Buffalo Springfield Week, 2: “On the Way Home”

September 8, 2015 • 7:20 am

“On the Way Home” is from the Buffalo Springfield’s 1968 Album “Last Time Around”, and was written by Neil Young in 1967, when he was but 22. Can you imagine—all of his great songs for the group were written when he was in his early 20s! (He turns 70 this November.)

As happened so often, the song, though written by Young, was performed by Richie Furay, with Neil relegated to keyboard and backing vocals. This is the recorded version:

The lyrics seem to refer to a lad’s Wanderlust, but toward the end wander into strange territory. What is the “change”?. And what does it mean “the other side is just the same”? Young’s songs, even simple ones like this, always have something enigmatic and opaque about them. But that doesn’t mean the words are irrelevant, for the song just wouldn’t be the same with other lyrics. “A smoke ring day when the wind blows” is a wonderful simile.

When the dream came
I held my breath
With my eyes closed
I went insane,
Like a smoke ring day
When the wind blows
Now I won’t be back
Till later on
If I do come back at all
But you know me,
And I miss you now.
In a strange game
I saw myself as you knew me
When the change came,
And you had a
Chance to see through me
Though the other side
Is just the same
You can tell
my dream is real;
Because I love you,
Can you see me now?
Though we rush ahead
To save our time
We are only what we feel;
And I love you,
Can you feel it now?

Below is an excellent solo version performed by Young at his famous Massey Hall Concert in 1971. There’s lagniappe as well: a rendition of “Tell Me Why,” the first song on Young’s 1970 solo album “After the Gold Rush”.  I was so enamored of this song that taught myself to play the whole thing on the guitar, including the intro. My guitar, a beautiful Martin, has for years gathered dust on my closet shelf (well, it’s actually in a case) . I wonder if I could still pick it up and play this.

I want to add one more story. Two years ago Terry Gross of National Public Radio interviewed Graham Nash, who of course played with Young in CSN&Y; you can hear the full interview here. Nash calls Young “the strangest of his friends,” and recounts this anecdote about Young and his 1972 album “Harvest“:

The man is totally committed to the muse of music. And he’ll do anything for good music. And sometimes it’s very strange. I was at Neil’s ranch one day just south of San Francisco, and he has a beautiful lake with red-wing blackbirds. And he asked me if I wanted to hear his new album,“Harvest.” And I said sure, let’s go into the studio and listen.

Oh, no. That’s not what Neil had in mind. He said get into the rowboat.

I said get into the rowboat? He said, yeah, we’re going to go out into the middle of the lake. Now, I think he’s got a little cassette player with him or a little, you know, early digital format player. So I’m thinking I’m going to wear headphones and listen in the relative peace in the middle of Neil’s lake.

Oh, no. He has his entire house as the left speaker and his entire barn as the right speaker. And I heard “Harvest” coming out of these two incredibly large loud speakers louder than hell. It was unbelievable. Elliot Mazer, who produced Neil, produced “Harvest,” came down to the shore of the lake and he shouted out to Neil: How was that, Neil?

And I swear to god, Neil Young shouted back: More barn!

sample-wars-neil-young
MORE BARN!

65 thoughts on “Buffalo Springfield Week, 2: “On the Way Home””

    1. I wasn’t aware of that, but if he really is anti-GMO, then I take issue with that. But that has no effect on the quality of his music. or his other stands that I agree with.

      3. I don’t know what NY’s views are on this, but you don’t have to be anti-GMO to be anti-Monsanto.

          1. The policies of Big Agriculture in general, and Monsanto in particular, have had pernicious effects on family farms and on the families who farm them — as well as on American cropland, and the resulting crops, overall. I can certainly understand why people would be anti-Monsanto on this basis alone.

            To the extent these policies involve GMO crops, the reaction against them might be deemed “anti-GMO,” but anti-GMO on a basis that has nothing to do with the supposed deleterious effects of dietary GMO.

          2. Which policies are those?

            I can (sort of) understand opposition to “big agra”, if by that one means industrialized meat production and such. One can object there based on environmental and ethical grounds. But why does Monsanto get singled out? I see very few objections to it that aren’t all snarled up with panic about how we’re all being poisoned and cheering other countries for purportedly banning GMO crops.

          3. Monoculture crops and other forms of Industrialized agriculture, which deplete the soil, produce inferior crops and crop yield, and require ever more quantities of toxic fertilizers that despoil the environment.

            Also, patenting its engineered seeds so that framers have to purchase new supplies every year, while suing any farmers who dare grow new crops from the seeds produced by last year’s crops.

