It was probably about 1970. My dear friend Fred and I were staying with our friend Forrest in an old
mobile home his parents had in some neglected resort development that was rapidly falling into a state of decay.
The early morning sunlight was streaming through the windows of the room where I was sleeping. But that's not what woke me up. What woke me was very
beautiful music. The music was a string quartet at first and then a man singing. I lay in bed for awhile listening to the music. Golden particles of dust floated in the sun rays that gave me a warm feeling as I lay there listening to the melancholy music.
On another day I was at the Hydraulic Lift, a
head shop on the Cumberland Avenue strip near the
University of Tennessee in
Knoxville. I was killing some time after classes. They sold records at the Lift and I was browsing through the records. Music was playing and a floral scent of incense filled the store. I didn't recognize the music but it was some of the finest and most haunting music I had ever heard. I breathed the scent of incense and became lost in the music.
In both cases the music I was listening to was
Neil Young. In the first case it was the first album and then at the Lift it was the second album. I was hooked. When I was in the record store I bought a copy of
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere as soon as I found out who it was. Soon after I bought the first album. After that I bought every album that Neil Young released.
Now, forty years later, Neil Young is still one of my favorite artists and I listen to his music frequently. He can rock hard, but my favorite songs are the dreamy sounding ones. Neil can write some great songs to dream by.
Today's song choice--"After the Goldrush"--is about a dream.