Neil Young, Eternal Hippie, Musical Genius: Long May You Run

TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE HAS A GREAT PROFILE of the serendipitous Neil Young, among the greatest rockers of all time, whose rich, unforgettable career spanned some four decades. Neil, who lives in relative seclusion with his family on his expansive California ranch, granted a rare interview on the occasion of the imminent publication of his autobiography, “Waging Heavy Peace.”

One building on his ranch houses his model train collection; another his vintage cars. After some health issues, including an aneurysm, Neil has been clean of pot and sober for a year: “The straighter I am, the more alert I am, the less I know myself and the harder it is to recognize myself. I need a little grounding in something and I am looking for it everywhere.”

“... Old Black, his painted-over Gibson Les Paul guitar. Young, born in 1945, is the older brother to Old Black, made in 1952. Through the years, Old Black has been souped up, tweaked and rebuilt, but it has never been replaced as his musical partner. When he plays it, he often looks and sounds furious.

In our crisscrossing the ranch, at one point we stopped in an outdoor graveyard of old cars, a white-trash tableau of desiccated, rusting sheet metal. He stroked the giant fin of a ’59 Lincoln and said it may yet roar to life. “Every car is full of stories. Who rode in ’em, where they went, where they ended up, how they got here.”

Here's Neil Young and his reliable partner, Old Black, playing, very appropriately given the quote above, one of his greatest, most beautiful, and memorable tunes: Long May You Run!