La transcripción (en inglés, lo siento) está debajo. Es larga, pero creo que es MUY interesante.
CHARLIE ROSE, PBS ANCHOR: welcome to the broadcast. Tonight, a conversation with rock legend Neil Young.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL YOUNG, ROCK LEGEND: In this record I got really involved in the present, which is like turmoil, It is terrible, to be involved in, you know, criticizing the president and doing this and that and talking about things in the first person and getting right in there. It is like I got sucked into it. I was part of the turmoil myself, which I wasn`t happy about. And I am not happy about it now. But it happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSE: Neil Young on music and much more coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSE: Neil Young is here. His one of a kind voice and strong artistic convictions made him a music legend. He has released more than 40 albums and was inducted into the Rock `n` Roll Hall of Fame twice. Some of his classics include "Helpless," "Harvest Moon" and "Care Girl in the Sand." Here`s a look at Neil Young.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSE: Throughout his extraordinary career, he has also been a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In 2006, the band embarked on the Freedom of Speech tour to support Young`s album "Living With War." He made a documentary of that experience and here is the trailer for "CSNY Deja Vu."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOUNG: I woke up one morning and I started writing the songs and I wrote them pretty fast. And then I recorded them even faster.
We have been through so much together. There is a bond there, and we are still here.
You guys are free to go.
(SINGING)
YOUNG: Something happened when we started delivering to people and making them feel stuff. We just believe in ourselves again. And that spread out to how we are treating everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think you will have some very negative reactions to the political message tonight. You will have a lot of people thoroughly abrasive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Neil is in charge. And that is not because he demands. It its because he thinks about all of this stuff all the time.
(SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thinking about how we need to make a difference.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People have got to reclaim this government.
YOUNG: If I speak the truth for myself, it is going to ring true to other people. You have to have some fire and you have to have a reason for being there or you don`t have a reason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSE: Welcome.
YOUNG: Thank you, Charlie.
ROSE: Great to see you.
YOUNG: It is good to be here.
ROSE: We were just talking about, you said that was one of the two times you sang that in tune.
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: And if you not singing in tune, it is only because of the weather.
YOUNG: That`s right. I always blame it on the weather. I have never been able to control it so, you know.
ROSE: I want to talk about the music and I want to talk about this album, "Living With War," and the movie. Your idea?
YOUNG: Well, yes, pretty well, the "Living With War Album," you know, I am in the habit of doing things that I feel like doing. That`s the way I -- that`s how I do it, you know. There was no plan. I just woke up one morning and I was -- I went down to -- I was in a hotel, a little hotel -- what is the name of the place -- Gambere (ph), Ohio, at my daughter`s school and we were getting ready to -- we were at the last visit of the year for graduation. So the graduation was going to be in a few years.
And got up and I went down to get some coffee -- you had to go downstairs to get coffee out of a machine. It is terrible coffee coming out of a machine. But they have some stuff. And I got the cream and got it all ready. I saw "USA Today" sitting there and there was just the "USA Today" stack up. On the front page, a big color picture on the inside of one of these hospital airplanes that flies to Germany from Iraq. And these guys and they were just -- it was -- you could tell the vibe in the picture was very serious. These guys were in danger of not making it and everybody was very focused. And there were three soldiers in there on tables and staff all-round them and professionals trying their best to take care of them, and probably in the air, you know, flying and turbulence or whatever, you know.
And so I am looking at that picture and I am thinking how awful that must be and what a responsibility it must be. And I hadn`t looked at anything else except the picture. And I am just looking at it and I think, I really hate this. I really do. And then I scan down and I see war in Iraq is -- I am taking this from my memory. It is probably not exactly right -- war in Iraq is, you know, responsible for many great medical breakthroughs and, you know, equipment is improving and everything. It is all up beat about all of the great technical breakthroughs that we are having.
ROSE: Not about the suffering but about the breakthroughs.
YOUNG: Yes and I just looked at it and, for me reason, that is what did it to me. I ent upstairs after that and I wrote this song "Families." I started writing another song , "Restless Consumer." I started writing all these songs all at once. And I had like four songs going at once, and I am going what is going on? This is all -- you know, and then I finished "Families," which is a very emotional song for me, and I -- I am sitting in the room crying by myself. And I called my wife and I said, honey, you just have to come up here. I want to show you this. I want to play this for you.
ROSE: Was she at home or --
YOUNG: No, she was in another room. She had gone down to do something and -- or,
no, she and my daughter had gone out and I called her on the cell phone. That was it. And I said, you know, come back here, you know, come back here, I don`t really -- I just need to see you. Because I was coming apart. And it just hit me so hard all of the suffering and all of the -- but I was looking at it not so much as, you know, I -- for home reason I got really far back from it. I was looking at it from a real -- from a distance and seeing how futile it was, and that these families were being torn up and people were dying and everything, and it really bothered me. And it just -- and when I started writing about it, I kind of transcended myself into being a soldier that was dying in one of these airplanes or on the battlefield or something, trying to remember all of the things and not able to write, not able to do anything but just thinking in their mind about what did they want their families to know, how -- just sending it out into space.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: Knowing that, you know, the life -- that life was ending and trying to organize the thoughts and send it spiritually to the family.
ROSE: Two things I want to talk about. One is, so you write it down. Do you type it? Do you write it down? Do you just put it on a piece of paper?
