At the end of the seventies, Neil Young had just left a dark phase in his life and with “Rust Never Sleeps” delivered one of his best albums ever. We answer the most important questions.
When was Rust Never Sleeps released?
Released June 22, 1979 on Reprise Records. In Germany on July 2, 1979.
How was Rust Never Sleeps received?
Most of the songs were recorded live and then edited in the studio. The first half was recorded on acoustic instruments, with the first three tracks being based on post-edited concert recordings from Young’s May 1978 solo tour. Two tracks are studio recordings: “Sail Away” (dated around the time of “Comes A Time”) and “Pocahontas” (solo recording from 1975)
The second half was recorded during the “Rust Never Sleeps Tour” with Crazy Horse, which took Young across the United States in the fall of 1978. There were also some audible overdubs – such as “Hey Hey, My My”.
What is the meaning of the album title “Rust Never Sleeps”?
Neil Young quotes a Rust Oleum advertising slogan with the title of the LP. It was based on a suggestion by Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. In 1977, Young asked Devo to be in his film Human Highway, partly because he felt he had missed the connection to a new generation of music.
Young thus reflects on his own career, which in the face of new music genres (punk) already seemed to be in question. He asks himself: Do I want to continue like this and figuratively rust with my own music, or should I break new ground? The mixture of acoustic folk songs and rabid pieces with electric guitar reflects this process and at the same time solidifies Young’s conscious play with the two fundamentally different poles of rock music.
Why “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” at the beginning and “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” at the end?
The record is introduced by the acoustic variant of a song, which finally concludes the album in the version with electric guitars. Neil Young followed this principle several times in his career, for example on “Tonight’s The Night” (1975) and on “Freedom” (“Rockin’ The Free World”, 1989).
Both tracks have similar lyrics but differ in details.
“My My, Hey Hey” – Lyrics
My, my
hey hey
rock and roll
Is here to stay
It’s better to burn out
Than to fade away
My, my
hey hey
Out of the blue
Into the black
They give you this
But you pay for that
Once you’re gone
You can never come back
When you’re
Out of the blue
Into the black
The King is gone
But he’s not forgotten
This is the story of Johnny Rotten
It’s better to burn out than it is to rust
The King is gone but he’s not forgotten
hey hey
My, my
rock and roll
Can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye
hey hey
My, my
“Hey Hey My My” – Lyrics
hey hey my, my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture than meets the eye
Hey, hey, my, my
Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this and they give you that
Once you’re gone you can’t come back
When you’re out of the blue and into the black
The king is gone but he’s not forgotten
Is this the tale of Johnny Rotten?
It’s better to burn out than to fade away
The king is gone but he’s not forgotten
Hey, hey, my, my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture than meets the eye
Hey, hey, my, my
“My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” is also featured in Dennis Hopper’s film Out of the Blue (1980).
How about the line “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”?
According to legend, Neil Young borrowed the words “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” from Jeff Blackburn, with whom he played in the band The Ducks in 1977. Kurt Cobain mentioned the line, which is also heard in Young’s film Human Highway, in his suicide note before he took his own life. Since then it has also been used as a morbid dictum. Neil Young was thus elevated to the godfather of grunge, perhaps unintentionally at first. For his part, he responded with the outstanding album Sleeps With Angels (1994), which he dedicated to the late Nirvana singer.
Is it true that John Lennon hated the line?
In an interview with Playboy, the ex-Beatle commented on Neil Young’s rock ‘n’ roll swan song – and got himself into a real frenzy:
“I hate it. It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don’t appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It’s the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison—it’s garbage to me. I worship the people who survive—Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They’re saying John Wayne conquered cancer—he whipped it like a man. You know, I’m sorry that he died and all that—I’m sorry for his family—but he didn’t whip cancer. It whipped him. I don’t want Sean worshiping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it’s garbage you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn’t he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I’ll take the living and the healthy.”
How did Rust Never Sleeps become a movie?
Even before the album was released, Neil Young decided to develop a concert film that would immortalize the live concept with acoustic songs and faster, harder electro-guitar parts. The film was made as a recording of a concert on October 22, 1978 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Directed by Young himself, albeit under the now legendary pseudonym Bernard Shakey. The songs for the LP “Rust Never Sleeps” were eventually recorded during the tour, except for “Hey Hey, My My” curiously enough not on that October 22nd during the filming.
ROLLING STONE editor Arne Willander wrote of the film:
Neil Young’s finest hour begins with hooded men lugging oversized speakers and equipment onto the stage. Then Young appears, all in white, and strums such irresistible songs as “Comes A Time”, “Sugar Mountain” and “Thrasher” before bringing Crazy Horse onto the stage. Now unleashed the pieces that still form the core of Young’s work today: “The Needle And The Damage Done”, “Powderfinger”, “Cortez The Killer”, “Like A Hurricane”, “Hey Hey, My My”.
The point here is that rock music, with the megalomania of stadium tours and drug madness, has long since become an entertainment industry. Young says goodbye to Elvis Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll, takes hippieism ad absurdum and links his feedback orgies to Johnny Rotten. The surrealistic hooded figures who walk around as sandmen in the first “Star Wars” film transcend the spectacle.
Killer scene: Neil Young rides moonbeams on “Like A Hurricane”. A stone who doesn’t have to cry.
How about Rust Never Sleeps and Lynyrd Skynyrd?
Neil Young originally wrote the two songs “Sedan Delivery” and “Powderfinger” for Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Is ‘Powderfinger’ Really Neil Young’s Best Song?
According to the US edition of ROLLING STONE, “Powderfinger” is the highlight of Neil Young’s career. It was ranked number one in the list of the Canadian’s 100 best songs. The verdict: “Neil Young’s greatest song contains everything that makes this musician so great: overwhelmingly anthemic crazy horse guitars and the youthful emotional intensity of his bittersweet acoustic ballads. Themes that have recurred in his songs over the decades (the myth of the West, the lonely struggle of the individual, mortality, freedom, violence and community life) are combined in a music that is at once poignant and devastating. “
What were the reviews for Rust Never Sleeps?
Even when it was released, there were extremely good reviews for the record. It was voted Album of the Year by ROLLING STONE in 1979 and number two on Village Voice. “Rust Never Sleeps” is ranked #351 on ROLLING STONE’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.