Disharmony Part 3: Young vs. Crosby, Stills and Nash

The final part of our epic trilogy exploring the rivalries within CSNY examines the arrival of Neil Young, whose introduction to the highly-combustible supergroup made the band all the more explosive. Initially hired by his ex-Buffalo Springfield rival Stephen Stills as a sideman for CSN’s live performances, Young earned a full partnership in the group. He ultimately became the most influential member through a mix of sheer talent and masterful passive aggressive manipulation. While CSN prioritized the collective, Young felt allegiance to no one but himself and used the band's immense popularity as a launching pad for his burgeoning solo career. His willingness to walk away at the slightest provocation forced the other three to cater to his whims, tipping the delicate balance of power in his direction. As the drawing power of CSNY became exponentially greater than CSN, the trio would be forced to make even greater concessions to the mercurial Young. CSNY would be done Neil’s way, or not at all — much to the chagrin of Stills. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reveals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long swimmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan's and this is the end of our epic
trilogy on Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and it's been
building to one man, Nil Young. I'm sure he would
have it no other way. He is the godfather of
C S n Y. He's got the other three in
his back pocket. When he calls, they come when he walks, well,
that's just buying to his passive aggressive mind control is

(00:43):
like Jedi level. I mean, you know, I know, I
said in an earlier episode Crosby's my favorite member of
C S n Y. But Neil is easily the most
fascinating and he's also the best. I mean, let's be real.
I mean, I said in our previous episode that I
love Steven still is the most out of the original three.
But there's no question than that Neil Young as a
solo artist just towers over the other three guys in

(01:04):
this band. I mean, he truly is like one of
the greatest singer songwriters ever and one of my favorite
guitar players ever. Um. But what's often forgotten now, like
some fifty years later, is that when he joined Crosby
Stills in Nash, he wasn't really a star yet. And
in fact, I think you could argue that joining this
band made him a star, and then he proceeded to

(01:25):
completely outshine the rest of the band for like the
next several decades. I love when he was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he got
up there and said, it's basically been a solo trip.
That was his quote, it's a solo trip, which is
really interesting when you consider Buffalo, Springfield, Crosby Stills, Nash,
and Young, Crazy Horse, the Stray Gators. You know, he
played with Pearl jam Booker team the MG's. But it's

(01:47):
also really you know, insightful, accurate statement for him. I
think it's an important clue in understanding the complicated mind
of Neil Young. Yeah, we all love Neil Young because
he has that strong individualist street ko. He has this
mercurial nature that has caused him to make all sorts
of like perverse decisions in his career that seemed like
the antithesis of like smart show business management. But when

(02:10):
you look at like his work within the confines of
csn Y, I don't think there's any question that he
actually was like a secret show biz genius. I think
in a previous episode I compared him to Machiavelli, uh,
and I think that's really true. I mean, he played
the dudes in csn Y like a fiddle and not
only won the band, but he won it in a

(02:31):
route I can't wait to analyze how he did it.
So without further ado, let's get into this mess. Well,
Neil's entry point in the csn Y I was through
Stephen Stills and they met playing clubs together in Neil's
native Canada back in early nine five, and they were
really immediately impressed with each other because they saw something
in the other that they themselves lacked. You know, Neil

(02:53):
admired Steven's really like soulful, gritty, sort of traditionally good voice,
and Stephen admired news early songwriting attempts, which I don't
think Steven was really doing much of at that time.
It's funny given all their fighting in later years, and
they're very different personality types. I think Lynna McCartney would
describe them as chalk and cheese. It's really easy to
forget how they came from really similar family backgrounds. They

(03:14):
both had these really complicated relationships with their sort of
largely absent fathers, and they had these sort of domineering
mothers and no matter what they did, nothing they ever
did was good enough for their mothers. And so it
kind of fostered this superhuman drive and ambition that they
both have. But it manifests in really different ways. Like
Neil is sort of the scrawny kid that can always
win a fight. He just excels at self preservation, whereas

(03:37):
Stills has the self destructive streak that would I think
would ultimately burn them out. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Yeah,
we cover this in depth in our Stephen Steele's episode UM.
And if you listen to the episode, you know that
Neil has murdered Stephen Steels over and over and over
again over the years for the reasons that you said that,
UM to some degree, like Stills is putting the knife

(03:59):
in him self while Neil is like whispering in his
ear and driving him insane with this passive aggressive mind control.
But yeah, it really is striking like how different those
guys were, and how you think just looking at them
superficially that you think, oh, Steven Stills is the more
assertive one and Neil is more passive. But really Neil

(04:21):
was able to assert himself in a more subtle and
ultimately effective way. So Neil, in your now, Neil is
Hannibal Lecter, and then Stephen is multiple meets exactly. I
think that's perfect. So Neil and Stephen go through separate
ways in these Canadian clubs. Stephen, as we said in
the previous episode, goes to l A in search of

(04:41):
session work and monkeys stardom, which doesn't work out for him.
Neil stays in Canada informs a group called the Minor
Birds with Bruce Palmer and a very very very young
Rick James. And I just I want to throw this
in there because if you haven't listened to it, please
have you heard the line of Birds ever? Stephen? Yeah,
it's there. They're one of the like great wood if

(05:02):
stories in the industry, Like if that could have actually happened,
they could have been like you know, across between like
Funkadelic and the Rolling Stones, the Chambers Brothers or something. Yeah, unbelievable.
They almost made it to Motown, but Rick James was
arrested for going uh a wall from the Navy, and
the whole Motown dealt torpedoes. So Bruce and Neil drive

(05:22):
to l A in search of Steven Stills and they're
driving Neil's Pontiac Hearse and they're looking all over l
A can't find Stephen. They eventually find him in a
traffic jam going the opposite way down sunset. Neil does
a UEI and Stephen sees Neil in his rear view
mirror in a black hearse, and I think that's the
most perfect metaphor for their relationship professional relationship, at least

(05:45):
I can possibly think of. Whenever Stephen thinks things are
going well, Neil Young pulls up behind him in a
black Hurst and uh and murders him really exactly exactly.
It's very telling that he's driving a hearse because he's
there to drive away Steven Stills his corpse essentially. So
they formed Buffalo Springfield and they start fighting pretty much instantly.

(06:09):
I mean, it's always It was funny that Neil's early
on stage attire was this like buckskin fringe Native American outfit,
and then Stills would always wear these like stetsons and
cowboy outfits. They were literally cowboys and Indians on stage,
always fighting. And Neil later said, I think it was
in the Jimmy mcdonobiography, Shaky said was Steven and I.
It was two young guys, two musical forces trying to

(06:30):
coexist in a band that we knew was really good,
but neither of us had planned on the other being
a force. I think that pretty much sums it up.
It was equally strong Wills with totally different personalities, and
Stills was much more, as you said, openly domineering. And
he would criticize Neil, you know, missing a note on stage.
And I guess whenever they would play the Whiskey a
go go, the waitresses new to like listen really carefully

(06:52):
during their set because after the show there would always
be some fight that they'd be called in the sort
of referee on be like, you know, Nel misaid no,
didn't you hear it right? And then Neils like, no, no, no, come,
I I did it fine, And yeah, I always felt
bad for the white presses at the Whiskey. Uh so, yeah,
the fighting was pretty much instant. Yeah, and I think,
you know, when we think about Neil Young, we always
think about a guy who hits every single note. You know,

(07:13):
that is really the genius Reil Young. He never misses
a note. It's very precise. Yeah, you know, I think
if you were to look at these two guys in
nineteen sixty six and you were going to take a
bet on who was going to have the more lasting career,
I think the smart money at that time would have
been on Stephen Stills. You know, he's this blonde, square jawed,
good looking guy, this cool, bluesy voice. He's writing basically

(07:36):
like conventional like folk rock songs, like doing it really well.
But then you have Neil Young, who is this awkward,
gangly guy with like a with a whiny, high pitched voice.
He seems a little shaky on stage, to allude to
the Jimmy McDonough book, and he's writing songs that are
you know, much more eccentric and don't necessarily have that
immediate pop appeal that some of the early Stills songs had.