YOUNG: I think I still have the originals. I think it was hand written.
ROSE: And is it pretty much -- do you then go back and work it over and change
it and move it around or is it just so right from the gut?
YOUNG: yes, they just --
ROSE: Just let it hang there?
YOUNG: Yes, yes.
ROSE: And when does the music come?
YOUNG: Same time.
ROSE: Same time?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: There is no guitar there and nothing --
YOUNG: No, I had a guitar, yes. I carry one with me most of the time.
ROSE: Because you never know when you are going to be inspired.
YOUNG: You never know, you know.
ROSE: That`s the reason you carry it with you?
YOUNG: That`s right. I have to be ready.
ROSE: It is an extension of you too.
YOUNG: I have to be ready. You never know when it is going to happen. And whenever it happens, if I have an idea for a song or something that strikes me -- I would leave right now if I had an idea that I couldn`t get out of my head, because I figure I wouldn`t even be here in the first place if it wasn`t for these ideas, and I owe it to that. So I have kind of a mentality that I am working for this. This is my boss or something, you know.
ROSE: That speaks to you?
YOUNG: I don`t even know if it is speaking to me. I don`t know what it is. I can`t put my finger on it. I don`t think, you know, that I am special. I don`t think that anything is coming through me or that someone is speaking to me. But suddenly it happens, and I have learned that if I don`t get it, I don`t get it.
It is gone. You know, you have got to get it and it is a gift. So if you don`t pick up the gift -- if you don`t pick it up, what kind of respect do you have? You know, I mean it is a gift. So you need to accept it.
ROSE: So tell how many times has it happened to you? If you`re out at a dinner, do you get up from the dinner table?
YOUNG: Countless times.
ROSE: Wherever you are, you speak to it and grab it?
YOUNG: Whatever it is, I will leave and go do that first and come back and say, I`m sorry I had to leave. I had something to do. And I may be gone for five minutes. I may gone for two hours, I don`t know. But that is the way it works with me. And sometimes -- most of the time there is nobody around and I am not doing anything; and it strikes me and I will, you know, be alone or something, because I get comfortable when I am kind of by myself and that`s when I write.
If there are other things going on, I don`t write. But sometimes it just comes to you and you can`t ignore it, so --
ROSE: Have you ever had a dry period for a while. a drought?
YOUNG: You know, there are kind of like -- there have been, but I really don`t think -- I don`t think of them at dry periods. I think of them as relief.
ROSE: Or fallow.
YOUNG: They`re relief.
ROSE: Right.
YOUNG: It is like it is not happening, and I know it is going to happen.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: So I mean all I have to do is stay open and it is going to happen.
ROSE: What does that mean, stay open?
YOUNG: I am right here with you right now.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: Just being there and staying open. I think staying open for me would mean -- no one has ever asked me that before, but I think it is like what I said, if I feel it, I am open to it. That is like the boss. That is where it is coming from. So I go there. So I am open to it.
ROSE: Yes. There is a thing that actors have said at this table, is that they have to stay open to being able to access, access emotion they feel, to touch base with themselves to reach, to connect --
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: -- with something that is in them to say something in a way that reflects the dialogue they have at hand.
YOUNG: They will take a part of themselves and let that part naturally come out and go into the character, if it is in there, They maybe get to a place where it will come out.
ROSE: Exactly, but they have to make that connection with it. It is there and they have to let it come.
YOUNG: And they have to be open and let it come, because if they are thinking too much, it is not going to work. It is not like you think about it.
ROSE: Being open is not thinking but just --
YOUNG: Just being there. Just being there and being ready to accept whatever happens and believe that that is important. It is more important than what is going on. The only thing that would stop me from doing this would be something where one of my loved ones was in trouble and it was more important. Obviously, I had to do this, because the most important thing was to take care of someone in my family, then that would be -- or anybody in serious trouble. I don`t think that I would, you know -- that is about it.
ROSE: But this is your genius?
YOUNG: Well, it is a gift. It is a gift, Charlie. It is a gift.
ROSE: And that`s the way you see it? And when did you know you had it?
YOUNG: Well, I guess when I started having success in selling a bunch of records and feeling this feeling and the songs would come and then I would know when I was performing them and I realized that I didn`t have to create a record, that I could sing it and then if I felt it in my own soul when it was going down, that I didn`t even have to listen to it, that I a knew that was the master and all we had to do is mix it, that I didn`t care, you know, if I made a mistake or not.
We try to fix it, but we are not going to fix it at the expense of the performance.
ROSE: It is always the lyrics first?
YOUNG: Sometimes I get a melody and rolls around in my head. And you just get the music going -- or a hook or something like that. But they are little reminders. They just come to you and the -- but when the song really comes, you know, then the lyrics and the whole thing just tumbles out.
ROSE: Some people put you up in a place that is reserved for very few people,
Bob Dylan and you in writing.
YOUNG: Well, you know, that is a great honor.
ROSE: Who else would you put up there?
YOUNG: Who else would it put up there? Well, I wouldn`t know. I -- I think there has been some amazing writers over time, but I don`t know, you know. I am so absent. I don`t really pay much attention.
ROSE: Of who you are or where you stand?
YOUNG: I try not to think about it. That`s why some of these questions you`re asking me things that I try not to think about, but I am trying to answer them.
