Neil Young's "Borrowed Tune"

I don't always post my Metro Pulse reviews, mainly because I tend to be displeased with them after they're published. Liek I've left something out or didn't follow a thought far enough. I think it's the restrictive word count, compared to the long leash I'm given at Tiny Mix Tapes. And as my own editor, I was pretty much off the chain at Knoxville Voice. What can I say, I'm a windbag.

Anyway, this is something I actually liked, and I was glad to be asked to participate in MP's Neil Young appreciation.

Neil Young's "Borrowed Tune"

The discussion of “authenticity” in music is a losing game, but Neil Young’s album Tonight’s the Night certainly sounds like a genuine expression of guilt, regret, anger, and misery, punctuated by the occasional good time. The death- and drug-obsessed sessions led to a batch of unlikely beautiful songs, and “Borrowed Tune” stands out as a teachable moment in the vagaries of the Neil Young aesthetic. It’s Neil alone with harmonica and piano, his voice tired and shaky after too many sleepless nights and pharmaceuticals. The lyrics sound made up on the spot, the piano playing is rudimentary and the harmonica grates. When he cops to taking the tune he’s playing from the Rolling Stones (it’s “Lady Jane”) because he’s too wasted to write his own, he pulls off the not easy task of being both as self-reflexively meta and uncomfortably confessional as can be. It’s a stark song, existential to the bone: “I hope that it matters/I’m having my doubts” goes the refrain. As “woe is me” songs go, it’s too genuinely pitiful to identify with or sing along with, yet it still registers as brilliant pop music. He apparently doesn’t perform this song live much, and who can blame him?