(07:59):
But we can see, of course, in retrospect that these
things that seemed like negatives about Neil Young in sixty
six all ended up being positives because Neil Young, he's
an artist that you have to lean into in order
to understand, you know, he makes you come to him.
And I feel like that's true like a lot of
the greatest artists of all time. You know, they don't
seem like they're pandering to you. They make you concentrate

(08:20):
on what they're doing, and it forces the audience to
focus in much more than they normally would have. And
I actually feel like Neil Young was self aware of that,
and that's part of his genius, that he knew that
he could be himself and not compromising it would actually
make him more charismatic. Yeah, I could never figure out
if he knew that that was something almost in the

(08:42):
Dylan mold of like no, I'm just going to be
myself and that authenticity will will resonate with people, or
if he just truly didn't give it dam I mean,
I guess it's probably a combination of public Neil Young.
It's always hard to tell, like how much is just
his own nature of you know, being stubborn and just
being focused on his own was and how much of
it is like this canny understanding of like how to

(09:04):
get ahead. I mean, I do think that those things
aren't mutually exclusive, you know. I think on one hand
he was this very idiosyncretic artist, but on the other hand,
he was also ambitious and he and he wanted to
be a star. But yeah, I mean early on in
Buffalo Springfield, I think these things that we're talking about,
they seemed like liabilities, like his singing voice, for instance,
He really wasn't not allowed to sing all that much

(09:26):
in Buffalo Springfield. Like on that first record, Neil wrote
some wonderful songs like nowadays Clanty can't even sing and
Flying on the Ground is wrong, But those songs were
he didn't sing those songs. Richie Furray sang those songs
who had a much more sort of conventional country rock
sounding voice, and a lot of his songs too, like
they weren't picked to be the singles, or they were.
I think like Burned was a single, was Flying on

(09:48):
the Ground is wrong a single? Too early on? I
think nowadays Clansy can't even sing and Burned with the
first two Buffalo Springfield singles. But again, yeah, Neil wasn't
allowed to sing him and Stephen would be awful to him.
He they would finally let him sing occasionally on stage,
and Stephen would get on the mic and apologize to
the crowd for what his band Nate was about to
do to them and flick his terrible voice onto them,

(10:10):
and Neil would go off stage and go to his
dressing room and cry, which is something I cannot imagine
Neil Young ever doing. I know, I know, that's that's
that's such a sad story. I know. Steven Stills too,
also had an issue with Mr. Soul originally because he
thought that that song was basically too derivative of Satisfaction
by the Rolling Stones, which, truth be told, that song

(10:31):
does sound a lot like Satisfaction, but it's also a
pretty amazing song on his own, and that is like
one of the like few Neil Young songs that Neil
was actually allowed to sing. And I feel like by
their second record, which was Buffalo Springfield, again Neil was
allowed to step into the four a little bit more
like he sings a Mr. Soul, he sings Expecting to Fly,

(10:52):
which is the big epic on that record. But he
also had the issue of epilepsy at this time, like
where he started having um seizures on stage. It seems
like maybe that was somewhat uh precipitated by like all
the stress that was going on in that band. But
again that's like another factor that when you look at
it and you're like, you know, if you're looking at
him in like nineteen sixty seven, sixty eight, you're just thinking, like,

(11:14):
is this guy like too fragile, you know to have
a long lasting career. Yeah, I mean, you do wonder
which came first, the epilepsy or the stress in the band.
Because his his his ex wife Carrie Snodgrass would it
would later say, you know, he used to eat to
basically say oh no, I feel a seizure coming on,
I can't go to this dinner party or I can't
do this or that, And he would say, you know,

(11:35):
I wouldn't put it past Neil the fake as seizure
to get out of things. So he would later say
that he withdrew from Buffalo Springfield because of just the
toxic energy there and all the stress. But also you know,
who knows he could have used his affliction with just
saying you know what, I don't want to deal with this,
and I have a doctor's note saying I don't have
to do that, right, Yeah, I mean again, it just

(11:56):
seemed like in Buffalo Springfield is great of a band
as that was, it just seems like it turned into
a toxic situation pretty early on, and that I think
combined with Neil's just again that that resolute nature that
I think he already had where he wanted to be
in control, and he knew that he wasn't going to
be in control if he was in a band with
Stephen Stills. Although that was a lesson he was going

(12:17):
to like not follow, I guess in the very near future,
but like he ends up quitting the band like pretty
early on, right, I mean, their whole relationship was just
hanging by a thread when they were recording Mr. Soul
and Neil really wanted it to be the single, and Stephen,
as you said, thought it sounded way too much like Satisfaction,
and he was pushing his own song Bluebird, which is
an amazing song. He put Neil through hell during the

(12:39):
recording of it. I think the engineer Bruce Botnick said
that Stephen just hectored Neil so much they ended up
having a seizure like in the studio during the sessions
for it. So not a pleasant time. Bluebirds the a
side Mr. Souls the B side. Neil at this point
has made it clear to the rest of the band
that he wants out, and he he agrees to stay
on through the Monterey Pop Festival in June sixty seven,

(13:02):
but then the band lands a gig on the Johnny
Carson Show as the first rock band on Carson, which
I still think it's nuts that they chose that cool
of a band. I thought it would have been like,
you know, the Association or something. I mean, yeah, someone
that person's staff was pretty hip, totally yeah, I never
understood that. But Neil was not into this. He thought

(13:23):
that just being on Carson, he was worried that the
Buffalo Sprinkle would have been basically a curiosity for Middle
America just to basically point and laugh at and like,
you know, like like creatures in a zoo or something.
So two days before they're due to take the show,
he bolts. He he vanishes, he doesn't answer anybody's calls.
He goes to hide out, I think, at his girlfriend's
house in the San Fernando Valley and he's just gone.

(13:44):
And then he's gone for the Monterey Pop Festival too,
and they get Crosby to fill in for him, and
Stills would later say, you know, this happened again and
again right exactly when I needed Neil. Was the time
that he left. He left right when I needed him
post and I think that that, you know, is the
wound that never really heals between them too. I mean,
Stills has all this ambition, and I think on some

(14:07):
level he probably feels like he needs Neil and um
right when they're at a crucial juncture of getting this
massive mass media exposure. Neil bolts and so Neil is
working on his own song called Expecting to Fly, which
is this amazing track he does with Jack Nietzsch, who
was Full Spector's longtime arranger, and uh, it is a

(14:28):
wild song. I always kind of thought that that was
like one of the first like Laurel Canyon singers songwriters
songs as opposed to like, you know, a band folk
rock song. I mean, what do you think of that song?
Is a great track, and it really shows that like
Neil Young at that time had aspirations to be almost
like a Brian Wilson like figure, like where it would
be very because you know, we always think of Will
Young as being very raw in the studio working with

(14:50):
Crazy Horse and you know, playing live and leaving the
mistakes in. But he also has this strain like where
he was obsessed with studio craft and he would construct
songs like Expect and to Fly. His first solo record
is like that too. It's much more sort of as
much more studio polished than like his subsequent records would have.
But you know, again that's like part of this sort
of you know, there's so many contradictions that Neil Young.

