parallels between the two discs and more. Listening to the disc over the past couple of weeks, I've hit upon some one point that I haven't read elsewhere that I thought I'd share.

While "Ordinary People" is getting the most ink thanks to its 18-minute length and the fact that it's a leftover from the This Note's For You album, the last two tracks are the most meaningful for me. "The Hidden Path" is a 14-minute rambler that wouldn't sound out of place on one of Young's lesser Crazy Horse discs. But it's message, particularly in the lyric "Show me the way and I'll follow you today" perfectly sets up the next track, not so coincidentally called "The Way." There, Young is joined by a chorus of children who share the fact that they know "the way:" "We'll show the way to get you back home to the peace where you belong."

I've heard a lot of people give lectures recently who all point to the extraordinary differences between the current generation of young people and those preceding, my generation included. While most of us probably thought that we would be the generation to save the world from the ills foisted upon it by previous ones, we never seemed to get around to it. By all indications, this generation, which has grown up with unprecedented technology and the knowledge that things like global warming and religious-based strife are givens, is ready to do something about all of it. It has been heartening to hear about this, and I can only hope that these lecturers are right.

Young seems ready. While "The Hidden Path" might meander, it seems like a not-so-hidden aural metaphor for the aimless drift his generation and those that followed have found themselves on. They all wanted to change the world, but things never work out the way you planned. In frustration, his guitar wailing away in the background, he asks to be shown the way. On the next track, the children reassure him: We know the way. It's the kind of spiritual moment that Young has flailed about in search of for a few albums now. From the overreaching bombast of Greendale to the sweet but unfocused Prairie Wind, he always just missed the mark. He doesn't do so here with his most inspired music -- I long ago conceded the fact that while Young will always make albums worth hearing, the chances of him making another truly great album, more than a decade after his last, are slim -- but his aim and his execution, coupled with geopolitical events, have rendered this one as meaningful as anything he's done despite the limitations.

UPDATE: Young has made some interesting videos for some of the songs on the disc, using photos shot around his homestead for visuals.

Labels: music, Neil Young