But, you know, I mean I love Bob Dylan. I mean, I think he is great. And in the very beginning, I knew he was great. And yesterday, I was walking down the street and there is this guy in the Lincoln Navigator or Continental or something -- I can`t remember, one of those black cars. And he is in there and he is blasting "Like a Rolling Stone" and singing at the top of his lungs. It`s an Afro American guy sitting there. He`s about 30 years old, in a suit.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: Just rocking. And I could hear Bob`s voice and I went -- this is Bob, you know, this is the essence, you know, of his feeling and everything, I mean the moment when he was delivering that song. And I went, wow, that is so powerful.
You know, you can`t keep that. That comes and goes through you. That is not -- you can`t strive to be that. You can`t -- there is no way you own it.
ROSE: You don`t own it?
YOUNG: No, you don`t.
ROSE: It is a gift that --
YOUNG: It is a gift that keeps on giving and then it goes away and then it comes back. If you are ready to accept it, it is there. I heard Bob say that he doesn`t know the guy who wrote those song anymore. You know --
ROSE: Do you feel that way about songs you have written?
YOUNG: Well, I understand what he was saying. I understand the feeling behind it. I look at it and I go, well, you know, I must have been a really different place doing that. But I was and that was it, you know, and I wrote those words and I said that and I believed it.
ROSE: What five songs do you always have to play?
YOUNG: Do I always have to play?
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: There aren`t. I don`t.
ROSE: You just say no?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: It is my set?
YOUNG: It is my set. I was on a tour just -- I just got back. I just finished a month in Europe. And I just got back like yesterday or the day before. And I had a set less for a while. We had a great band and we are trying to get organized and I had a new monitor guy and a new lighting guy that didn`t know the songs and hadn`t played with the band. And so I had a set list. And then I am sitting in my dressing room and I`m sitting there and there is a piece of paper and a pen that they leave for me. And I am going, I hate that, I hate this. I don`t want to do this. I am going -- I don`t want to see the list. I don`t want to write the list. And I don`t want to have to obey the list.
And then I said -- you know, one of the guys came in and I said, how long until we go on. And he said ten minutes after you give us the set list. And that was the last set list. That was it. There weren`t anymore. I said, we are doing it off the top of our heads from, you know. We are not going to do --
ROSE: Now, if they say, when do we go on, the answer is, whenever Neil decides he is ready.
YOUNG: When we are ready. They have to be ready and then I have got to be ready.
ROSE: This -- back to "The USA Today" your sense of outrage about the war was already there when you saw this?
YOUNG: Yes, I think it was. You know, it is a sad thing. And I see it like -- I look at it, Charlie, like why, why are we doing this? Why is the human race doing this? And, you know, I try to step back and see it and, you know, in this record I got really involved in the present, which is like turmoil. It is terrible to be involved in, you know, criticizing the president and doing this and that, and talking about things in the first person and getting right in there. It is like I got sucked into it. I was part of the turmoil myself, which I wasn`t happy about. And I am not happy about it now. But it happened.
ROSE: Was sucked into the turmoil being part of the debate?
YOUNG: Being part of living with war. I was sucked into it and I got angry. I was angry about things that were happening and this is just not right. This is not the way it should be. I felt like we were being lied to and things weren`t true and we were getting told -- sold a bill of goods and even, you know -- we know the story. We have seen the news. You have seen the Congressional or the Senate subcommittees and the things they have discovered that were wrong. You know, things weren`t as they were told to us to be. But I don`t want to harp on that. Where I want --
ROSE: You have an album?
YOUNG: Yes, we did the album. I did the album. I said all of what I had to say.
And now I don`t like to do it again. I don`t like singing the songs. I did it. I am not CNN. I don`t play it over and over.
ROSE: I know how you feel about that. I read that. Actually, I agree with that.
YOUNG: So I don`t want to do that. I want to -- what I want to do is try to make a difference in another way. I really think -- and rMD+IN_rMDNM_somewhere along the line this year, I figured out that, you know, I really can do something else. I have a lot of other interests, you know, and one of them is mechanical.
And I look back at -- and technology and all of these things; I look at what is going on and I go, you know, why can`t I be one of the people who tries to do something to replace the type of transportation that we use?
ROSE: Well, you have been trying to do that. You got this hybrid car.
YOUNG: Yes, that`s what I am trying to do. And I want to do that. I want to -- I set a goal, a lofty goal for my organization of my friends that I have met to eliminate road side refueling. You know? And, you know, you talk about the audacity of hope. That is what I want to do, though. I don`t think you can get there unless you aim at it. I think we are going to get to that point. I think, you know, when you think about the world --
ROSE: That there will be no more service stations, maybe biofuels.
YOUNG: Well, I am just not sure. I would just like to eliminate the need for us to have to use these things that cause all of the wars and all of the disturbances.
ROSE: An addiction to oil and all of that.
YOUNG: All of the suffering around the world is all about energy. Even the climate is based on the energy problem, the environmental problems and the social -- the cultural -- look what we have done. Seven or eight thousand year old city we were bombing and, you know, the museum got looted, all of this old stuff that has been there for centuries. Now, people don`t know where it is, you know. I mean, look what happened.
