This wonderful song appeared on the first Buffalo Springfield album (eponymously named) in 1966. It was, of course, written by Neil Young (just listen to the lyrics), but sung by Richie Furay. I emphasize again how young Young was then: only 21. He was already prodigiously talented at an age when most of us were young and easy under the apple boughs.
The lyrics, as usual, are both affecting and opaque. Who is Clancy? Who was the gypsy that hadn’t yet begun? And what does it mean to put sponge in the bells that he rung? (A great metaphor, but still. . . ). My default interpretation of any early Neil Young song is that it has something to do with romance, as suggested by the last four lines of the penultimate stanza, but only Young knows what it really means. He was a very complicated (and tortured) person.
The final harmonica note, played by Young, is plaintive, the first word that comes to mind when I think of the man.
Who’s that stomping
all over my face?
Where’s that silhouette
I’m trying to trace?
Who’s putting sponge
in the bells I once rung
And taking my gypsy
before she’s begun
To singing the meaning
of what’s in my mind
Before I can take home
what’s rightfully mine.
Joinin’ and listenin’
and talkin’ in rhymes
Stoppin’ the feeling
to wait for the times.Who’s saying baby,
that don’t mean a thing,
‘Cause nowadays Clancy
can’t even sing.And who’s all hung-up
on that happiness thing?
Who’s trying to tune
all the bells that he rings?
And who’s in the corner
and down on the floor
With pencil and paper
just counting the score?
And who’s trying to act
like he’s just in between?
The line isn’t black,
if you know that it’s green.
Don’t bother looking,
you’re too blind to see
Who’s coming on
like he wanted to be.Who’s saying baby,
that don’t mean a thing,
‘Cause nowadays
Clancy can’t even sing.And who’s coming home
on the old nine-to-five?
Who’s got the feeling
that he came alive,
Though havin’ it,
sharin’ it
ain’t quite the same
It ain’t no gold nugget,
you can’t lay a claim
Who’s seeing eyes
through the crack
in the floor
There it is baby,
don’t you worry no more
Who should be sleepin’,
but is writing this song
Wishin’ and a-hopin’
he weren’t so damned wrong.Who’s saying baby,
that don’t mean a thing,
‘Cause nowadays Clancy
can’t even sing.
I invite readers or Young aficionados to give me their interpretation (no Googling, because I haven’t looked!).
Neil Young’s own solo version, which is superb in its own way, is here, from the album “Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House” (1968). And a word on the album itself by the Springfield’s bass guitarist Bruce Palmer:
“What hurt the album more than anything, though, was Greene and Stone’s production. Despite the Springfield’s strength as a live act, the managers forced each musician to record separately, piecing the parts together. Worse, after the band participated in the mono mix, Greene and Stone quickly converted the album to stereo, resulting in a tinny mix that outrages the group to this day. Young commented that Greene and Stone made them sound like the All-Insect Orchestra.”
I was totally awed by Neil Young’s debut solo album when I first heard it. It was a brilliant expression, I think, of a troubled, perhaps schizophrenic, mind.
I don’t think the lyrics necessarily mean anything. They are amazingly emotive expressions, however. The same was true of much of Bob Dylan’s best youthful work. Sort of rock and roll versions of Rimbaud at times.
I think Dylan’s biggest contribution to popular music was in demolishing ideas of what a folk/pop/rock song was supposed to be about, freeing up talented songwriters to be more expressive, even in oblique ways. Lennon as well as McCartney and Young were all certainly influenced by Dylan but in their own unique ways. Yesterday, a friend, who has a Ph.D. in communications and also worked decades as a musician and a producer, were talking about performers who started out in popular bands and then went on to successful solo careers and noting that relatively few really reached the same heights at solo success as with their former group or groups, as in the case of Eric Clapton, one of those rare exceptions as he is probably more famous for his solo career than for any of the groups he belonged to, including the Yardbirds and Cream. Neil Young is another exception, more famous for his solo career than as a member of Buffalo Springfield or even CSN & sometimes Y.