(15:12):
You know, we were talking earlier about how on one
hand he seems to be almost like anti show business
and then on the other hand he's been incredibly canny
and how he's maneuvered in his career over the years.
And you know, there's so many paradoxes like that Neil
Young's career that you just have to reconcile, like if
you're trying to understand him. But you know, just just
talking about all this, you know, the minary pop thing

(15:33):
and you know him like not wanting to be on
television and all that stuff. I just feel like, and
we're gonna see this. I think as this episode unfolds
that like no one has gotten more mileage out of
saying no than Neil Young or like the threat that
he could say no, you know, and I think we're
going to see that like later on in the history
of csn Y, where like he had traumatized these guys

(15:55):
so much that they were afraid of him, and they basically, yeah,
they like, we're afraid that he's going to reject us.
So it just caused them to seed any control of
the band, Like when Neil Young would come into the picture,
like you know, they just would lay down for him,
basically because he had said no so many other times
in the past. And like with Buffalo Springfield to like

(16:15):
you know, he quit the band, and then he rejoined
the band again, and then he ended up quitting again.
I guess, like was that in like sixty eight or so. Yeah,
he rejoined basically because the DJ started flipping over the
Bluebird single and playing his song Mr. Soul instead, And
so suddenly, now that his song was getting all this
hair play, he decided, Oh, maybe maybe being back in

(16:36):
Buffalo Springfield's not so bad after all, all right hand,
We'll be right back with more rivals. So he rejoins,
but then, um, you know, it's just more of the same, uh,
constant fighting there was a drug bust and there they

(16:59):
were busted I think Steven Still's girlfriend's house, and everybody
was sent to jail except Stills, who I guess escaped
out of bathroom window and ran for it. And I
always wondered, like how much that played a role in
like you know, they're how much that piste Neel off.
I mean, Neil was like risking deportation by by getting
arrested everything, and Neil and Stephen just booked it. So
he's never really spoken much about that, but I can't

(17:21):
imagine that that really endeared uh, Steven to Neil very much.
But he eventually quit again. The band was on his
last legs in the spring of sixty eight, and then
uh and then they were done, I think in like April.
So Neil ends up making his first solo record. I
think that comes down sixty eight. It's a self titled record,
and it's a good record, although again it seems a
little weird in terms of like how we think of

(17:42):
Neil Young now, because you know, I think of Neil
Young either as the acoustic troubadour or as like the
raw garage rocker with Crazy Horse, and like his self
titled record is this sort of like again, it's more
in the vein of like expecting to fly like him
maybe indulging his like Brian Wilson's side, like wanting to
make this sort of immaculate studio record. I think that
Neil Young, that we all know and love like really

(18:02):
comes into the four with his second record, which is
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, which is his first with
Crazy Horse, and of course this ends up being a
very fruitful relationship for Neil Young. And you know, I
talked about this a bit in our Steven Steele's episode.
I think the thing with Neil Young is that he
often will surround himself with musicians that I think aren't

(18:24):
quite as good as him. And I think there's a
couple of reasons for that. Speaking of like Crazy Horse specifically,
I think one coming out of Buffalo Springfield, he probably
wanted to be in a situation like where he was
going to be unquestioned leader. You know, there was not
going to be another Stephen Stills, like figuring Crazy Horse.
I guess Danny Witten would be like that to some degree,

(18:45):
but you know, I don't think Whitten was as much
of an egomaniac as Steven Stills like he wasn't gona
have power struggles with Danny Witten and Crazy Horse. And
I think the other reason too, is that Neil Young
realized that if he had this very simple and primitive
backdrop that it would just allow him to shine all
the more. And when you listen to those Crazy Horse records,
I mean, I feel like the formula is you have

(19:05):
this great sort of lurching rhythm section, and out of
that explodes these like majestic Neil Young guitar solos that
go on for several minutes. And it's such a great
it's such a great formula, and it's a contrast to
like what Steven Stills did when he started Benassas, for instance,
which was this overloaded band, lots of great players, lots

(19:27):
of people showing off. It's very busy and it's great,
but like it doesn't quite have the power that Neil
Young has with Crazy Horse because everything the backdrop is
so stripped back it just allows him to really step forward.
I think it's hilarious like how the other guys in
csn Y thought about Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse. David Crosby

(19:48):
I think has been the most vocal did he have
some quote where he was like, you know, there shouldn't
have been allowed to be musicians. They should have been killed,
they should have been shot at birth. They can't play.
You have a Crosby quote machine, David Cross, and that's
him on the record too. You know, again, like we talked,
we talked about that in our Crosby episode about how
like when Crosby was calling Darrell Hannah the devil or whatever,
you know, he claimed that was like off the record,

(20:10):
this is Crosby. This was very much Crosby on the
record saying that Crazy Horse should be killed because they
can't play, which is hilarious, but I mean, I think
you know, that was probably another thing that appealed to
Neil Young about Crazy Horse as the years would would
roll on, about how different that world was from like
the csn Y world, that he could just go into
the garage with Crazy Horse and I wouldn't have to

(20:33):
deal with like a lot of the star trips that
were in csn Y. But we talked about this, you know,
we've talked about this in our previous two episodes in
this series about how Neil Young ended up in csn Y.
We could probably just blow through it quickly here. But
I mean basically the idea was they made that first record,
that record with you know, the three guys on the Couch,
and then they needed someone to pump up their sounds

(20:55):
as as a live act, right, and Neil Young was
the one that ended up kind of fitting that bill. Yeah,
they were considering Steve Winwood and a couple of other people,
and they landed on Neil. And I've spent a lot
of time trying to wonder why Stephen, who'd finally become
free of his personal nemesis, decided to bring him back
after all these years of Neil making his life in

(21:16):
Buffalo Springfield a living hell. It's one of the big
questions of this series. I think it's the unresolved question.
My best guess is that it was to sort of
fulfill the unfulfilled potential of Buffalo Springfield. You know, I
think about those couples that you know not to but
to find a point out, It's like a couple that
has great sex but can't stand one another. The draw
is so strong, but the good stuff that happens between

(21:37):
them was born out of this like toxic torrent of
resentment and rage, but stills is convinced that they could
make it work. They can actually really make it work.
I mean, I think there's almost like a brother thing
there too, like where I think we'll talk about this
little later in the episode, because I think their relationship
is sort of evolved in like almost like a heartwarming
direction in like later years. But yeah, I mean, I

(21:58):
think that there's a realization there that, like, you know,
we are connected in a way that like I'm not
connected to other people, Like I think Stills and Young
are much closer than like they are too, like Crosby
and Nash, you know, like those guys have something separate
on their own, I guess in a way, in the
same way that like Crosby and Nash had their own
thing going on. Stills Young and even like how it

(22:20):
could be toxic, although really, I mean, I guess it's
funny because Stills was way worse than Neil Young early on,
but I think over the totality of their relationship, Neil
Young has been harder on Stephen Stills in a lot
of ways. I don't know, man, It's it's such a
weird dynamic, man, Like how these guys just invite pain
from each other over and over again, like it's true

(22:41):
for all the guys in this band, I think. I mean,
Neil initially was very suspicious of getting into Crosby Stills
in Nash too, and he dragged his feet I think
for like a month or something. And as usual, he
derives his power by making himself scarce, and I guess,
you know, people won't what they can't have, and that
probably went a long way in sort of forcing the
band's hand and making him not just a side guy,