It bothers me. I look at it and I go there has got to be -- I have to step back, let`s -- why is this happening? And I am just a bump on a log. I am just a pinhead. I am just a needle in a hay stack. If I can try to do this, maybe other people can try to do it. You know, I don`t think that -- I don`t think that -- I mean, I don`t have anywhere near the knowledge of like GM or Ford or anybody like that, but I am not a big company, but I have the Internet and now, in this age -- this is the 21st century and we are smart. We have got to start.
ROSE: Well, we are also connected so that you can tap into the smartness of a lot of other people.
YOUNG: Yes, we can start doing things now. We can start working with people that we have never met. We can find -- we can go to Youtube. We can an look at people`s science experiments. We can look for unity. We can look for all of these physics things that are happening out there that demonstrate that there is a possibility of no roadside refueling.
ROSE: So what did you do? You went and built this car. You took the fossil fuel gasoline engine out.
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: What was it? A Lincoln? What was it.
YOUNG: It`s a 59 Lincoln Continental.
ROSE: It looks like a big box.
YOUNG: Nineteen and a half feet long, two and a half tons. It is a convertible.
ROSE: Did you do this to a Hummer too?
YOUNG: Well I have an H-1 that just is just a biofuel Hummer. It`s like it
always was, but now it runs on vegetable oil.
ROSE: So what did you do? So you say, look, I am not GM and I am not Ford and I am not Toyota and they ought to be doing this, but I am going to do this?
YOUNG: Well, they are doing it too, but I don`t think they are doing it with -- they are not as free as I am.
ROSE: Free to do what?
YOUNG: Free to do anything.
ROSE: Yes, that is true.
YOUNG: Free to do whatever I want to do, because the world is so big and there are so many places to reach out to. So they are constrained. They are in their rooms. And they are in their structure. And there are brilliant people in there working within a structure. The structure could be -- you can interpret it as being a jail. You can have a bad idea and get, you know -- you go down in stature from a stupid idea.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: Me, it doesn`t matter. I am not scared to fail. OK? That is why I have this goal, because I don`t care if I fail. I want to try to get there. I would love to succeed. I would love to be able to do this. The goal is to eliminate roadside refueling. The goal is to build a car that creates its own fuel.
ROSE: And what --
YOUNG: And I will take that car home and plug it into your house and not take energy from the grid, but put energy into the grid. If everyone had cars like this, then there would be a distributive power system. We would haven`t to have, you know, power plants. We wouldn`t have to have brown outs. We wouldn`t need all of the things that are happening like in California, all of these things with our energy and it is going to get worse, not better, if we don`t change -- use the grid, but send the fuel, send the energy out from the houses.
Envision a furnace, OK, in a house in New York City, OK?
ROSE: Right.
YOUNG: That has an energy center in it, and generates power, heat, and cool. Turbines put out cool. Engines put out heat. You can generate heat from energy and you can power your house. And what you don`t use goes into the wires and goes out to your neighbor`s house or down the street or into the grid. Just envision a power furnace that makes it go, everything goes the other way. I don`t think it is impossible. I think these things are possible.
ROSE: You don`t think it is impossible because you read a lot and you have a lot of conversations about this. And you are able because you are Neil Young you -- they will take your phone call.
YOUNG: They will take my phone call. And that`s where I have my power.
ROSE: Exactly.
YOUNG: I am using what I have with these people. I have people in Denver. I have got people -- there is a guy in Denver that has got a company, UQM, that has electric motors that are fantastic electric motors. They are very strong, very efficient motors. And we have these electric cars. And all of the companies now, you notice on TV how the oil companies are all talkable about how they are green now.
ROSE: Right.
YOUNG: Beyond petroleum. We are working on batteries. We are working on ithium.
We have developed new things.
ROSE: Exxon has a new ad.
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: Going to extend the life of batteries, right.
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: And you say to all of that?
YOUNG: I say to all of that lithium is just like oil. It is the same thing. We are going run out of lithium. You know why Priuses are behind? Because they can`t get batteries. That is the problem.
ROSE: That`s why they don`t build more of them and that`s why they are in a limited supply?
YOUNG: Yes. And they are behind.
ROSE: Do you think the Prius is the right way to go?
YOUNG: I think --
ROSE: Half-and-half?
YOUNG: It is the beginning. There is no one direction to go in, but Charlie, I really think that the batteries are -- we need electric cars without batteries.
We don`t need batteries. You can generate power --
ROSE: They recharge themselves, so to speak? You bring them home and --
YOUNG: Well you can have a generator. You can have a generator as is a super efficient thing that -- you know, yes, it will use some fuel and that means you have to get fuel. But where did you get the fuel? What if you made your own fuel? What if you made it from something that exists in the world today. There are cars in France and Australia that run on compressed air. And you know the difference in the temperature between the compressed air tank and outside is cold, that air coming out, and the outside is hot. The difference in that temperature creates enough energy to make more compressed air, so that the thing keeps filling up. That is something that is happening now.
ROSE: You said in the "Rolling Stone" piece in May of last year, American -- America doesn`t know it is in a war. Nobody is asked to sacrifice except for the soldiers who volunteered. Clearly, you meant also their families who are suffering.
YOUNG: Absolutely. Whenever you say a soldier, you are talking about a family,
entire family.
ROSE: Exactly right. You talk about sacrifice there. Do you think America, just take us, are ready to pay the price in terms of conservation, in terms of our traditional lifestyle, because of the reality of where we are in the addiction to oil, in which supply and demand are tighter than they have ever been? Do you think that the idea of energy and having to rethink it and having to find new ways has reached critical mass?