            There are other issues, see here for example, though I’m by no means an expert, and this isn’t one of my pet causes that I follow closely and/or contribute to regularly.

          5. Monoculture cropping is not new and is not specific in any way with Monsanto. Likewise, seed patenting is also not new and is in no way specific to Monsanto.

            Farmers routinely purchase seed every year instead of replanting their own “saved” seed. It is far more efficient. And hybrid crops don’t produce seeds that can be saved year over year anyway.

            There is no restriction on farmers saving and using any seeds OTHER THAN those that have been patented by someone who has produdced a new variant. What is wrong with that?

            And, again, none of this is special to Monsanto. The anti-Monsanto crowd is a fear-mongering anti-GMO movement comprised of uninformed consumers and a self-serving “organic” food industry.

          6. I’m not claiming this is new, or that Monsanto is the only offender. Some of my people have been anti-Big-Ag for a long time on these same grounds. Monsanto seems to be the worst of the lot, however, and with its patents has been leading the technological charge that’s made these problems worse.

            Monsanto also regularly engages in predatory pricing practices. If it really is more efficient to buy new Monsanto seeds every season, every farmer should be doing it freely, and Monsanto would be able to leave things to normal free-market forces. So why they gotta sue small family farmers trying to scrape by with using last season’s seeds?

          7. On second thought, you’ve convinced me — Monsanto is a responsible corporate citizen that’s contributed substantially to the public weal.

            Now, let’s ask Neil:

            You’re a regular at Farm-Aid. Whaddya say, Mr. Young? Should it be “More [Monsanto in the] Barn!“?

          8. One last thing. 🙂 I don’t know what role “the organic farm industry” has played in this (and I’ve little patience for preachments regarding the benefits of all things organic).

            But I do know this: Heirloom produce grown on independent farms not using industrialized methods tastes a hell of a lot better then the usual stuff on supermarket shelves. I mean, have you tasted their tomatoes lately? No you haven’t, because you can’t — taste them, that is.

          9. One last(?) note…

            No farmer is required to purchase Monsanto seeds. Monsanto has no monopoly on seeds, other than those it holds a patent on. No farmer needs to use them. I think the charge of predatory practices for seeds is baseless.

            I often purchase heirloom tomatoes. Sometimes they are excellent. Sometimes, meh. Tomatoes that have been bred for shelf-life, through non-GMO practices, taste pretty lousy. If GMO techniques create good-tasting tomatoes with a long shelf life and require less pesticide/herbicide/fertilizer to produce, then I’ll be more than happy to eat those. And I don’t care at all if the seeds were purchased from Monsanto if the products are better or are healthier for the environment.

            Finally… “Predatory practices” vs. “responsible corporate citizen that’s contributed substantially to the public weal” is a false choice. I can argue against the former charge without doing the latter. Which is what I am doing.

          10. Ken’s right, Monsanto-hating well pre-dates GMO’s. There was Round-up long before there was Round-up Ready. Monsanto was esp. obvious because it was the big kid on the block, and still is. What other industry name springs as readily to mind?

          11. “Spring-to-mindedness”, if you will, isn’t really relevant. It is a measure of many things, most notably how much the anti-GMO propaganda has been running.

            The old asbestos company Monsanto is pretty much not the current seed company Monsanto. Their record on the coverup of asbestos poisoning is very well known. And horrible. But that has little to do in real terms with what goes on today. Nearly all of the anti-Monsanto stuff today is tied up with GMO crops and the horrors we face because frankenstein scientists are killing us all. And chemtrails, doncha know.

          12. Jeez, what’s next GB? You gonna tell us Rosewell was just a weather balloon? That Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? That fluoride is good for kids’ teeth?

          13. I know. I’ve gone over the deep end.

            Which is phrase I don’t quite understand, now that I see it in front of me.

    2. I heard that too, but it is hard to make much of it with the art Neil has made.

      In any case anti-GMO, I think, can be de-prioritized below other ignorant beliefs:

      Religiosity, Creationism (both evolution and cosmological origin of the universe), Anti-Freedom of Speech, Anti-Abortion
      Anti-Vax, Anti-Gun control laws, etc. I doubt Neil is a strong advocate for any of these beliefs.

  3. One of my favorite songs, with lots of old memories tied up in it. Hearing the two versions together now, though, the Buffalo Springfield version sounds like elevator music compared to Neil’s solo version. I like most of Ritchie’s renditions but I think this one is over-produced.

