It wasn’t back in Blind River in 1962, or in a town in North Ontario. It was back in a little town called Pudasjärvi, in the North of Finland, in 1989. I was at high school and our English lesson was about to start. Our English teacher was going to play a song which would catch my mind and change my musical life forever.
It was very late in 1989, probably December 1989. Our teacher said, “I’ll play for you a new Neil Young song from his new album called Freedom. This song is Rockin’ in the Free World. First, I will play the acoustic version and then I will play the electric version at the end of our lesson. I have written the lyrics on a transparency sheet, and I will show them to you with an overhead projector.”
The teacher pushed the play button and the c-cassette started to roll. The first chords of the song filled our classroom. My heart was pumping differently than ever before. The singer started to sing. I was thinking, “What a voice…? A little bit strange, but a strangely good voice… This song is great…” I read the lyrics from the screen. Interesting lyrics. My pulse went up. “That guy slams quite hard his acoustic guitar”, I thought. Then the harmonica solo started a little bit before the end of the song… Whoa!
Our English lesson continued, and I eagerly waited to hear the electric version. Finally, it was the time for that. The teacher pressed the play button again and a strong musical thunderstorm filled the air. I was impressed by that sound, that power, that intensity, those lyrics, all of it. My mind was getting blown away, my heart was beating… And then came the guitar solo. It was something I had never heard before. Those guitar notes rang in my heart and in my soul.
”Who is this Niel Jung?” I asked my friends. They knew much more about music history and the artists and bands than me. They answered, “He has done some good records in 1970s, but then he released many weird and bad albums.” “That Rockin’ in the Free World was a great song!” I almost shouted enthusiastically because of the music I just had heard. “Yeah, it was quite good”, my friends said with a little less enthusiasm in their voices.
That was the first time I heard Neil Young. I forgot Neil Young for a while and continued to listen to The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dr. Feelgood, The Doors and some 80s rock bands.
About a year later, maybe in early 1991, I was with my friends at our English teacher’s home. She was the same teacher who had played RITFW in that English lesson for us. She was an “old hippie”, and she sometimes invited the students to her home for a visit. She was a big fan of Miles Davis, and she played some Miles Davis for us. Kind of Blue, I guess. Then she took some black album from her vinyl shelf and said, “This is Neil Young’s new album called Ragged Glory.” I got excited. She placed the vinyl on the turntable and put the needle carefully on the spinning vinyl. Country Home’s intro started. Something spiritual happened inside of me. It was like a big wave that went through me and it felt great. More than great. Then the band started to play. That sound! That sound was unbelievable, amazing. It was music far from the universe, but at the same time it resonated warmly right here, in my soul. We listened to the Ragged Glory album, and it changed my mind, my whole musical world. We listened to more Neil Young albums: Harvest, Tonight’s the Night, Rust Never Sleeps, Comes A Time… They all were great, but Ragged Glory’s sound… that sound was something special, and that sound did some kind of treatment throughout my musical soul and heart.
The next day, I went to our town’s little store. There was a tiny little music section, some vinyl records and CDs. I was looking for Ragged Glory. There weren’t any Neil Young albums. Damn. Then I noticed a little box. There was some vinyl on sale. And then I saw it! My heart pumped almost out of my chest. There was the Ragged Glory album, and the prize was only 30 Finnish marks (about 5 euros nowadays.) I took and paid for my precious treasure and went home. I put the vinyl on my turntable and started to listen. I loved the Country Home intro!! The sound! Those songs! Those guitar solos… with Crazy Horse playing those great songs! I became a fan of Neil Young and also Crazy Horse. I was a crazy and wild Neil Young enthusiast for years. I played nothing but Neil Young’s music… at home, in the car, in the Walkman, everywhere. Sorry my friends, I was a lunatic in those days.
I must tell one more thing… I was in a little car accident in November 1991. Nothing serious, just the cars took the hits. My car, actually my father’s car, got damaged so badly that the car had to be replaced with a new car. The insurance compensated everything, so luckily there weren’t any financial losses. Before my father got that new car, we had a temporary car. Not LincVolt, not a Cadillac, not even a Datsun. It was a Lada, model year 1978 or 1979. (I don’t remember exactly which.) My dad wasn’t so keen on that car. So, I and my lovely Russian lady spent a lot of time together, about a month before my father got the new car. In that Lada was a cassette player, and I had a copy of Time Fades Away (on A-side) and Tonight’s the Night (on B-side) on a c-cassette. I had listened to that cassette all autumn and I loved both sides. One day I was planning to go to the center of our town. It was wintertime and the car windows were all ice. I got them cleaned, but the glass got steamed up and I was able to see nothing. So, I decided to keep the car running and get the heat up. I opened the cassette player and just by chance Don’t Be Denied’s guitar intro started. In that moment, my eyes opened, my heart opened. I felt that intro clearly in my whole body. It was such a pure and real feeling, and I realized in that moment, I’ve got it! This is what Neil Young’s music is all about!
To Niel Jung, later known as Neil Young… Big thanks to you for your music and big thanks for your great bandmates on the albums through the decades! You have made my life more fun to live.