YOUNG: Do I think America is ready to make that change and that sacrifice that it has to make?
ROSE: Right. Critical mass.
YOUNG: We are approaching it. We are approaching it, but I do think that we are smart enough, as well as there is enough of us who have enough of a conscience to do what needs to be done to start conserving. But it is capitalist. It is capitalist. It`s driven by the capitalist system. That is fine.
ROSE: Exactly.
YOUNG: That is great.
ROSE: Capitalism has been good to Neil.
YOUNG: That is great. And that might be the savior, was the fact that now it costs so much, people are thinking about it.
ROSE: That`s right.
YOUNG: And that`s it. And I think if gas went to 10 dollars a gallon, for the planet it would be better. But, you know, I mean -- and in Europe. it is already up around that. So, you know, I mean we are living in a cushy society.
ROSE: Right, right, right.
YOUNG: And we don`t even really realize that. When you go out and see the rest of the world, like I do traveling around, you see what people are going through, compared to what we are going through. We are complaining about four and a half dollars a gallon like that was -- that is so much less than what other people pay. But the thing is, are we ready to give -- to do this, to come together and have a conscience and try to solve it by --
ROSE: You say everybody has to participant or else?
YOUNG: I think everybody is going to have to do it in their own way. There is no one solution to this problem. Some people are going to buy small cars. Some people are going to conserve. Some people are going to think. They are going to start thinking. They are going to say Americans are big. It is a big country. We have long roads. We have some huge people who are very smart in this country, big people. You know, I am not talking about fat people, I am talking about big people.
ROSE: Big enough to recognize the reality of where we are?
YOUNG: Well, yes, and they need a car to drive around and they need, physically -- and so they need to get around. So people are going to have to think that big is not necessarily not green. Big is OK if it is smart. So you have got to have -- you have to be able to move big things easily, not just little things, because ultimately we have to have power plants that run like this. That`s real big.
So, you know, the whole thing is all of the things have to work together. And I, with the folks that I am working with on this project, Jonathan Goodwin and all of the other guys that I told you about around the country, and around this country, it is multinational thing. I mean, we are all working on it all the time. We are on the Internet, talking to each other. We have experiments going on. We have got water gas. We have got all of these different things that everybody knows they exist, but we are trying to put them together in a way that has never been done before.
ROSE: You are a big Obama supporter?
YOUNG: I think Obama is a great man. I think he is a born leader.
ROSE: And you hope he is president?
YOUNG: I hope he is president. I respect John McCain. I don`t agree with him but I respect him. He is a very --
ROSE: There is no way not to respect John McCain, yes. There is this, though, and this is a big idea: there are those who argue now that if -- for America to get its groove back, whatever loss it has been and you can debate that, that the best way is to grab international leadership, international leadership on the energy question. That is the one way --
YOUNG: I would love to see that happen.
ROSE: It would resonate around the world. And making sacrifices and making choices and being a leader around the world.
YOUNG: We have to lead or someone has to. You know, if we don`t, someone has to.
Somebody has got to. And for that to happen, we have got to start trying. We can`t just talk about it and we can`t be saying how green we are. How much money do you spend on advertising being green in this country?
ROSE: Suppose some guy sees this show from an oil company and says, let`s talk, you have good ideas.
YOUNG: I would love to talk to anybody. I just want to find the solution. I don`t care if he is from an oil company or from the New York Yankees. You know, I don`t care if he is -- I don`t care who he is. I would love to talk to, you know -- and I can do that. I have been able to do that. But it is -- it is amazing how many people say they have something, and then when you get right down to it, they don`t. They just want to.
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: But they don`t have it. I don`t have --
ROSE: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
YOUNG: Yes, yes.
ROSE: I wanted to, but --
(CROSS TALK)
YOUNG: That`s right. That`s why I say I have a goal. I don`t say I have done this, because it is a goal. It is something I want to go.
ROSE: So what goal do you have in music today, today?
YOUNG: Excuse me. It is not something I want to do. It is something I want to be a part of.
ROSE: OK. Tell me about it, music. Think about this. I mean, you have had this extraordinary life Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. You have had this extraordinary success on your own. I don`t know how you choose what for what? Do you still have goals in music? Or are you just simply - - it is what you do and it just comes to you?
YOUNG: My goal is to respect the source, Charlie, respect the source, be there for the source.
ROSE: That`s where we began this conversation.
YOUNG: That`s right. Be there, be ready. That`s my goal. That`s my number one task. That`s what I do.
ROSE: Are you happiest when you are on stage?
YOUNG: You know, many things make me happy, you know.
ROSE: That`s why I like you.
YOUNG: From my family --
ROSE: You haven`t been bored in a long time, have you?
YOUNG: I don`t get bored. I don`t have -- I have too many things to do. My lovely wife tells me that she is worried about me because I do so much.
ROSE: How long have you been married?
YOUNG: Thirty years. It will be 30 years on August 2nd. We are going for our 30th anniversary.
ROSE: Just tell me the story, only because I want to hear it, just for me. She was a waitress.
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: You walked into the restaurant, some little place out of nowhere?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: What was it?
YOUNG: It was love. She was beautiful. And, you know, we were young and I saw her and I just forgot about everything else, you know, for once.
