Neil Young Quotes & Sayings

Briggs was living in Toronto at the time and had started a studio called Thunder Sound. He recorded the Massey Hall show. He thought this live show should have come out right away and was disappointed and disagreed with my decision to instead put out Harvest-he thought it was not as good as the Massey Hall recording.
"It's great, Neil," Briggs said. "Put it out there." But that was not to be.
When I heard the show thirty-four years later while reviewing tapes for my archive performance series, I was a little shocked-I agreed with David. After listening, I felt his frustration. This was better than Harvest. It meant more. He was right. I had missed it. He understood it. David was usually right, and when I disagreed with him, I was usually wrong. Every time I go into the studio or onstage, he is missed. — Neil Young

I watched the needle take another man. — Neil Young

I think if you don't have some obsession in your life, you're dead. — Neil Young

Government can't completely take care of people by making a bunch of promises and programs. Organize your communities — Neil Young

This old world keeps spinnin' round; It's a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down. — Neil Young

I want to live, I want to give, I've been a miner for a heart of gold. — Neil Young

I see a government completely out of control, and money is number one. Integrity isn't even on the map. — Neil Young

We shared a piece of Poncho's apple pie, and I told Poncho about PureTone. Like all serious musicians, he is depressed by the quality of sound the people's music id delivered in today. That is the impression I have gotten from every Musician I have met. Everyone. After he heard PureTone, Ben Bourdon, one of Ben Young's caregivers asked me if I was making war on Apple. I said, No. I'm waging heavy peace. — Neil Young

Without freedom of expression, good taste means nothing. — Neil Young

Earth is a flower and it's pollinating. — Neil Young

No matter how many books I write, I will eventually get to fiction. That is where I'm going. — Neil Young

I like to play with people who can play simple and are not threatened by other musicians thinking they can't play. And that eliminates 99 percent of the musicians. — Neil Young

I don't like the current political system in the USA and some other countries. Increasingly, democracy has been hijacked by corporate interests. — Neil Young

Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire.
I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream,
You could have been anyone to me.
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip. — Neil Young

And you can't get away from a mirror if you stand in front of it all the time, right. But if you step away from it, you don't notice it any more. And that's what the stage is like for me. See, an image becomes meaningless in as much as it's always temporary. — Neil Young

The person who builds a character makes foes. — Neil Young

We don't build a record. We're taking a picture of it. We're not building an image; we're capturing an image. — Neil Young

When the album was done I loved it. It was a mixture of electric and acoustic solo performances with dubs. I called it Le Noise, after Dan. It was a French Canadian joke, a very English was of saying Lanois. I was doing a show that introduced a lot of the songs, and things were going great. I was very happy. — Neil Young

Pearl Jam is a band I have a lot of respect for. Nirvana and Sonic Youth I feel the same way about. Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Givers, and Foo Fighters are just some of my favorites. I respect bands that give me something of themselves that I can feel. ("Posing" bands turn me off generally speaking.) It all has to do with a feeling I have about them. That is what music is to me, a feeling. It's similar with people too. — Neil Young

I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying in the yellow haze of the sun. There were children crying and colors flying all around the chosen ones. — Neil Young

It's a robust time, probably the most fertile time for the underground and for revolution since Nixon. I'm not talking about political overthrow; I'm talking about just general cultural revolution. Bush has polarised the country and is creating this breeding ground for an opposition. In the next couple of months, they'll probably make it unpatriotic to be Democrat. It's pretty crazy. — Neil Young

Southern change gonna come at last! Now your crosses are burning fast, Southern Man. — Neil Young

Don't let it bring you down. It's only castles burning, find someone who's turning, and you will come around. — Neil Young

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water. — Neil Young

Most people think it's the other way around: that time is going faster and we're doing less. But really time seems to be going faster because we're cramming so much into it. — Neil Young

You might notice I refer to my son Ben as Ben Young all the time. Larry (Johnson) always called his son Ben Johnson. I liked the pride with which he would say "Ben Johnson." It is a lingering memory of his great spirit. — Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. — Neil Young

My music isn't anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock'n'roll, and it has an urgency to it. — Neil Young

I may not be the devil, but I know just how he feels. — Neil Young

The politics, I don't understand it, I'm not happy, don't feel good about it. — Neil Young

Faith is not reason's labour, but repose. — Neil Young

Starts out slow and then fizzles out altogether. — Neil Young

You were born to rock, you'll never be an opera star. — Neil Young

A young man of pleasure is a man of pains. — Neil Young

There were some things Reagan liked that I liked. The main component was that people have to talk to each other and help themselves. — Neil Young

You're as close to heaven as I'll ever be. — Neil Young

This is the 21st century, we are a highly evolved race, our capabilities are so great compared to what we are doing. We have been lulled into addiction and everything is built around it and you have to break out of it and think outside of the box. — Neil Young

I see country music, I see people who take care of their own. You've got 75 year-old guys on the road. That's what I was put here to do, y'know, so I wanna make sure I surround myself with people who are gonna take care of me. 'Cause I'm in it for the long run. — Neil Young

Most pleasures, like flowers when gathered die. — Neil Young

I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing. — Neil Young

Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach. — Neil Young

Piracy is the new radio. — Neil Young

Live music is better. — Neil Young

Went looking for faith on the forest floor, and it showed up everywhere. In the sun, and the water, and the falling leaves, the falling leaves of time. — Neil Young