(23:01):
but but a full partner, you know, name in the
band name kind of thing. And um, you know, obviously
Neil was very aware that he was joining you know,
the American Beatles, the most celebrated group in the country,
and it wouldn't be a bad thing for himself, I mean,
to take his own group. I mean, because it's important
to say that Neil's you know, name recognition was nil

(23:22):
at this point. Really, I mean he would it would
have been like you know, Crosbys Nation Young, and then
like Crosby Stills in Nash and then like Gene Clark
or something like that, like somebody who who was really
sort of more of a cult fringe figure. And by
joining this group, as he said, at the beginning, would
just expose him to this huge audience. And I think
he was upfront about this in later years too, where

(23:42):
he said, you know, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Young
is gonna make me a lot of money and it
definitely plays a big part in me being here. And um,
he also made it clear from the start that this
was not his first priority. Could come and go as
he pleased and express himself and whatever other projects that
he wished. So, I mean, it's really an incredible setup, Neil.
I mean, there's never a downside at all. It could

(24:03):
only help him, Yeah, exactly, especially because, like he said,
he always had that back door that he could walk
out of. And it's really funny to me too, like
how Neil almost from the beginning was able to like
both benefit from being in this band because again, as
you said, they were like the American Beatles at this time,
they were hugely popular, and Neil Young, you know, he
was known from Buffalo Springfield, but like his his first

(24:24):
two solo records didn't sell all that well, like at
the beginning, so you know, he was really coming into
this great situation. But then he could also like use
that band to boost his own credibility by putting them down,
make it away, and like, I feel like there's an
early example of that, like when they performed at Woodstock,
because you know, all four of them were at Woodstock.
I think it was like the second show they ever played.

(24:47):
There's that famous clip of Steven Still saying that you know,
we're scared shitless, you know, playing at this show. And
then the movie comes out and Neil Young refuses to
be a part of the film, so you only see
the three other guys in there. And we can link
that to all the other examples that we've talked about
about Neil Young sort of making himself the story by
taking himself out, you know, like I'm the story now

(25:09):
because I'm not there, and that's really kind of the
story of like that film appearance. I also feel like,
you know, and he wouldn't have known this at the time,
but it ended up being a I think a very
advantageous decision by him because you look at Neil Young,
he's like one of the only people of his generation
that had like serious like credibility with like punks and
like indie rockers and like later like the grunge rockers

(25:30):
of that time, and I think it was because he
was from the sixties, but like he could distance himself
from some of the big sixties signifiers, like in a
way that David Crosby couldn't. Like David Crosby is so
endemically sixties when you look at him, where if you're
like a punk and you hate the sixties, he's like
an easy target to make fun of, whereas Neil Young
is like right next to David Crosby and a lot

(25:52):
of things. But it's like, oh, he's the guy that
didn't want to be in the Woodstock movie. So it's
like he almost has this like weird credibility there because
he didn't do that or he wouldn't allow himself to
be in the movie. I'm going to make myself the
story by being absent because I have integrity. It's genius.
It's it's a genius move. And like I feel like, again,
maybe he was doing that because that's how he really felt,

(26:14):
and I'm sure that's the case, but you can't tell
me that on some level he didn't realize the smartness
of that. From like just the image and career standpoint, Yeah,
I mean this would happen again and again and again,
I mean even when you're when they're recording their first
album as a as a quartet, Deja Vu, he was
absent really for most of that was really a Crosby
Stills a Nash album featuring Neil Young. You know, I

(26:37):
think two of his songs. I think he only played
on five of all the songs on the album. And
Crosby Stills in their debut have been pretty painless to
make because Stills had been sort of the unchecked musical director,
and with Deja Vu, it was not that way at all.
It was almost like the White album sessions were really
kind of fractured and strained, and Neil famously hated all

(26:59):
the sounds of the offal of Springfield Records, and he
was very low to relinquished control over the sounds of
his songs. So when he would get in there and
record his tracks Helpless and Country Girl, he basically viewed
it as like that's his business. He would record the songs,
take the tapes, go to his personal producer, David Briggs
to get it all set and mixed on his own
and make it sound the way he wanted it to sound,

(27:20):
as opposed to you know, still sitting there like, well,
what are you doing? This is a band and you
can't just take your things and do it completely by yourself.
And oh, by the way, I engineered the first album
we did and it sold the gazillion copies. I know
what I'm doing. First of all, why don't you trust me?
And second of all, how dare you right? Exactly? And
again we talked about in our last episode. But yeah,

(27:40):
still is just like, dude, I'm doing you a favorite man.
I'm literally adding millions of dollars to your bank account
by inviting you into this band that I started. And
now you're pulling this stuff again, you know, yeah, just
murdering Stills in the studio during deja It's like, get
the black hearse out, Neil, get the hearse haul Steven
Stills away. One story that really makes me laugh is

(28:02):
about the song Teacher Children, and this occurred years later.
Of course, Teacher Children is like one of the big
hit songs from Deja Vu that Neil Young doesn't play on,
and Graham Nash was always like really upset about that
because like they had the session, Neil knew when it
was and he just didn't show up. Graham, you know,
And I think justifiably took that as like a sign

(28:23):
of disrespect. It's like, hey, like we are here for you,
why can't you play on my song? It just makes
me feel like you don't really take my song seriously.
And like, years later, Graham Nash had I think his
first opportunity to license that song for a commercial, and
I think that song has been like in a million
commercials since then. But Neil Young was upset about that

(28:43):
because his name was on it, and he had also
just put out that song this Notes for You from
the late eighties, you know that song where he's like
making fun of corporate Yeah, And Graham Nash was basically like, dude,
you didn't play on the song. So like, I don't
really care what you think. I'm gonna do this. I
gonna make bank. You should have shown up to the session,
you know, twenty years ago. You know, maybe I would

(29:05):
care about your opinion, but you know, I'm giving you
the heads up out of a courtesy, but I'm gonna
take the cash. So I think that's pretty funny. You
know the other thing too, And I'm curious to hear
your thoughts on this. You know, I was revisiting Neil
Young Records for this episode, which of course is always
a great thing to do. I love listening to Neil
Young records, and I was really struck listening to After
the gold Rush and Harvest. I don't think I had
fully made this connection to my mind before about how

(29:26):
much those albums sound like csn Y and how if
you listen to the album's Neil Young did before he
joined that band, you know, he wasn't doing the like
the folky songs with lots of harmonies. You know, that's
not everybody knows this is nowhere. He's not really doing
that on the self titled record. But then you get
to After the gold Rush, which came out six months
after Deja Vu, so perfectly positioned to like kind of

(29:49):
capitalize on the success of that record. You have songs
like tell Me Why Only Level Break Your Heart that
just have these like again, beautiful melodies. They sound like
they could have been on a C. S n Y record,
And that's, you know, doubly true of Harvest, you know,
which has heard of gold Old Man Needling, the Damage
Done Again, all very sort of csn Y sounding records,
And like it occurred to me that, like Neil Young,

(30:11):
he was able to jack their sound and do it
by himself and do it better. Because as much as
I love those CSN and CSNY records, like After the
gold Rush is a better album, Harvest is a better album.
And he was just like, hey, like I can do
what you do, and I can sell as many records
as you guys sell, but I can do it by myself,
like I don't need you, you know, which is like

(30:32):
another incredible thing that Neil Young is able to pull
off at this time. It just blows my mind. Stills
must have been like, where were you when we were
doing that? He must have been listening to all these
I always got the impression that the CSM brought their
best songs to CSN Y projects, whereas Neil kind of
brought ones that seems sort of like uncharacteristically, I'm gonna say, lightweight,