Not to mention John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers! That’s where I first encountered him.
The Bluesbreakers were the taproot of Brit rock-n-roll. Half of everybody who ever became anybody served an apprenticeship there.
Agreed on Dylan’s influence. Usually, as you say, he influenced these songwriters “in their own unique ways,” but sometimes you can hear the influence more overtly, as in the Lennon-penned Beatle’s song You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.
Another example of solo artists outshining their band would be Peter Gabriel, and to a lesser extent Van Morrison.
“To a lesser extent”? I dig “Them,” but they were essentially one-hit wonders with “Gloria.”
Van the Man, on the other hand, has gone on to one of the great careers of our time. He certainly outshone Them to a greater degree than Peter Gabriel has Genesis (although I much prefer Gabriel and the Gabriel-led Genesis to the more-commercially successful Phil Collins-led Genesis).
Agree…I meant “to a lesser extent” because Them didn’t have a long or lasting career, and Genesis did. So it was “easier” for Van the Man to rise above Them, so Gabriel had more success in this aspect as his climb was more difficult. I didn’t like Genesis much after Gabriel left either, but I’m glad he did.
Not necessarily troubled, more overwhelmed by stimuli. Close to being schizotypal: great amount of input that may be channelled into creative, meaningful expression if there is enough intelligence, strong self-identity, and executive control. Schizotypal can co-exist with epilepsy which Young does have.
It’s considered a thinking personality disorder (unlike the emotional personality disorders like narcissistic, anti-social (sociopathy/psychopathy), and the folks who have this tend to be really nice sweet people, but their inability to process all that input causes them to embrace wild ideas, religious or secular. They are at ease with magical thinking and can be argumentative in a sullen, but not hostile manner. They often have a history of respiratory illness, like allergies.
That sounds reasonable although there seems to be quite an emotional despair in much of Young’s work. Helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless”.
I don’t know that there’s every been a better match of instrument and subject than Young’s pitiable voice and those songs of despair.
Agreed. Although Pink Floyd’s The Wall strikes me as a contender.
Interesting, I’ve never heard of schizotypal. It describes one of my cousins very well. I’ll have to look more into it. I wonder if it is a problem with filtering stimulation. I know the thalamus is one part of the brain that filters environmental stimulation, maybe people who are schizotypal can’t readily filter excess stimulation…the thalamus not working quite properly. At the same time, I can see it as a benefit for an artist. Likewise many successful artists had/have epilepsy which as you point out seems to be linked.
Fo’ schizzle. It sounds like something made up by Snoop Dogg.
I love this song, and Neil Young has written a lot of great lyrics, but the one that I feel like a knife in the gut every time I hear it is from Old Man – “It doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you…”
My impression is that the lyrics refer to holding back even though you know you can shine. Perhaps due to self-doubt, or shyness, or just not wanting to seem like a show off.
“Who’s putting sponge
in the bells I once rung
And taking my gypsy
before she’s begun..”
Some albums from the 60s have been remixed for their CD version, sometimes to their detriment and other times improved.
(I’m NOT talking here about whether CD is in !*general*! better or worse than vinyl, but the specific mix of specific albums).
For example, most folks seem to like the SACD version of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” (done in 2003) and the remastered CD (1992) but NOT the standard original CD which did NOT use the original master tapes.
IMO, one of the clearest (and rare) cases of a CD that is far better than the vinyl version is the Moody Blue’s “Days of Future Passed” which combined symphonic orchestra (recorded separately) with rock band. The two just do NOT blend well on the original vinyl. Apparently the two bits were sound mixed separately, but the overlay sounds awkward and forced on the vinyl. But on the much improved CD version, they blend seamlessly.
Implication: the first BuffSpring album can be salvaged if they still have the master tapes.
Apparently, the CD release has both stereo and mono versions of each track, and the musicians of Buffalo Springfield did the mono version themselves and have long maintained that the mono version is much better than the stereo version.
