Neil Young: The Man Who Fell to Earth

Abstract

Canadian singer songwriter and composer Neil Young (b. 1945) has been puzzling the minds of his listeners for decades. His work is all about finding new shores and throwing old ways and patterns to the nearest ditch as soon as possible. He finds the idea of repeating himself simply abominable. His experimentation, sometimes brilliant, sometimes erratic and irritating for his lifelong fans exudes a great capacity for risk taking and cliché breaking. His instinctive artistic integrity and his premeditated scorn for the demands of the modern music industry are legendary. This article aims at explaining some of the constants which mark him out from the rest of the pack; not just as an artist, but also as a man.