(30:54):
but more lightweight than the stuff that would be on
After the gold Rush, you know, the songs that ended
up on Javu, Helpless, and Country Girl. I think he
also brought Sea of Madness and Everybody's Alone to the
sessions too, which didn't make the cut, But he kind
of brought these like more slight, poppy songs as if
that was like all CSN y Dessert. I mean, I
think Helps is like a pretty great song, although I

(31:15):
would take most of the songs on After the gold
Rush probably over that one. I mean, I mean, he
did write Ohio for them, which is like maybe their
greatest song, So you gotta tip the cap there. But yeah,
I agree with you. I think it's pretty clear, especially
as we get into like the later albums, when we
get into like you know, American Dream era and like
looking Forward, and you look at like what Neil was

(31:36):
doing on his own versus like what he was contributing
to those records. Uh yeah, it's like pretty clear, uh
that he was holding things for himself. Um, he's making
Freedom the same time, then he's making American Dream I think,
at the same time. So yeah, so you know, so anyway,
I mean, so anyway, he makes Deja Vu with with CSN,

(31:57):
and then he does these like just these brilliant solo
records end up being huge hits, and it's almost like
you know, by like say the mid seventies or so.
I mean, Neil Young I think already at that point
was probably the biggest star in this galaxy. But he
was also still drawn into working with these guys again,
like they started, and we talked about this in our
Steven Stills episode about Human Highway, like how they tried

(32:20):
to get that album going. I guess I was like
in seventy three or so. Yeah, I think at that
point kind of Neil had sort of haunted by Danny
Whitten's death and he had done the Harvest tour that
turned into Time Fades Away, which you know, was so
unpleasant to him that I don't think he allowed it
to be, you know, widely available for decades. So he
was a kind of a low personal and commercial Ebb

(32:42):
and some of the other three in CSM y Uh.
They went to Maui, and I think in Jimmy McDonough's book,
they sort of a side mission aside from trying to
get the band back together and make a new CSNY album,
was to try to wean Skills off of cocaine and um.
Apparently Bruce Barry, who was a man and drove in
a Conna line vand uh he was a roadie for

(33:03):
the group. He showed up with cocaine for apparently for
Stills and it was a big blow up. They sent
Bruce back to the mainland, where he almost immediately o'd
I think a couple of days later, um, and so
this instigated this, you know, big fight with the group
and the sessions in Hawaii we were called off and

(33:24):
they eventually met back up at Neil's ranch in in
northern California to try to resume sessions on what was,
you know, tentatively called Human Highway, which I always thought
was interesting is that they named it after a Neil song,
and they went to Neil's ranch to record It's Always
about coming to Neil and Um. They got a couple
of days into the sessions on the ranch and Neil
just walked I think he went to David Briggs house

(33:45):
late one night and said, I'm doing this record with
CSN and it's all wrong. I want to make a
rock and roll record, and that became Tonight's The Night,
which you know, it was just one of the most
agonizing expressions of grief on record. It's like up there
with like the Plastic gon No Band, just him processing
the death of Danny Wit and Bruce Barry. Yeah, and
you know, it's hard to overstate it, like how great

(34:06):
Neil Young was at this time. You know, there's that
famous you know, if you love Neil Young, you know
the story about how he had those big successes with
after the gold Rush and Harvest and of course working
with csn Y, and then he goes into what is
known as the Ditch period where he's making these really noisy, angry, sad,
drunken records like Time paids Away, Tonight's Tonight on the Beach. Uh.

(34:30):
They're just brilliant and he's just coming up with tremendous stuff.
And you know, I feel like sometimes like the other
guys in the band get like a little bit of
a short shrift about like what they were doing at
this time, because I think, as we've talked about in
like our Crosby and Our Skills episode, I still feel
like at this point the other guys were writing good stuff,
you know, and they were putting out good albums. I

(34:51):
think by you know, once we get past the mid seventies,
things get a little patch here. But you know, I
feel like in a way, like Neil Young sort of
fed that perception that these guys in the band like
were weren't that great, and and truth be told, I
mean they were not as good as him. I mean
there's no question of that. No one's going to say
that they were keeping pace really with Neil Young at

(35:12):
this time. But I just think of like the Doom
Tour era, and you know, we've talked a lot about
the Doom Tour already. It's a great period. I know,
we could just do a whole series on the Doom
Tour as far as I'm concerned. But you know, I think,
like Neil Young has talked about how on that tour
he was disappointed because he felt like, um, you know,
they were playing these really long shows and they were

(35:34):
introducing new material into those gigs, but like he felt
like he was bringing like the most to the table
um And if you listen to the tapes of that time,
I mean he had some incredible songs that he was
basically debuting on that tour, Like push It over the
Edge is like an incredible song, so many great songs.
I feel like the other guys were also like putting
up some pretty good stuff too. But there's no question

(35:56):
that Neil Young was like at a real high creatively.
I mean, I think most of is this guss with
that tour was just with like the decadence of it,
and like how much they were spending on just stuff
they didn't need, like lobster dinners before the show that
like no one would eat, you know, that kind of stuff.
And I think he ended up, well, what's up on
lobsters before? You know? It's like you want a bunch

(36:16):
of lobsters in your stomach and butter three hours it
seems awful. And I think by the end of that tour,
like the rest of the band was like traveling by
jet and he was like in his like a kind
of line van essentially right. I mean, wasn't he just
kind of going like van life on that tour. Yeah,
he was in like a GMC motor home that I
think broke down. It was like such a piece of chunk,

(36:37):
which is you know, imagined Neil Young on the side
of the road in a in a broken down motor
home is kind of how I prefer to think of
Neil Young. But he he wasn't hanging out with the
other guys at all at that point. No, No, he
was definitely again, um, you know, they were doing the
rock Star trip and he was basically being like an
indie rock guy, like I want to do my own thing,
you know, being my own world and look, I love

(37:00):
that tour. I that live album that they put out,
the CSNY nineteen seventy four, I think is so good. Um,
but it just seems like Neil Young was not satisfied.
It seemed like again like him and Stills were battling
on stage, you know, doing like basically like spinal tap
like folk rock edition, like where they're just trying to
out like volume each other, like just cranking the amps
and uh, you know, just killing their ear drums basically,

(37:22):
which yeah, which I mean. Then of course you get
Crosby and Nash trying to sing over that, and it
killed their voices. So when you listen to the tapes back,
I guess Nash was like almost in tears when he
played the tapes back because their voices were just shredded
trying to compete with you know, a hundred decibels of
Skills and Neils Amps, Marshall Stacks and everything. I mean,
the other incredible tour. I guess from this era that

(37:43):
we need to talk about we and we talked about
this a bit and our Skills episode, but the Stills
Young band tobaccle that happened. I can't believe that even
got as far as I did. I just can't believe
that they even like thought that was a good idea
in any way, shape or form, because I mean, you
listen to that record, and I feel like, on paper,
that would have been a cool idea. Like again, Stills

(38:04):
and Young working together, the brothers are back, They're going
to work out their tensions, and if they could have
like somehow like channeled the hostility that they had between
each other into the music, it could have been incredible.
It could have been like really edgy and alive and great.
And the record itself, I just feel like it's subpar
material for the most part from both of those guys,
except for the title track, which is this great Neil