ROSE: And you knew it?
YOUNG: I knew it right then. Yes.
ROSE: I am a sucker for love.
YOUNG: Oh, yes.
ROSE: So you walk in and she comes to your table and --
YOUNG: But not right away.
ROSE: And it has survived 30 years of --
YOUNG: Absolutely. What a great woman. Look what I have done in 30 years of marriage. How creative have I been? I have been able to do all kinds of different things, take on different characters, take on different personalities, do wacky things, get totally out of my mind, you know, drinking tequila to get into one thing, doing this and doing that, doing all of these things for all of these characters that I had to live my way through. And yet, she was sticking with me all the way through that.
ROSE: So she deserves a medal for sticking with you.
YOUNG: She deserves a medal for being open and free enough to allow me to be myself. Do you know how many people when they get married, they change, they adjust. I have not had to make an adjustment. She has allowed me to be free and taught me the beauty of the family, and she -- so I am very fortunate. Behind every one who, you know, is doing something, there is a partner, somebody like that, a partner.
ROSE: Who is there for you?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: I love the story too that when you had the great inspiration, you had to write this song, you were so moved and you were in tears in your room, the first person you called to come here, you have to come hear this.
YOUNG: Yes, you have to come. And she came to the room and I held on to her and I was sobbing. I was sobbing so hard that things were coming out of my face, OK? That`s how hard I was crying. I was crying so hard that, you know, like I need a towel. It is ugly. There was a huge outpouring. And, you know, that`s all -- that`s just what it is. You get so far into it. I got so far into the soldier that by the time -- by the time I finished writing the song, and I sang it once, I couldn`t even talk. I couldn`t do anything. And that`s when I called her. And I said, you have to come and hear this, and then I couldn`t even sing it for her. I just wanted to hold her.
ROSE: I hate -- I am look for the right way to see this. Do you see, with respect to the war the light, something? I mean do you see the end?
YOUNG: The end of this war?
ROSE: Yes.
YOUNG: The end of this war is when we solve the energy problem. This war is going on for a long, long time. This war will not go away until we figure out what we are doing here on the planet. This is a bad war. That`s how I feel.
ROSE: Who is the guy that did the documentary? Who is your director for that? What is his name?
YOUNG: I was the director.
ROSE: You were the director.
YOUNG: Yes. Bernard Shaky (ph).
ROSE: He is associated with a lot of these --
YOUNG: Yes, he is an alter ego, yes.
ROSE: His alias.
YOUNG: I am big on those.
ROSE: Yes, I know.
YOUNG: It separates Neil Young from --
ROSE: You have a bunch of them, don`t you?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: Name me five of them.
YOUNG: Oh, I have, you know -- how many are there? I don`t know. Joe Yankee, Joe Kanuck.
ROSE: Yes, Joe Kanuck.
YOUNG: There is Bernard Shaky.
ROSE: Bernard shaky the director. And when you go to a hotel, do you check in with an assumed name all the time or do you mix it up.
YOUNG: We mix it up and I wouldn`t tell you anyway.
ROSE: Of course you wouldn`t. I am going to check in under Charlie Rose and see what happens.
ROSE: There you go.
YOUNG: No, you have these autograph people and, you know, they are not real fans and it is such a distraction.
ROSE: I don`t think that is true. You are saying someone who wants an autograph is not a real fan?
YOUNG: No.
ROSE: I don`t think that is true.
YOUNG: That my conscience too. I have something inside of me that says that is not true. But when you see the guy and the driver who is driving you or something says, well, you know, there was this blues musician who just came in here and he was trying to get his autograph and he said, you are the greatest musician on Earth. Then you come out and they say, oh, I love your music, please sign the picture. You know, if it is just going to an autograph shop.
ROSE: Not all of them. It is a broad brushed to say that everybody who somehow admires you --
YOUNG: When you are at a hotel and you haven`t told anybody where you are and no one knows you are there and it is a surprise that you showed up, and there is one of these people there that knows you are there, that is when you know, that`s not a fan.
ROSE: Right.
YOUNG: That`s a business. You know, so we separate that. I do my best to do it with a conscience, because I don`t want to offend somebody who is truly into it.
Those are the people that you meet at the shows backstage or after the show, leaving the gig and, you know, they are all lined up at the fence or something, you know. But in this day and age, you have to be very care. You know, you have got to be security minded and you have to have all of that.
So I wish I was as cool as Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson never passes by a person.
ROSE: He doesn`t?
YOUNG: If you want an autograph, he will give you an autograph. He will talk to you. He has gotten to a point in his life where -- I really admire that. He is very thankful. He is very giving, and he is very open.
ROSE: One of the great things, I was thinking about this today for some reason, I was thinking about playing golf, used to play golf with Kristofferson and Willie.
YOUNG: Really? Put your running shoes on when you play with those guys. Willie is the fastest player on Earth.
ROSE: I know he is and hits the ball from behind. He`s sort of way behind the ball and then sort of goes forward.
YOUNG: Yes, yes.
ROSE: So what are your passions? I mean, I get a sense here in this conversation -- and I want to show another clip from the documentary. Well, let`s do that now. Give me a clip -- show me a clip from the documentary. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This music is already causing a stir actually. You have one song that`s called "Let`s Impeach the President." What is the song about?
(SINGING)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This nation is at war with Islamic Fascists.
