I’m lying on the porch playing tag with a loose pool of vomit (results of an o.d. on Gordon’s Gin), and blankly staring at the brick wall that is the scenery in front of me, just waitin’ for the bats to come outta the holes in the wall. They don’t, so I flip myself over like a demented sea lion in heat and stare through the living room window. On the wall above the fireplace where everybody used to store their assorted drugs is this gigantic picture of Neil Young. Now, the pose he had when the shutter clicked was as classical as Mona Lisa’s smile: hand on head, leg on leg, surrounded by a myriad of guitars. Yet it was his face that grabbed my attention that day years ago; on it was inscribed the truthful look of sheer and utter boredom. That picture of Neil Young was burned into my mind and has been responsible for most of my attitudes concerning the viability of living bored. Neil’s the personification of ennui and stylistic slobbishness. It’s all reflected in his music, too, at least in the more recent material like Zuma and this current release, American Stars ’N’ Bars.
This scaramouche of the late Sixties has managed through some magical process to shuck off the lividity of his compatriots (the CSN of the former CSNY) and flow into the stultification of the Seventies. Unlike CSN whose insistence on some mythical beau ideal is irksome, Young wallows in the aphotic nature of the times. Neil Young is an example of real punkhood in action. Why? Simple. It’s because he never has to explain himself; he just exists.
American Stars ’N’ Bars is a simoom caressing the sticky humidity of urban consciousness. As usual, there are cuts that are stronger than others--“Hold Back The Tears” is as good as anything Eddy Arnold’s ever attempted, and “Will To Love,” in spite of some awkward production, is not the sentimental megillah that the Eagles’ “Victim Of Love,” by its own definition, has to be.
The most effective tune on the album is “Like A Hurricane,” which stands as a pop tune that’d do justice to the likes of Eric Carmen or Nils Lofgren. Unfortunately, Neil doesn’t get to another version of “Sugar Mountain,” which was cause for much discussion during the time of the “Sugar Mountain Syndrome,” when he kept releasing singles with “Sugar Mountain” as the flip.
American Stars ’N’ Bars is fresh and not the memento mori of a time so many are still trying so desperately to hang onto. Besides, Neil Young has the best hair in music and he eats crackers better than the Keebler parrot.
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