(38:26):
Young song, but then you know, the other tracks on
there are pretty light weight, and then they ended up
going on tour and then that ended up being a disaster.
Oh yeah. I mean Neil didn't like it from the
beginning because he felt that the band was mostly Steven's people,
and it's very very important for for Neil to be
around Neil people. Neil needs Neil people at all times.
So from the start, Neil feels like something wasn't working,

(38:47):
the balance was off. And the critics weren't very kind,
and unfortunately they were praising Neil but trashing Stills. I
guess there was one headline that was young hot Still's not.
It's hard to imagine that being that, you know, format
being used in the context of a rock critic review.
But he's gonna say, like hot or not existed in
the seventies. I feel like that's the internet. You know,

(39:09):
they were dropping hotter not chokes in the seventies. That's
that's that's kind of weird. So Stills was very much
unhappy about being deemed not hot, and he consoled himself
with alcohol and cocaine, which made him even more tyrannical
than normal. He starts taking it out on the crew,
thinking that like the crew is conspiring against him to
make him sound bad. This, you know, makes him less
than popular with the crew, which then exacerbates his own

(39:31):
persecution complex, and it goes around the round and round.
One night in I think Charlotte Stills barrates the sound
guy in front of a packed house, like in the
middle of the show, and Neil is just horrified by this.
They are Stills and Neil are traveling in separate buses,
and um, I guess the next show is in Atlanta,
and Neil goes up to the driver of his bus

(39:52):
and says, all right, turn left here. Well, Neil, were
supposed to go right now, turn left here, goes to
Memphis and catches the plane back to California. Still arrives
at the hotel in Atlanta and finds a telegram for
him from Neil that says, Dear Stephen, funny things that
start spontaneously and that way, eat a peach. Yes, And
we we covered this in our Stills episode, and I

(40:13):
think we were looking at it from the perspective of
Stills again just being a corpse on the floor. At
that point, he should have said, you know, this is
like the fifth time that Neil Young has murdered me,
and I just allowed to continue to happen. You know.
It's like that Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow, you know,
like where he just keeps getting murdered over and over again.

(40:34):
That's like that should be like the C. S. N
Y biopic right there. Um, But you know, since this
is the Neil Young episode, you know, looking at it
from Neil's perspective, I mean, as like harsh as that
is to do to someone who's like your friend. I
get where he's coming from if you're looking at it
purely from an artistic point of view, because again, he's
on the road promoting a record that's not very good.

(40:57):
He's with a guy who's like yelling at the sound
guy overplaying on every song. He's probably thinking in his mind,
you know, I can hook up with Crazy Horse, I
can hook up with the Stray Gators. I can do
something that is like way better than this. I'm in
the middle of like one of the greatest runs in
rock history in terms of albums, like I'm just spitting
fire left and right. You know. I think of that
song Thrasher from Rest and Every Sleeps with the line

(41:20):
in there he talks about like those guys were dead
weight to me, such a devastating song, and it's and
he's talking about CSN why And you know, I think
this is an instance where he's like, I gotta cut
the dead weight or I'm going to drown, you know.
And so from that perspective, I understand it. It's like,
you know, yes, he murdered Stephen Stills, but maybe it
was self defense. You know. It's like it's like either
him or me, I'll murder him so I can survive.

(41:42):
He would defend himself. Years later, he's say, you know,
I only care about the music. It's sad sometimes people
are damaged by it. But if people understand me, they
understand that when the music is finished with me, I'll
be back if you can wait for me, that says.
So let's flash forward to the eighties and this is like, actually,
this is a dark period I think for all involved.

(42:03):
Although I feel like in a way you could have
argued maybe in the early eighties that like CSN had
some say Daylight Again if you will, with their album
two is Daylight Again, which was like a pretty big
hit record. I mean Southern Crosses on that record, wasted
on the ways on that record. Um so they had
this sort of flash of relevance again, whereas Neil Young

(42:25):
was really at a low point in terms of his
commercial appeal and his critical appeal. And you know, he
was not the Neil Young necessarily that we think of now,
Like he was pretty marginalized. And in a way you
could say that he was doing it to himself because
he put out this sort of wacky series of albums,
albums like Everybody's rocking old ways, trans all albums that

(42:47):
on some level I enjoy and I appreciate why he
did it. But this was the era where famously David Geffen,
who owned Neil Young's record label, sued Neil Young for
not making Neil Young sounding music, you know, which is
one of the greatest and most bizarre lawsuits in rock history.
But in a way you could say, like, I understand
David Geffen's point of view to a degree, like I

(43:08):
don't think he should have sued Neil Young, but it
is true that like Neil Young did not seem quite
like himself, and I think that is why he probably
ended up hooking up with CSN again. You know, I
just wonder like, up on some level he felt like, well,
when I joined these guys in nineteen seventy, it really
helped my career, so maybe he can help my career

(43:28):
again here in the late eighties. I mean, do you
think there's any validity to that? That's really interesting. I
mean the story that he kind of puts out there
is that when C S N Y had like a
one off reunion at Live Aid, David Crosby was in
such rough shape and he said, you know it crossed.
If you can get things back together again, I'll join
you again for a new album. And at that point,
you know, Crosby, it looked unlikely that he would live

(43:51):
through the rest of the decade, so it probably thought
it would never actually happen. And then in eight six, uh,
he he does get clean in prison, he gets clean
and gets released. Neo kind of made it seem like, oh, well,
I had to make this new album with the other
guys because I said I would. You know, It's like
it's sort of be true to my word, but you
could tell just by listening to it that his heart

(44:12):
wasn't in it. This is American dream in uh. I
think it was seven. It is a horrendous album. It's
a terrible album, and like what's weird to me is
like I think some of the songs are okay, but
like the sound of it is awful. Like the production
is is really bad, and like Neil Young is to
blame for that, because you know, he insisted on using
his guy at the time, this guy Nico Bullis, who

(44:34):
was like this young producer. And I don't know the
story exactly with David Briggs at that point. If he
wasn't it seemed like there was some sort of separation
going on with Briggs, who really was the guy working
on all the great Neil Young records. Yeah, and and really,
I mean Briggs passed away. I think it was and
I feel like the Youngest music has not been the
same since since Briggs passed away. But you know, I

(44:57):
think they recorded it at his ranch too, like didn't
they so like they all came to him, so it's like, oh, great,
like Neil Young is taking charge of the sound. This
is gonna be a little more raw, it's gonna sound
more real, and it's like this sterile eighties sounding record.
And uh, it's really weird because you alluded to this earlier,
Like Neil Young around this time. He ended up putting

(45:18):
out Freedom that came out in eighty nine, also working
with Nico Bolis, and that ends up being really like
his comeback record, and it's like heralds the beginning of
this great period that he had in the nineties of
like this artistic rebirth. Like the nineties is like one
of my favorite Neil Young decades. I think there's some
really great records that came out at that time, and

(45:39):
Freedom was the beginning of that, and it's like, why
was Freedom so good an American Dreams so bad? It's like,
was he intentionally sabotaging them? Like was this some weird thing?
I mean, I don't think that's true, but I don't understand,
like how those results could be so different America dreamata
fucking pan flute on its steven it was Jesus, how

(46:02):
can you allow that to happen? How do you allow that?
It's like you're bringing zam Fear in here to play
some flute. I mean yeah, I mean, like you said, Freedom, Ragged, Glory,
Harvest Moon, the nineties run is incredible and CSNY pretty
much you know, backburner for him, I mean. And then
at the end of the decade they made the last,

