Weekly Neil: Fuckin' Up

It's how you look and how you feel

Let’s get into it then. Neil in the ‘90s. Real Godfather of Grunge hours.

We’ve already covered “I’m The Ocean,” but that’s really the part two of this story. Here’s part one. Ragged Glory. Crazy Horse plugged in and turned up to 11 (maybe 111).

At this point, Neil is only 44 years old. A young man. He’d survived the pastel ‘60s and the road-weary ‘70s and the eldritch ‘80s and had kids and a few wives and saved some farms. But he’s a restless spirit. He had more to play, and who better to play it with than Crazy Horse?

He’s still like this, by the way. Last week, Neil announced a new live album with the Horse called FU##IN’ UP — not to be confused with “F*!#in' Up,” the way he styled it when he released the song in 1990 — and the accompanying statement is pure id. But id in a sieve, cool and breezy as the wind:

In the spirit it’s offered… made this for the Horse lovers. I can’t stop it. The horse is runnin’. What a ride we have. I don’t want to mess with the vibe. I am so happy to have this to share.

Fuck yeah, man.

On “Fuckin’ Up,” all the way back in ‘90, he’s also riding. Hard. He’s in his runnin’ horse era. The first one, or maybe the second or third. Out of the ditch and gunning down the road. “Fuckin’ Up” feels like a motor starting up and exploding out of the garage. “A mindless drifter on the road / Carry such an easy load,” he sings. But then, why does he keep fuckin’ up?

I think this contemporary obsession with “eras” and categorizing our emotions and states of being stems from not being able to experience life in any other way than a continuous line. A road rushing onward. It’s much easier for our brains to chop up the frightening totality of forward momentum into digestible pieces. We can more easily process different periods of time, especially if they’re distinct enough from each other.

It’s also just exciting to declare “I’m in my (blank) era” and have it be true. You’ve exerted some control over the unknowable and the wild. Right now, I’m in my philosopher era dropping shit like this. (Not really, but I am in my On The Beach is the best album I’ve ever heard era.) But for months when I wasn’t regularly writing these newsletters, I was in the wilderness. I couldn’t hold a coherent thought much less translate it into words.

Being unburdened now is a luxury. Hence listening to Neil, in his approaching-middle age era, yell, “Why do I keep fucking up?” and feeling extreme recognition and enjoyment — I made it out of the woods after fucking up a lot. It’s cathartic to relive that now that I’m back in civilization and still occasionally fucking up.

I first heard “Fuckin’ Up” as covered by Pearl Jam on their Live On Two Legs album in the late ‘90s. Yield had just come out and Pearl Jam were in their mellow, post-Ticketmaster battle, matured grunge era. But they could still pack a wallop. They translated the crunching drop-D riff of the song into a tidal wave, slowing it down slightly, making it sludgy. The rasp in Eddie Vedder’s voice turns to pure gravel when he asks the title question, fury Neil’s couldn’t ever evoke. But Neil’s rage comes from his guitar. Everyone knows that. Always has and always will.

Neil debuted “Fuckin’ Up” in 1990 and Pearl Jam covered it on that live album in 1998. Between, of course, they collaborated for a whole album. I like to think PJ took a part of Neil away with them, learning to make more noise.

The final minute of “Fuckin’ Up” on Ragged Glory is just a flatlining distorted D note. Hearing it now reminds of seeing Neil and the Horse in 2012 render their own performance of “Walk Like A Giant” into a vat of muck over 20-plus minutes. Life-affirming stuff. You can just do shit like that, plug in and make big booms and let it ring out for eternity. What a life. There’s no fucking up when playing guitar. Even bum notes make noise. And noise is valuable. Lou Reed knew it and Nod know it and Sonic Youth knew it and you get the idea.

Last week, I bought tickets to see Neil and the Horse live in Connecticut in a few months. You better believe I’ll be writing more on that soon (and after), but in the meantime, I feel completely renewed in my adoration for these dudes. The blank screen gazes back at me as I type this and sees, as Keats said, a look of wild surmise. It’s how you look, Neil sings, and how you feel.

“Fuckin’ Up,” written by Neil Young, from Ragged Glory (1990)

Neil Young: vocals, guitar
Frank Sampedro: guitar, vocals
Billy Talbot: bass, vocals
Ralph Molina: drums, vocals