Neil Young Knows How to Write an Opening Line

Good surprises are great! One Saturday morning, in what I estimate to be April, Matt burst into the Overhouse, home from a night out in the cold, speaking frantically about a surprise he had for me. He fled to his Saturn and retrieved an Insignia iPod home docking station. Amazingly and intelligently, he picked up a few of them from Best Buy for a mere $12 apiece; a deal that would satisfy any tech-savvy grandparent. I gave the other one to Ernie Claycomb, resident graphic design guru at THAHT Company, on behalf of Overman. He was touched and listens to a lot of Genesis and Todd Rundgren on it in his office.

So here I am fiddling around with my new Overblog, early on a Saturday evening, my iPod steadily shuffling on the Insignia home docking station. The last five songs have been "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" (I know) by Poison, "Countdown to Armageddon" by Public Enemy, "At My Window Sad and Lonely" by Billy Bragg and Wilco, "Steel Bones" by Michael Gordon, and "Roll Another Number" by Neil Young. When I heard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition," the first line of "Roll Another Number," I began to think of Neil Young's impressive ability to write a really good opening line to a song.

For example:

People, pick up on what I'm putting down now, welfare mother's make better lovers - "Welfare Mothers"
My my, hey hey, rock and roll is here to stay - "My my, Hey hey (Out of the Blue)"
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own - "Ohio"
Old man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were - "Old Man"
Used to play in a rock 'n roll band, but they broke up - "Buffalo Springfield Again"
Look out Mama, there's a white boat coming up the river! - "Powderfinger"

Up until I heard "Powderfinger," I couldn't really, really get into Neil Young. I knew he was involved in one of the few rock 'n roll feuds that carried over to song, with the boys in Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was sort of cool. (I'm sure there are plenty of "rock feuds," but the genre doesn't make a habit of it like hip-hop does) The opening of "Powderfinger" from 1979s Rust Never Sleeps was all I needed. Anyone who could be that cool deserved serious examination. I'm still not a Neil Young buff, per se, but have gone on to discover that he has a lot of really good, really rocking, songs. Plus, he's just an overall badass. "Powderfinger" is one of my favorite covers that Overman plays, it's right up our musical alley. Maybe if you come to our next show, we'll play it for you!  Listen for the single strum of a G chord that so appropriately and beautifully starts the song.

Thanks again for the iPod station Matt!