(46:23):
the last album that CSNY ever made together, Looking Forward,
and it was basically a crossby Stilson Nash record that
Neil added three acoustic songs to that you know, weren't
three of his best in my opinion, Slow Polk and
out of Control and the title track, which again interesting,
they go with the Neil song for the title track.
Every project from that he was a part of CSN,
from you know, Human Highway Sessions onward we're all named

(46:45):
after a Neil song, which I always think is really interesting. Well,
and you know, we talked about this before about how
the other guys in the band, like the CSN guys,
were terrified of Neil Young, I think at this point,
and we talked about the power of no, and at
this point it was almost like it was like the
power of the threat of no. You know, they didn't
want to alienate him, They didn't want to do anything
that would scare him away. So like when you read

(47:07):
about the tours that they started doing, you know you
mentioned the tour they did in two thousand. When was
that the c s N Y two K tour, which
is a very cute but yeah, they did like I
think three tours in the odds, and it just sounds
like Neil Young was the boss of those tours, like
he's the one that really would determine the format. Of course,

(47:28):
there was a Living with War tour where he was
like really in control of that. But I remember reading
this story. I can't remember what tour it was from
the odds, but there was some story about like how
they're playing a show in St. Paul and after the show,
Steven stills like wanted to stay behind and take a
shower before leaving the arena, and Neil Young had like
like bolted immediately after the show got into like a

(47:51):
luxury suv. It went to the airport, and like he said,
he let the crew know. It's like everyone has to
leave immediately, like I don't want to hang around. So
like Steven still didn't take a shower. He left, and
he's like, all right, boss, Neil Young. It's just like
it's like it's like I just wonder, like when did
Stephen get to take his shower? Like did you just
have to stink for like hours before he could take

(48:13):
a shower. This also has to do not just like
with sort of Neil young stubbornness or his ability to
sort of back out of things. There was also money.
I mean he was again I think in the nineties,
you know, because of all the great records he was
putting out and also you know, working with like Pearl
jam and being very again smart about positioning himself as

(48:33):
like a really kind of youthful elder statesman. Like he
was again like I think one of the only like
sixties people that really appealed to like the younger generation,
like like gen xers who would maybe like turn up
their nose at Woodstock normally like they love Neil Young.
It just you know, brought him back to being a
huge star. And I remember reading David Brown's book, which

(48:54):
we've talked about in this series quite a bit, which
I recommend everyone reads, called CROSSI stills in Nash and Young.
There's some and they're talking about how the difference between
playing with Neil and CSN doing their own show is
like the difference between like sixty grand a night and
six grand a night, you know, because they're playing they're
playing arenas with Neil and they're playing theaters without him,
so you know, there was also a huge financial imperative

(49:17):
to keep Neil Young happy. The Living with Young tour
always really fascinating me too, because it seemed like they
were knowingly kind of like you know, almost like his
opening act in a way, or like his his sidemen.
I think Crosby were for doom Is a benevolent dictator
on that tour because it was very much like the
Neil Young show from it was almost like he was
weaponizing nostalgia. He got the guys together so that he

(49:39):
could get all these people that loved all their music,
you know, the Laurel Canyon diddies in the late sixties
and the Woodstock era stuff, and then kind of cast
that in stark relief to the you know, George Bush
era post nine eleven world that we were living in.
It was almost like he was trolling their csn Y fans,
was kind of my impression of it. Yeah, in a way,
it's kind of weird. I mean, I think on the

(50:00):
flip side of that, you could see, like if you
watch there's a there's a concert documentary about that tour
called csn Y Deja Vu that Neil Young directed under
the name Bernard Shaky, and how you know, there's a
famous scene like where they're playing the Living with War songs.
I think it's in Atlanta, and the crowd just goes
like nuts in a bad way, Like they're yelling at

(50:20):
the at the band. They're booing uh. And this the
song is called Let's Impete the President. Yeah, they're not
digging that song. And like when you read David Brown's book,
it talks about like how rattled Neil Young was by that,
Like it was really like he I don't think he
was expecting that kind of reaction necessarily that strong of

(50:40):
a negative reaction. And you know, as much as he
was like dogging the other guys in that band over
the years, I think you can see at that time
that in a way he was leaning on those guys
to support him during that I think it's very telling
that he didn't tour that record on his own. I
think in some way he wanted other guys up there

(51:01):
with him that would take the heat with him, you know.
And it says something about the relationship with these guys, like,
you know, we've gone over all the craziness that's going
on with them, but there is this sort of weird
loyalty that existed for a long time where they would
support each other in situations like that. Even Neil Young,
who was very cynical about this band like he I think,

(51:22):
was relying on that on that tour. That's interesting. I
always thought that it was basically he tapped the other
guys because he knew that would appeal to a certain
demographic of a certain age who you know, presumably shared
a similar you know, mindset in the late sixties of
peace love, woodstock, hippie dumb kind of thing and what
kind of rub their noses in maybe what how far

(51:44):
their current beliefs are, you know, in two thousand five,
two thousand six Bush era Iraq War type you know, supporters,
and kind of make them confront who they were with
who they were now. But you're right, I mean, it's
funny to think that he might actually feel as though
he needed somebody to, uh, to bear the run of
all that abuse too well. And that thing you just said,
I'm sure that's true too. As we've said many times

(52:05):
about Neil Young, he's a man of paradoxes. I'm sure
he wanted to provoke that audience and also maybe bask
in the comfort of being with this old bandmates. I
still think it's interesting that it's so it's sort of
fitting that, you know, for all of the fights that
Neil and Stephen had for you know, fifty years, it
was Crosby who ended up detonating the group, seemingly for good.

(52:29):
I would say, yeah, it seems like that, And you know,
we talked about it in our Crosby episode the whole
Darrell Hannah incident. Poisonous predator, A poisonous predator, and it
sounds like, I mean, it sounds like he's like apologized
for that. I think he's done it publicly. It sounds
like he called Neil young at some point and apologize
for it. But you know that piste off Neil, and

(52:50):
it feels like Crosby piste off everybody like with that
and other things over the years, and you know, you
just wonder like at some point if the usefulness of
this brand just kind of like runs out of gas
a little bit, you know, Like you know, we've talked
about how I think for all of these guys, the
CSN and CSNY banner, it would be like a shelter
that they could go to, and you know, it was

(53:11):
a financial shelter, it was like an emotional support shelter.
You know. It was almost like a well to use.
I keep using different metaphors here. I said a shelter.
I'm gonna say, a well now that you could dip
into and replenish yourself and then go back out in
the world. And maybe that just maybe the well ran
dry eventually and this was the sign of that. Yeah. Maybe.