YOUNG: If the people in the audience don`t like what they hear, they can react. But let`s remember that freedom of speech doesn`t mean freedom from consequences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We played about 120 bucks a ticket and I want to hear the music, not hear their opinion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Republicans can be respectfully against the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether I agree with him or not, doesn`t matter to me. I just love their music.
(SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have no right to blame the government. There are smarter people up there, and you may not realize it, but they are smarter than you.
(END VIDEO CLIP
ROSE: Now this whole interest about film for you. I mean, when you were at Woodstock, you wouldn`t let yourself be filmed, right?
YOUNG: Right.
ROSE: But now you are in love with film.
YOUNG: I am making a film, I know.
ROSE: You are?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: One we don`t know?
YOUNG: I am making a film about the car.
ROSE: Well, OK.
YOUNG: I won`t get you back into the car. Don`t worry. I would like to take you for a ride in the car.
ROSE: I`d like to see it. Where is it now? Do I have to come out to California.
YOUNG: It is in Wichita right now.
ROSE: Why is it in Wichita?
YOUNG: That`s where it`s being built.
ROSE: That`s where the engineers are.
YOUNG: Jonathan Goodwin is building it.
ROSE: Have you ever seen the movie "Tucker"?
YOUNG: Yes, yes. All we are building is a power train. You can put it in any car. We are making it in a big car so you can tell that SUVs and trucks can use it too.
ROSE: You hate this, but I just want you to bear with me. I mean, all of the things you have written, just tell me what is most meaningful for you. Tell me the things that resonate with you. Tell me when you look at this great --
YOUNG: The single thing that resonates with me is the next thing, the thing I am working on now, whatever it is. Singing a song won`t change the world. If I could finish that, that would be great. But, you know, maybe some day I will, maybe today.
YOUNG: But you said that Dylan said, I don`t recognize. I mean, you don`t feel that way. I mean all of these things live within you, do they not?
YOUNG: They did, they did, yes. And I carry them around like a giant over coat.
ROSE: Have you ever wanted to do anything else other than -- I mean you are building cars and, you know --
YOUNG: Well, I am building cars. When I was at Lionel, and I am still an owner of Lionel, but when I did the technology for the sound system and the control system or Lionel Trains and I did that with a great crew of people that I put together and all wonderful engineers and everything, and I never could have done it without these guys, but we did it together. And when I did that, it was like very difficult working with all of these people and lawsuits and all kinds of stuff and everything, proprietary information and all of this stuff. I learned so much doing that about how to work with engineers and how to get things out of engineers, how to prompt them. I call them every day and ask them questions, what did you do that for? What about this?
Ask, keep pushing; that is what I learned doing those trains, those little tiny electronic trains. I am doing it now with the cars and it is the same thing.
That education was so invaluable.
ROSE: The there is this guy from Toyota, a car manufacturer, it is the business about asking why. So we say, why do I need this? And then you keep asking why until you get the core of a thing. Do you know what I mean?
YOUNG: Yes.
ROSE: And the guy who first introduced this idea to me was a man who created the production line for Toyota.
YOUNG: Oh, yes. Toyota, there is a fellow, I can`t remember his name, but there is a guy. He is like --
ROSE: A legend.
YOUNG: Yes, yes. His way of thinking.
ROSE: Exactly. And it was about getting to why.
YOUNG: And getting everybody on the trip. He had everybody organized and going in this one direction. And they all felt the same thing and everything was organized around, you know, satisfaction, completion.
ROSE: But it is also asking the right question, constantly asking the right question.
YOUNG: You have to probe all the time and that`s how the engineers, if you -- they may end up going in a circle for months.
ROSE: Is there any engineer in you, do you think?
YOUNG: Well, you know, I have a lot of ideas. I work with them and everything, but I am not -- you know, I work with -- everybody I work with is smarter than I am, everybody. That`s how I look at it.
ROSE: I feel the same way. But everybody I know does interesting things feels that way. I haven`t yet to meet the person who said to me, I am the smartest person in the room and I don`t need the rest of you. Have you?
YOUNG: No, I have never met him. I don`t think I would collaborate - -
ROSE: Music and film is such a collaborative medium anyway.
YOUNG: Yes, they are. You have to work with people to make music.
ROSE: Would you rather be doing solo or doing CSNY?
YOUNG: I don`t know.
ROSE: You don`t know. There are certain questions --
YOUNG: It depends on what day it is, Charlie. It depends on how the weather is.
I can`t do that. I can`t go to that answer.
ROSE: OK. Well, then, tell me this. What did the brain aneurysm teach you, tell you?
YOUNG: It give me more faith.
ROSE: Did it really? Faith in?
YOUNG: I don`t know. I don`t know. I have faith. I don`t know what it is. I know there are a lot of stories. There is the Bible. There is the Koran. There are all of these things. Everybody`s got one. Everybody has a faith. And there are stories that have gone through the ages and I respect all of them. But I don`t know where I fit in. I just have faith. I believe in nature. I love nature. My church is my forest. I like to walk in the trees, look up. The trees are so old.
They are so tall. They are so natural. They are so beautiful. And I just like to touch them, hear my footprints. That to me, that is my church, that`s my cathedral.
