Introducing: Weekly Neil

A new musing on a different Neil Young song every week

Hi! Thanks for subscribing to Medium Rotation. Right now, the newsletter is on hiatus, but I’m starting up another project in the meantime. It’s called Weekly Neil and it’s all about the songs of Neil Young. Each week, I’ll write a musing on a different Neil tune. Anything he’s ever released is fair game. A few questions you might have up front, answered:

Why Neil Young? Apart from maybe Paul McCartney, I’ve been listening to no one longer throughout my life. As such, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing my own Neil fandom evolve—the Greatest Hits CD on a road trip to visit colleges in New York’s hilly Southern Tier became On The Beach on the subway on the way to an internship became Barn via Neil Young Archives as I cook dinner for my family, and so on. And my understanding of a song like “Old Man” has shifted, revealing nuance as gleaned only through age and lived experience. (“Twenty-four and there’s so much more” was once aspirational, then contemporary, now frozen in the amber of my young adulthood.)

Why now? A great man once sang, “Son, don't wait till the break of day, ‘cause you know how time fades away.” I had this idea before David Crosby died, but his passing really made me remember how all these great musical icons that mean a lot to me may be living their final decades. Not trying to be overly morbid, and certainly these folks are all worth celebrating because they’ve made years and years of great music, not because they’re barreling down on death. But I also can’t stomach the idea of only writing meaningfully about Neil’s work after he’s gone. So, we’re starting the celebration now.

What are these “musings” anyway? Whatever I want, man.

Do you take suggestions and recommendations? Let ‘em rip.

When do we begin? Expect the first newsletter this Thursday, and look out for a new one every Thursday after that.

Thanks for reading. See you on Thursday.