(53:32):
I mean, I I do love the most heartwarming part.
I think this whole story is the sort of rekindled
relationship between Neil and Stephen and Neil, you know, for
all of his his quirks and his mercurial nature, I
think understands Stephen better than anyone. I mean, you know,
I think Noel Gallagher once said of Liam, you know,
I can play him like a slightly disused arcade game.
And I think Neil can play Stephen like a slightly

(53:53):
disused arcade game in ways that benefits himself. But he
also I think genuinely loves him. There's a great quote
that Neil Gabe, I think it was in the Jimmy
McDonald book, where he probably the most insightful, uh statement
I've ever seen about Steven Stills. He said, you know,
he's a real sensitive guy. Sensitive he had to get
himself together, and how he gets himself together as he

(54:14):
tries to take over the world. But I'll tell you
he's just nervous. I could see that. You take away
all the insecurity and all the things that it made
Stephen do, some of the stuff he's done over the years,
and there's a wonderful human being who's right there. I
always see the real Stephen in there, and he's a
really great guy. What strikes me listening to that quote
is how he emphasizes how sensitive Steven Stills is because again,

(54:35):
I think if you look at those guys superficially, you
think Steven Stills is the gruff bully and Neil Young
is like the sensitive eccentric. And not that Neil Young
as a bully, but he is a lot tougher. I
think then, you know, maybe his persona suggests, you know,
like that guy. I think again was along with being

(54:55):
you know, this guy who's always gonna follow his muse
and b Art first, I just think he's such a
genius and how he's maneuvered his career, you know, in
the same way that people like Bob Dylan are you know,
or Springsteen, anyone who's stuck around that long. You really
do have to have the ability to be lots of
different things at once, and I think that's something that
we've seen over and over again with Neil Young. We're

(55:16):
gonna take a quick break and get a word from
our sponsor before we get to more rivals. So this
is the part of the show where we give the
pro side of each part of the rivalry. We'll talk
about the pro Neil Young side first. I mean, look,

(55:37):
do we have to say anything more than Neil Young.
Is Neil Young. I mean, it's Neil Young, for crying
out loud. He's like one of the greats of all time.
And as much as I loved the other guys and
Crossy Skills in Nash, there's no question that Neil Young
towers over them artistically. I mean, he towers over most
people in rock history artistically. And I think what he
brought to this band was, you know, a certain relevance

(56:02):
I think that they did not have after say five.
You know, it's like if if he was involved in
this band in the nineties or two thousands, two thousand
tents as like Spotty, as like their output could be,
You're more likely to pay attention if Neil Young is
on board. It's like the possibility that it could be great.
Even though you're more likely to get like American dream

(56:24):
or looking forward like, you still feel like, oh, it
could be great if Neil Young is involved. That that
is the thing that he that he brings to this band.
And uh, I just go back to to that, that
thing about after the Goal, Russian and Harvest. I'm just
blown away now even to this day, that he was
able to take what this band did and do it
on his own and prove that I can do it

(56:45):
on my own better than you guys can do it,
So we don't really need you. People are just gonna
want me, and I think that's proven to be true
over the last fifty years. Like Neil Young, it's like,
if you think of beautiful songs with harmonies, yeah, you
think of CSN, but you maybe think of Neil Young first,
and you're gonna put on Harvest before you put on
a CSN record, And you know, that's the genius of

(57:07):
Neil Young. It's really crazy to think that his entire
recorded legacy with CSN Y really is just rests on
three songs, Country Girl, Helpless in Ohio. You know, nobody
ever mentions anything in American Dream and Looking Forward, and
if they do, they do it in a you know,
with an ASTERIXK next to it. Um. It's amazing that
sort of like you said, the reputation that he gave
that band just on the strength of those three songs alone,

(57:28):
and you said nineteen seventy five was when he started
giving him relevance. I would almost argue even earlier that
sort of he was what the band needed as sort
of the woodstock age transitioned into the Watergate era. I
think it was, you know, Ohio was I think that
transitional point for them. And there was a great I
think it was Elliot Roberts quote. It said, you know,
he gave the band balls. Neil Young's got balls dripping

(57:49):
down his back, his shoulders, his legs, everywhere. He's got
balls to spare. And I think, you know, rather than
being sort of like a hippie Everly Brothers Birds Fusion
Harmony group, I think, yeah, I did give him that
weightiness that that helped him endure balls dripping down his back.
I'm not sure how I feel about that drippy balls

(58:10):
Neil Young as he's known. So if we go to
the pro CSN side or the anti Neil Young side,
you know, I would say again, I think Neil Young,
you know, and not to his credit, really, I think
he often was like openly disrespectful to the other guys
in CSN, and I feel like that's kind of crappy
on his behalf. Because again, as we've established, I really

(58:33):
feel like early in his career joining this band was
a pivotal moment for him becoming a big star. If
he hadn't have had that platform early on, I wonder
if he would have remained more of a cult hero
of like seventies l A rock than like the big
star that we know and love today. So I think

(58:53):
for that reason, you know, I would hope that he
would have a little more reverence for like what those
guys did, uh for his career and like the kind
of audience I guess that I was able to bring
into their um And I would just say in general too,
you know, I know I had this this bias for
a long time that like I thought Neil Young was
was the greatest, and that the other three guys, the

(59:14):
CSN guys were lame and I didn't care about what
they did and I and for a long time I
didn't even pay attention to their work. And when I
finally dug in, I was really kind of blown away
by like all the great music that Crosby, Stills and
Nash made on their own and made it different permutations, uh,
you know, throughout the years. And I guess I hope
that if you are one of those people that don't

(59:36):
really take the CSN part of CSNY seriously, that you
were inspired by this series to check those guys out,
because yeah, they're not as good as Neil Young, but
I think that they made a lot of great music
on their own, and they deserved to stand on stage
with Neil Young and all those great shows. You can't
say about many people. Yeah, exactly, No, I I echo that.

(59:57):
I think that still sort of in the and the
Lennon McCartney dichotomy that I attend to view the world through,
I think Stills was the McCartney figure, that kind of workaholic,
who taskmaster, who could sort of smooth out Neil's rough
edges and and make things more commercial than ordinarily be.
I think that was kind of in the very very
early days, uh maybe still thought that he could sort

(01:00:19):
of package Neil in the way that he wasn't able
to really do in UM in Buffalo Springfield. Obviously that
didn't work out, but I would like to think that,
like you said, maybe Neil learned a thing or two
by watching Stills up close doing the working on Deja
Voo together, which he then could put into uh into
after the gold Rush and Harvest And also, like you said,

(01:00:42):
Crosby Stills, Nation and Young was a huge platform for him.
And I think that if he wasn't in that group.
He probably would have been like, you know, a Gene
Clark figure or Graham Parsons, like an l a fringe
rock early seventies guy who you know, made strong records,
but you know it would have been like his his
solo debut, which you know, no one really talks about now,
even though I love UM. Yeah, I think that the
the appropriate reverence for his fellow bandmates is probably where

(01:01:06):
my only real fault with him at this point. I
think that he has been disrespectful for him over the years,
either interpersonally and publicly, which again makes me happier that
at least he instills have seemed to patch things up now.
So when we look at all these guys together, I mean, look,
as we've shown, I think in this series, this band
is like so full of drama and intrigue, and you
don't get that without this unique mix of personalities and talents.

(01:01:29):
You know, like CSN was already combustible on its own,
but then you add why to the mix and it
just like just blew everything sky high. And I know,
for me personally, it's been a blast digging into the
history of this band, and I'm just so glad that
we've had the music and the madness. Absolutely. Sometimes at
the end of these episodes, we try to figure out

(01:01:50):
whether these artists should be together or shouldn't be together.
And you know, in this case, I think I'm torn.
As much as I I love the music they made together.
Sometimes I think maybe they should be a part, but
I love the music just too much. Maybe maybe I'm
the Steven Stills in this scenario. I just I can't
quit them. I don't want them to quit each other. Well,
it's been fun getting wasted on the way with you,
Jordan's on this journey, but like I feel that it's

(01:02:12):
probably time for us to talk about a different rivalry
other than what exists in the CS and Y verse.
So next week we're gonna be heading out out of
this place and going to a different rivalry and we
can't wait to do it. So thank you again for
listening to this episode. We'll have more beefs and rivalries
and long swimming resentments next week. Rivals is a production

(01:02:38):
of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Tyitone
and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor Chicoin and
Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel hat Stat, I'm Jordan Run Talk.
I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please
subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts for
my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or ever you listen to your favorite shows