But unlike some other albums there has been no remix specifically for CD
I didn’t know the song, but now I have listened to two versions, I much prefer Neill Young’s. By using ‘Clancy’, the speaker (or singer) of the lines is surely referring to himself in the third person: you could replace ‘Clancy’ with ‘I’ and ‘he’ and ‘him’ with ‘I’ and ‘me’. Talking of himself in the third person (having begun in the first person) creates a sense of alienation, of estrangement from oneself. If you put sponge inside bells, they no longer ring – that surely is the point.
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Always glad to learn the provenance of a song. My awareness of it came from The Carpenters’ recording.
And now hearing this tune makes us all happy as the grass is green … happy as the heart is long.
Jerry, thanks for posting this – I wonder if you’ve heard The Thrasher from Rust Never Sleeps? It’s a sweet song anyway(on a really good album) but it has what a lot of people would argue are his most intriguingly obtuse and semiotic lyrics – it seems to be about breaking with the sixties and leaving behind his friends, as well as a whole load of other things, but really who knows? If you haven’t heard it you might want to give it a go.
Young from 75-79 is arguably just as good, if not better, than his earlier incarnation – heavy, grimy, drunken stuff like Tonight’s The Night and sweet, hooky, melodious stuff like Zuma. Overall, it’s a shift to a more cynical, broken, harsher tone but the gorgeousness of his melodies is still there(especially on Zuma and Rust Never Sleeps). The critics love that era, although they’re wrong about On The Beach being a great lost album.
Anyway, just thought I’d mention The Thrasher, as it’s arguably his most lyrically intriguing song. Worth a listen.
I’ve loved this song for about 50 years now. I learned to play it on guitar a few years ago. I have googled the song previously to understand the lyrics. I’ve read several writers interpretations of the song already. None of the readings hit home with me though.To me there is a old timey, story telling folk song thing going on here.The line “who’s coming home on old 95” sounds like something Hank Williams would sing.
The lyrics are about songwriting, creativity and artist inspiration. Did Neil lose his muse? Is he talking about the nature of folk songs as an art form? Lyrics that are passed on from one song to another through the eras? Is he questioning the standard method of song writing and trying to break the mold.Is he rebelling against being stifled in his method of artist expression? Censorship was a major influence on the arts through the 1960s.
I think the comments of the production of the first BS album ring true. Producers trying formulize the artists concepts into something marketable.
And that is the great thing about the 60s… Question Authority. In music the Beatles, The Jefferson Airplane and Buffalo Springfield fought for control in the studio, the recording process and were able to express their selves in the art form. They struck a nerve with the youth of the day. They became very popular in doing so.
To me Neil is trying to lead and not follow and “Nowadays Clancy Can’t even Sing” expresses his frustration in trying to find his own voice.
I read Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace memoir. Frankly it’s a bit of a shambles, but what I found interesting was that “dark and tortured” was not the persona that emerged from it. More “amiable but a bit goofy”. To me anyway. Not sure whether others got the same impression.
Indeed… Neil is the funniest rock star ever.
See for example,
This Town
Fuckin’ Up
This Note’s For You (Famously banned by MTV in the 80s, then allowed, then won the video of the year award. Watch for Whitney Houston putting out Michael Jackson’s burning hair with a Pepsi – based on partly on fact! This was Neil’s protest against musicians selling out to advertisers.)
I like this song by Young, but I’m usually not drawn to lyrics that are amorphous. I like narrative lyricists that I can grasp, and who write about subjects and themes I care about; one reason why Pink Floyd will always be one of my top 10 (top 3?) bands…and I’m talking ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and later works. Young does hit me emotionally, and some of his songs are narrative and easy to grasp (especially his political songs) but I usually don’t gravitate towards songs that have this type of abstract lyric. There are many exceptions, of course, I’m just speaking in generalizations.
