When as a student in the 80’s you did not have the travel money, hitch-hiking was the way to go and see the world on your own. There were countries that were perfect to travel that way: Germany, Great Britain, and the Low Countries. Some countries were gruesome when hitch-hiking. Many trips to southern France ended just on her eastern borders. Northern Italy, which is the European truckload counterpart to the Bermuda Triangle, was another one of these dead end regions, where no lorry ever stopped. Rural North America was okay, too, but big cities were to be avoided. It could be days until you hitched a ride.
I am not much of a singer, not even in the shower, with one exception: when on the road and nobody was near me to hear my voice, I would sing Dylan songs, German folk songs, and Neil Young songs, of course. My favourite song is the one that consoled me when I felt ignored by all the supposedly wealthy people in big cars passing me by — “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.” I could relate to the metaphorical “dead man lying by the side of the road” and was hoping for brakes with “red lights flashing in the window in the rain.” And true enough, more than once my singing of this song was cut short by red brake lights flashing a couple of steps behind me.
In 2001, I heard this song live for the first time, and it re-appeared in the series of concerts that I attended over the years since then. One occasion that stands out, however, is the performance in 2009. Having managed to get to the Olympiahalle München very early, I made it to the rail, dead center in front of that mike stand with the many picks. I was less than twelve feet away from the stage and not far from that big Magnatone cabinet speaker.
Halfway through the concert when “don’t let it bring you down” came around, I felt safe to sing along, reckoning that my voice would not be heard by anyone anyway. So, I stood there singing. In recent years, Neil has taken to the use of a display for the lyrics, and especially with some older songs it seems to ensure that the performance of verses and lines is kept in proper sequence. I don’t know who or what Neil and the band actually do see of the audience during a concert. But when we sang this song, Neil and I did see eye-to-eye for a few moments. At “blind man running through the light of the night,” he somewhat lost track of the next line, but instead of falling back on the display’s projection, he read my lips, complementing that line “with an answer in his hand.”
So, there you have it, my fan’s projection, and a road story. Even in a crowd of thousands, our hearts need relating. I pick up hitchhikers whenever I can. Today they are mostly young students from Eastern Europe, and sometimes I am envious, longing for the adventurous days that used to be, when I was standing by the side of the road, singing that song.