    1. Love this song too — first heard it on a Fresno radio station circa 1979 when they played an entire Buffalo Springfield double compilation album one night. Prior to the that, while I was already familiar with several of Neil’s solo songs, the only B.F. song I’d ever heard was For What It’s Worth. A bit later I got the 3-lp compilation Decade, full of a lot of great Neil Young material, including those from the B.F. years, from 1966 to 1976. Of course, eventually I also got not only the 3 B.F. studio albums but also a lot of Young’s solo studio albums.

          2. I played guitar for 15 years or so, and then just stopped. I don’t really know why. I have a number of guitars ‘gathering dust’ in their cases, but my favorite is a 1969 (year I was born) Gibson SG. Dual humbucker pick-ups…it’s a beast. I still remember many, many chords in my mind, but don’t know if they’ll translate to my fingers anymore. I probably don’t have the strength for bar chords anymore. I haven’t played for 8 years or so. Now I build dioramas instead…I’m better at that I think.

          3. Ah, the legendary quaker-plain D18 with the tone and feel to die for! Lovely guitars. By the way if it happens to be pre-WWII it’s worth a small mint. An excellent instrument in any case.

    2. I envy many people many things, but the ability to play guitar or to sing with a good rock voice are my biggest covets. It’s easy for me to say, but if you have an opportunity to play again, I’d recommend doing so. My assumption is that playing something well is a first rate thrill.

  5. I heard that Fresh Air interview when it was originally broadcast, and I haven’t been able to think about Neil Young since without the vivid image of the two of them in that little boat, there in the middle of the lake, “Harvest” booming away from the house and the barn on the shore.

      1. Yeah, hanging with Neil would be the best. “Harvest” is one of the greatest rock albums of all time. More Barn indeed!

        1. I love Neil’s music, but not sure I’d really like to hang out with him. The interviews I’ve seen make him seem kind of full of himself. (not that he’s ever asked me to hang with him;-)

          1. I’m not sure “full of himself” is quite right, but I know what you mean. He strikes me as a bit prickly in some (not all, but some) of his interviews.

  6. Well, if there ever were enigmatic lyrics, After the Gold Rush must surely be the most cryptic.

    But Neil was also a fine harmonica player (a somewhat under-rated instrument). For example, his performance (it was far more than just ‘backing’) on Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris’s cover of Springsteen’s Across the Border
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfCS1yXg8gk
    (Neil’s part starts at 2:55 in)

    cr

      1. I don’t find that story strange – just delightful! It’s just some other things I’ve heard him say in interviews that make him seem a bit strange.

        I just remembered that when I saw CSN&Y in Toronto (Air Canada Center) 10+ years ago, some women in the front row displayed a huge sheet that said MORE BARN on it. I had just heard the story a bit before that, or I would have been totally confused.

  9. The Graham Nash story made me laugh out loud.

    Neal Young once wrote about the song Heart of Gold:

    “This song put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.”

  10. A simile must use either ‘like’ or ‘as’ for a comparison…the example you cite is a metaphor. 😉

    Maybe the ‘change’ is him falling in love with the person he is singing to? I also thought maybe he was starting to ‘peak’ after dosing since this is vintage rock and roll and I know Neil liked recreation.

  11. Tell Me Why is just the most perfectly formed thing Neil Young ever wrote – After The Goldrush is a magnificent album, almost every song is brilliant, but Tell Me Why just broke me in two the second I heard it(I think I was seventeen or so).

    Jerry – I can understand exactly why you would want to play this after hearing it: it’s just carved from his acoustic guitar. It’s an eternal rebuke to every songwriter who feels like they need more than a guitar and a voice to write a great song.

  12. I recall Neil’s ranch is just past the gate which blocks the private residents-only middle third of a certain road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s quite secluded and rustic in the middle of nowhere.

    I don’t know of Nash was being protective of Young, but I would not call a distance of 50 miles “just south”.

          2. You might be confusing Neil Young with Jerry Garcia who lived in several different locations in Marin County north of SF across the Golden Gate Bridge.

            At various times Garcia lived in Nicasio, Stinson Beach, San Rafael, and Sausalito, all in Marin. His funeral was in Belvedere on the Tiburon Peninsula, also in Marin. Nicasio is extremely remote and Stinson Beach somewhat so in spite of being on Highway 1.

          3. No. I’d never confuse those two;-) I just somehow pictured Neil’s ranch as east of Sonoma. Must have dreamed it.

  13. I have a Martin and a Strat gathering dust. It’s time to get them out. Also, one of the first songs I learned was also by Neil Young – Out On The Weekend. And to the this day the only guitar solo I can by play is the one from Cinnamon Girl…it’s only one note!

  16. I also learned to play this on a Martin whose case is gathering dust. Now I’ve got an itch to break it out again… Thanks for the motivation!

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