Link Wray ... He was the beginning of Grunge, way before anybody you know. — Neil Young

Being sued by your own record company, that's even better than receiving a Grammy — Neil Young

My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio ... — Neil Young

The punches came fast and hard, lying on my back in the school yard. — Neil Young

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it. — Neil Young

Having no knowledge is sometimes exactly what is needed to find a solution, so I qualified. — Neil Young

Think I'll roll another number for the road — Neil Young

Holding back is so close to stealing. — Neil Young

Music lovers always want to hear the best. It's about freedom of choice, we supply the music. — Neil Young

I don't like to be labeled, to be anything. I've made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it's counter-productive. — Neil Young

Love is a rose
But you better not pick it.
It only grows
When it's on the vine.
Handful of thorns
And you'll know you missed it.
You lose your love
When you say the word MINE. — Neil Young

Everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here. I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around. Everybody knows this is nowhere. — Neil Young

When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near. — Neil Young

It is better to burn out then fade away — Neil Young

A lot of people that buy vinyl today don't realise that they're listening to CD masters on vinyl and that's because the record companies have figured out that people want vinyl, And they're only making CD masters in digital, so all the new products that come out on vinyl are actually CDs on vinyl, which is really nothing but a fashion statement. — Neil Young

I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else. — Neil Young

Every wave is new until it breaks. — Neil Young

Welfare mothers make better lovers. — Neil Young

I look at radio as gone ... Piracy is the new radio, that's how music gets around. — Neil Young

I get into each thing I do, to the point where nothing else matters. I guess I'm an extremist. — Neil Young

I've always been better moving than I am standing still. — Neil Young

The music world has taken a huge dump, so maybe there's a connection. So if Apple decided to do this, maybe they do their own version ... whatever they want to do it's a home run for music. Unless they screw it up, and try to put something on it so that they can own it - I'm calling it out, proprietary formats are not a good thing. — Neil Young

Keep on rockin' in the free world. — Neil Young

Love is a healer and I love you. — Neil Young

Freedom is an abstract offshoot. You can't describe freedom. How can you describe it? I tried and I failed. — Neil Young

Crazy friends provide for crazy times, and such crazy times we're had. — Neil Young

All these people talking about morality should just take a walk downtown. They don't want to go downtown because instantly they see homeless people and they don't want to. — Neil Young

I don't think I'm a thorn in the industry, I'm just another part of it. — Neil Young

It doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to you. — Neil Young

The devil fools with the best laid plans. — Neil Young

On one side the government, the other side the mob. — Neil Young

I don't have to perform to stay in the public eye anymore. I really don't. I am who I am and what I do on musical stage these days really makes no difference at all. I already have all the momentum there. I am only doing it because I love to do it. — Neil Young

You're all just pissing in the wind. You don't know it, but you are. — Neil Young

Keep it moving. Don't hoard. Money's no good, get rid of it. Turn it into people doing things. Turn it into jobs. Turn it into happiness ... The more people I employ, the happier I am - that means my money's goin' into other people's lives, and if I can give 'em something to create that they can be happy with, that's great. — Neil Young

Listen to your own voice. Don't listen to someone else's. To me the way to live is to always move forward - to keep searching for whatever it is that interests you. — Neil Young

There is some blogging jerk out there who feels he can generalize his way to validity. — Neil Young

The interstate seems to stretch for miles in a straight line as the fields and farms give way to a more barren landscape. Loneliness has been good to me' is playing on my personal radio where I hear songs before I write them, and I wonder if this is just another mirage I will forget or if this will become a real song. It has been a long time since I've written a song, and the visits from the muse seem to be lessened by something. I still keep my faith that the muse knows best and whn I am ready the inspiration will be there. I am trying not to look too ready. I know that just invites false promise. — Neil Young

Lyndon Johnson bared his scars, American ... stars 'n bars. — Neil Young

In the fields of opportunity it's plowing time again. — Neil Young

I used to walk like a giant on the land. Now I feel like a leaf floating in a stream — Neil Young

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more. — Neil Young

Down by the river, I shot my baby dead. — Neil Young

The way in which the USA and Great Britain delivered Iraq to the Iraqis, the way and means that this played out, that is the endgame. — Neil Young

And there ain't nothin' like a friend who can tell you you're just pissin' in the wind.
Neil Young, "Ambulance Blues" from "On the Beach" (1974) — Neil Young

Faith builds the bridge from this old world to the new. — Neil Young

If I could go back in time and see any band, It would be Link Wray and the Raymen. — Neil Young

Imagination is my best friend. — Neil Young

Some get stoned, some get strange, but sooner or later it all gets real. — Neil Young

Possessions and concessions are not often what they seem, they drag you down and load you down in disguise of security. — Neil Young

A job is never truly finished. It just reaches a stage where it can be left on its own for a while. — Neil Young

The '60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together. — Neil Young

I always try to get behind the guy steering the ship. That's the kind of guy I am. — Neil Young

I don't like the American media - particularly Fox. — Neil Young

When I first tried out some hash, smoked some then. And I'll do it again, if only I had some cash. — Neil Young

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow. — Neil Young

A little love and affection in everything you do will make the world a better place with or without you. — Neil Young