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The meaning of this song is as much in the feeling it evokes, melancholy, as in the words. Young men like Neil Young when he wrote the song are prone to love sickness, melancholy, so that may be all that need be said about the meaning of the song. The words are like a lyric response to “For What It’s Worth”, about changes in one’s emotional life. Regardless of who Clancy is, his plight is worse than the listener’s.
I want to say — great choice of band. One I discovered after buying ‘Everybody knows this is nowhere’ and searching for more NY (in 1970, my first year at University. Or was in 1971? When I ws still trying to be a Zoologist and population geneticist. Not parasitologist! Yuk!).
I think Neil has said this song is about* a vision he had of a singer / songwriter (Clancy, but I assume himself actually) getting writer’s block and being shafted by the business side of the music business.
The metaphors seem to me to fit with someone not being able to create (muffled bells, etc) and wanting to make music.
Of course this is very serious for Neil, since my favourite quote of his is:
“Music is like breathing out, everything else is breathing in”.
From the biography ‘Shakey’. From there i learned he has epilepsy (not controlled in the 70’s very well) and I suspect this is part of his strangeness and apparent asocial side.
No Matter, he has produced the best body of work of anyone in music, imho.
* I cannot now remember where I saw this theory/ quote, I certainly did not Google it 😉 It was possibly in Shakey. Which is a great book, by the way.
BTW his old, favourtite guitar is called Gypsy if my memory serves me well.
Interesting side note to the ability of the band’s musical talent. In the documentary “The Wrecking Crew” (available on NETFLIX)which tells the story of the bunch of LA Studio sidemen that actually played the music on the early 60s groups records such as the Beach Boys, Association, Mamas & the Papas, Nancy Sinatra, jan & Dean… one of the studio musicians that made a ton of money on session work citing the late 60s groups that lead to the loss of income for the Wrecking Crew was the bands that wrote their own songs & could play their own instruments in the studio such as the BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD!
This has always been my favorite BS song. Having grown up on the east coast I always thought the line:
“And who’s coming home
on the old nine-to-five?”
was
“And who’s coming home
on old ninety-five?”
referring to I95, the main interstate route up and down the east coast. I lived in Seattle for many years (where I5 is the main route) and this song reminded me of where I grew up.
Basically the verses are in four-four time and the choruses are in three-four time. To me anyway, this gives the choruses a sense of being a little out of kilter.
I heard this song on the first Fever Tree album before I heard the Springfield version.
I remember my high-school English teacher (and track coach) playing this song for us, and having us analyze the lyrics. He was clearly a fan of music from that era; I also recall hearing “Helplessly Hoping” as an example of alliteration, and “Kooks” by The Kinks. Listening to “Clancy” spurred my interest and soon I had tracked down all three Sprinfield albums along with related solo and group projects. That’s a deep rabbit hole, and it shaped my taste in music forever.
The same teacher (Gary Hindman) also recommended I read Harlan Ellison’s “A Boy And His Dog.” I wonder nowadays whether a teacher would get in hot water for that, but I dove in with both feet and have been a fan of both genres (music and fiction) ever since. So thank you, Mr. Hindman!
Clancy is actually a real person. He was a known larger than life personality in Winnipeg grew up with Neil. Clancy enjoyed singing, and apparently it often was derided by others along with other personality traits of his. Unfortunately, the frequent badgering and an untimely early onset of Multiple Sclerosis robbed Clancy of his voice and much (but in real life apparently, not all) of his spirit.
Neil wrote this song reflecting on his own failure to breakthrough the music scene during his first go round in Toronto in 1965. He is singing. directly, more or less, about Clancy from back home but also reflecting on his own trials and being muzzled by those who were not interested in his singing.
While unfortunately the real Clancy continues to deal with MS, Neil himself did breakthrough only s year later than when the song was written, with it being the first Buffalo Springfield single. It may have not cracked the Top 100, but it did show Neil’s already incredible talents as a songwriter along with snatches of his guitar and harmonica capabilities. Plus, it is a heck of an homage to the titular Clancy.