I don`t have a robe. I don`t have a book. I don`t know my book. If I have a book, I haven`t read it? Somehow, it is missing, so -- but I have faith and I respect faith. I respect my friend Jonathan, who is working on the car, and his family are a beautiful Christian family. I went to their church with them. I sat there and I listened. It was a beautiful family gathering of people, all sharing, you know. And I feel the faith, I feel it. But I don`t -- I think I could have easily gone, you know, with a Muslim family and sat with them and gotten on my knees and had the same feeling.
I think we need to know -- we need to feel it. We need something, but I don`t know. But I got that from very, very old --
ROSE: Surviving?
YOUNG: -- very old African-American woman from South Carolina was my companion when I was in the hospital. And when I went in the hospital, I had quite an adventure in there, because they took me and they fixed me up. And they straightened it out and this thing was ugly. I mean, it looked like Florida hanging off. It was bad. And it was like ready to pop, and then, you know --
ROSE: If it pops, it is all over.
YOUNG: Yes, and I found out by accident. I was being checked for something else and the guy comes out and says, whoa, stop. Wait. This is more important than what we are looking for. I had the thing --
ROSE: An aneurysm is a bulge in an artery.
YOUNG: Yes. It is a bubble. It is like if you look at a tire, yes. So I had like six or seven bubbles on bubbles and they are all hanging down one way.
ROSE: And you never knew it and it didn`t affect you?
YOUNG: No, it didn`t affect me at all, nothing. No effect. So I was having migrainous visual events, where I have like a shard of glass in my vision. And the first one I had scared the hell out of me. And I was with my daughter, my beautiful daughter, Amber, and her boyfriend at the time, and the people that I really love. And this thing happened to me and I went, oh my god, what is going on? I can`t see right. My vision is divided in half and there is -- it looked like a big piece of glass in my eye.
So I said, I have got to call my doctor, you know. First of all, I went and lied down. We called. You know, I was kind of upset the first time this happens. It scares you. Now it has happened to me several times. I just ride through it. I have even done shows while it has been happening because you can`t leave. You have to stay. So it happened and I kept playing. But the thing is, when it originally happened, I called my doctor, Dr. Pazatano (ph), and he put me through -- we went and we went right to the right people and he put me with a neurologist to check it out, and that`s who found the aneurysm and he took care of it. And when they do it, they go up inside you through your leg.
ROSE: Right.
YOUNG: Through this artery down here and go up through the groin area. They filled up my little aneurysm with a bunch of platinum spoolies. It was like a bunch of slinkies in there. And then it fools your body. Your body says there is something in there. So it fixes it up and it covers it up with scar tissue. And then the blood just goes in the right direction and doesn`t go there anymore.
But I am susceptible to that sort of thing, I guess. So the point was, when I was in the hospital, the second time -- see, I went home and then I went back, because I was out for a walk and I popped the thing. So I was out for a walk from the hotel. I got about a block away and it exploded in my leg and all of this stuff came out of my leg, all of this blood and everything. I was feeling really week. I just made it back to the hotel and collapsed on the floor in the lobby. It was awful.
And then the paramedics came and I`m looking up at the lights. And I went there and I -- they stabilized me and, you know, I thought that was scary. I mean, that was scary. That was not like the aneurysm. The aneurysm was some remote thing. This was real. And I can`t even remember whether it was -- what night it was, but this old lady who was in there with me, and I woke up, and I looked out of New York Presbyterian -- I looked out across the river at the bridge. And the bridge is there and there is fog, people are all going to work, 6:00 o`clock in the morning, all of the lights going across through the fog. And I look out and I said, isn`t that beautiful, they are all going to work. Everybody is going to work.
And she look at me, she said, he is not going to take you. You are going to be all right. I know you are going to be all right. You don`t have to worry. And she held my hand and she just -- she talked about the master and she talked about -- in her own way, referring to god, and it made me so -- it made such an emotional contact with me that I realized, well, she is like an angel, you know.
So I got there, you know. And since then, I have been very aware of that.
So I don`t know what it is, but I believe in it, you know. It is a journey.
ROSE: This quote is so appropriate based on what you just said. This was after "Prairie Wind," "if Bob Dylan had been for years our best guide to exploring the complexities of human experience, Young may be the song writer who expresses most eloquently the simple ties that bind us all." Thank you for coming.
Pleasure.
YOUNG: Thank you.
Claro que si te interesa tenerla en casa para verla tranquilamente, te la puedes descargar de Dime a Dozen, donde el amigo bigobrain te ha dejado una versión MPG para compartir entre todos:
Neil Young
2008-07-17
~Interview~
Charlie Rose Show
Bloomberg Television News Studio
499 Park Avenue
New York City
Clip Length = 49:11.611
I had intended doing this in DVD format, but decided to simplify it and just do a raw MPG. If anybody wants to make a DVD out of it, or put it in a compilation, feel free.
A menu would have been an interesting task....Neil covers "Living With War", the 'gift' of song, transportation technology, energy technology, love, religion, his aneurysm, mentions Dylan and Willie Nelson, and weaves back and forth between topics.
A really good visit with Neil.
_______________________
WNET/PBS Analog Cable > Dell Angel USB TV Tuner > Windows XP Media Center > DVR-MS > Nero Vision > MPEG-2
~~GSpot Codec Info~~
Video format:
NTSC
MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Resolution: 720 x 480
Video Bitrate: 5072
Frame rate: 29.97
Audio format: LPCM
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