Weekly Neil: Chevrolet
Man, that car was talking to me
“With all the shit happening, thinking about COVID, thinking about war, thinking about all the shit that’s happening in the world today, and then there’s one song about this guy: ‘almost bought an old Chevrolet.’ He’s talking about what it looks like, gleaming pink, the steering wheel’s ivory, so great. Rolling the window down, doing all this shit in the car. He keeps talking about the car. He just keeps on going about the fucking car, really, for a long time. The only thing about it is he can’t wait to go for a drive, but how’s it gonna feel burning all that fuel again?”
That’s Neil speaking at the beginning of the “Chevrolet” music video, captured in late 2022 with Crazy Horse. After he goes on a little bit longer, the band settles in. Neil strums a few chords acoustically, then it’s time for that trusty Les Paul he calls Old Black to wail. For 17 minutes, Neil and his trio paint a scene. There’s no story. Just a guy taking a ride — or thinking about a ride — that, all things considered, doesn’t matter. But it’s also the most important thing he could do.
How boring, right? A song about a car where the car means freedom that also features tasty guitar licks and a decent bit of shredding is not exactly breaking new ground. But man, that shit enthralls me. I love hearing Neil’s guitar so much; it’s a balm. I wish “Chevrolet” was 17 minutes longer. Every new verse about being “lost on the winding highway” and “wandering with that ancient nomad on the dusty lanes” completely consumes me like a narcotic.
Who among us doesn’t want to get the fuck out of here?
“Chevrolet” is pure escapism. The only real tension lives in, as Neil alludes to, the guy’s question to himself: “How will it comfort me burning all that fuel again?” It could’ve easily been declarative — how it will comfort me — but he poses it like a query. Later, he alludes to what he’s cruising away from without any specifics: “Now I need to just forget our bad turns.” Same, brother man.
The first house I grew up in South Buffalo burned down around the turn of the century. My uncle’s family, who lived there then and still do, escaped unharmed and rebuilt it. I’ve visited it a few times, and there’s enough of a framework that I recognize from when I first developed memories. But it’s also a completely different house.
The first church my family attended after moving to Rochester — the parish of the grade school I attended and where my mom taught sixth grade — burned down sometime last decade. No one was harmed, and they rebuilt it. I’ve only seen the outside, which looks completely alien compared to what it was. It’s a completely different church.
The junior high I attended shuttered a few years ago. My high school, meanwhile, absorbed all the other local Catholic schools and became a mechanism too large for me to even comprehend. I’ll never again set foot in the house I lived in during all this. My parents sold it in 2017 and moved away.
None of this matters much to me anymore on an emotional level. In fact, all of it is simply a healthy reminder that the past is gone forever and that nostalgia is ultimately a hollow, if addictive, enterprise. I’m nearly 33 years old with a family and my own life and who cares, etc. But I’ve been thinking about this trail of destruction behind me ever since last Tuesday, when my eight-year run at a job that was quite often enjoyable came to an end. They killed the entire place on a corporate whim, because why wouldn’t they?
It wasn’t my first thought, or even my 70th thought. But at one point, I wanted nothing more than to get in the car and just drive. The pain and the misery and the uncomfortable uncertainty would melt away in the rearview as the horizon became my only companion. My decade-old Subaru would cut a neon path in the icy groves of linear time, and nothing would matter anymore.
He just keeps on going about the fucking car, really, for a long time.
Neil’s track record with songs about cars is exceptional. There’s simply too much to get into here, and perhaps I’ll devote a future newsletter to it, but just off the top of my head: “Long May You Run,” “Sedan Delivery,” the Trans album cover, Chrome Dreams and its sequel, “Hitchhiker,” “I Want To Drive My Car,” the LincVolt he bought and converted into an electric ride, and more. The guy likes to be in motion and to dream of being in motion.
Like Neil’s best Crazy Horse songs, “Chevrolet” is based around two or three chords that could seemingly go on forever. An endless highway. No looking back, only forward. Eternal freedom. There’s a book pitch in me about the connection between repetitive music and running, a forward-momentum activity that shares much of its DNA with driving.
But that’s off in the distance. Maybe I’ll get there. Right now, it’s all about what I’m passing to my left and right. “What a curve!” Neil sings. “What a way to go! We took it fast before we took it slow. Oh, and it feels so good, rolling the window down, ivory wheel in my hands again.”
He almost bought an old Chevrolet. The whole song is a test drive. We can assume he drove it right back to the lot after he lived out his escapist fantasies. But for 17 minutes, man, there ain’t no lot or transaction or worry or fear. How’s it gonna feel? You already know there’s no feeling like it.
“Chevrolet,” written by Neil Young, from World Record (2022)
Neil Young: guitar, upright piano, vocals
Nils Lofgren: guitar, vocals
Billy Talbot: bass, vocals
Frank Molina: drums, vocals
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