Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying / In the yellow haze of the sun

September 23, 2010 1:40 PM

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming / Sayin' something about a queen...

A few days late, I know.

posted by ambulance blues (46 comments total)

Needs k.d. lang's gorgeous version.
posted by mykescipark at 1:44 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

*looks at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies*
posted by shakespeherian at 1:45 PM on September 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I dreamed I saw St Augustine, alive as you or me.
posted by Elmore at 1:54 PM on September 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

She's been running for 40 years and she was already running before the song.

Can't a mother get a break.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:54 PM on September 23, 2010

This is my second favorite Neil Young song, after Like a Hurricane, and I just realized the lyrics are complete tripe. Oh well, it's still amazingly pretty. Thanks for the post!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2010

I was lying in a burned out basement, with a full moon in my eye.

I was hoping for a replacement, when the sun burst through the sky.
posted by effluvia at 2:12 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

That last link is great, everybody read it.

The story of humankind, stretching back to its very origins, has been self-absorbed waste. The archer split the tree. The archer didn’t care. He didn’t have anything better to do than to take an arrow, line it up, and then just shoot it at a tree. For kicks. Fast-forward to just a little further in the future. After the Gold Rush, the party’s over, the camp’s trashed and the prospectors who trashed it aren’t around to clean it up. After the Gold Rush, there was a fire, and you know what, Randy Bachman told me that the government started building spaceships to evacuate the planet. And there aren’t enough of them to take everyone.

Also goddamn Prelude is fucking yachtTASTIC
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:12 PM on September 23, 2010

and I just realized the lyrics are complete tripe.

not tripe; just not actually about anything, except what was happening in Neil's brain (and imagination and reflections thereof) at some point; so what you get is the play of him putting various strands of observation and imagination together, working with the music to suggest all kinds of things.

this, on the other hand, is tripe:

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
posted by philip-random at 2:32 PM on September 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

Also did you guys know that Joni Mitchell wrote 'The Circle Game' as a response to her friend Neil's 'Sugar Mountain'?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:34 PM on September 23, 2010

Philip Random, I'm sure you're aware, but that's by Neil Young rip-off artists America, not NY, yeah?

And after reading that article I know they lyrics are actually tripe they're the soundtrack to a ridiculous hippie movie that was never made!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:38 PM on September 23, 2010

fellas, fellas, can't we both agree that some seventies songs however beautiful have to be seen through the lens of the era and, while a little hokey in certain lyrical spots, ATGR is still an evocative song full of imagery and sentiment?

Thanks for all the post love.
posted by ambulance blues at 2:51 PM on September 23, 2010

and I just realized the lyrics are complete tripe.

not tripe; just not actually about anything

Really? Are we really having this conversation? As grown-ups? in 2010? I remember the day my brother came home all excited from middle school because his English class "figured out" "Stairway to Heaven" wasn't "about" anything. He was 12; you'd think an English teacher would have known better.

Leaving aside the fact that the song pretty clearly tells one or many stories to anyone who pays a little attention: It's *art*, for fuck's sake. It's imagery. If that song isn't "about" anything, then neither is a Van Gogh or a Picasso.
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:56 PM on September 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

(Not that I think this is Neil at his most poetic: I'd look to "Birds" or "Thrasher" or something. But still, come on.)
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:57 PM on September 23, 2010

I like this version...

Michael Hedges - After The Gold Rush
posted by elmono at 3:03 PM on September 23, 2010

70s era Neil Young, while it makes me feel proud to be a Canadian, often has bad or weird lyrics, if you want well written, go to Ian Tyson.
posted by PinkMoose at 3:05 PM on September 23, 2010

And after reading that article I know they lyrics are actually tripe they're the soundtrack to a ridiculous hippie movie that was never made!'

Ah, but it would have been a ridiculous hippie movie by Dean Stockwell! Also, it says as much on the album itself.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 3:14 PM on September 23, 2010

Gone, gone. The damage done.
posted by crunchland at 3:15 PM on September 23, 2010

This is one song that is not suited to being covered by anyone as far as I can tell. All the cover versions I've heard sound flakey and I feel a bit embarrassed for the performer (I am not able to listen to the Michael Hedges version right now). It hurts because there is no way they can really know what Neil was thinking or talking about because it's too out there. It would be the equivalent of me giving a speech on string theory to a bunch of physics phd's (note: I'm no physics professor).

I recently read about Cuil Theory, and after the goldrush seems to be a 5 Cuil song..... a pickle shifts uneasily under the bun.

It's a cool song, love the twangy piano, saw Neil in July and he did play this and it was great.
posted by ryanfou at 3:29 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Look at Neil playin' on the net, in the NEXT FUCKING CENTURY. . .
posted by Danf at 3:37 PM on September 23, 2010

I always liked when Neil was in his Rich Hall phase.
posted by punkfloyd at 4:06 PM on September 23, 2010

If that song isn't "about" anything, then neither is a Van Gogh or a Picasso.

Van Gogh's paintings are "about" something?
posted by twirlip at 4:14 PM on September 23, 2010

A fucking plus post Ambulance. I am wondering how many new accounts I need to sign up for so I can favorite more than once.
posted by timsteil at 4:45 PM on September 23, 2010

Searching in these quarters,
In the utmost misery...
posted by Elmore at 4:52 PM on September 23, 2010

The lyrics aren't about anything? Huh, that's funny ... at the time I first heard them, I recall them -feeling- exactly like I was -feeling- at the time. I never actually thought to ask my censoring, rational self if those feelings "made sense."

Southern Man was clearly "about" something, but it was also about me. And it -was- only castles burning.

One of my top-ten albums of all time. Melodically, harmonically, emotionally - and a perfect match for the zeitgeist of it's day. AKA great art. Thanks for the fan of covers, which were mostly performed in different keys!
posted by Twang at 5:03 PM on September 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I remember those days. Kinda. Marijuana days. Weren't those marijuana days? I'm pretty sure those were the days of marijuana.
posted by uraniumwilly at 5:03 PM on September 23, 2010

I'm pretty sure they were too, but I was just a kid learning to play NY's songs with my dad. Even then I figured the lyrics were full of symbolism, metaphors and what not. Stuff drunk or high poets would write. And yea, it's about something. I'd have to make a picture book to explain it though. And probably be stoned.
posted by snsranch at 5:14 PM on September 23, 2010

There was a band playing in my ear, and I felt like getting high.

Thinking about what a friend had said. I was hoping it was a lie.

The lyrics mean nothing?.... I don't know precisely what NY meant, but those lines have resonated with me more than once in my life.
posted by three blind mice at 5:17 PM on September 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Some of us will never know the uncanny experience of listening to a top-40 station on a tinny AM radio and unexpectedly hearing a haunting fluke a cappella song, between Kung Fu Fighting and Seasons in the Sun.

I was 14 and working a summer job on a sweltering hot summer day in a small engine shop. When the song finished, my boss sighed and said: "That's a death trip."
posted by ovvl at 5:19 PM on September 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Regarding the ambiguity of lyrics, Jimmy McDonough addresses this song in his Neil Biography Shakey;
"...And the Archer split the Tree.."

These words are open to interpretation. Which is part of the beauty.
posted by ovvl at 6:04 PM on September 23, 2010

Next up - Powderfinger. Who the hell is on that white boat, and why are they killing people?
posted by Cletis at 6:32 PM on September 23, 2010

Some of us will never know the uncanny experience of listening to a top-40 station on a tinny AM radio and unexpectedly hearing a haunting fluke a cappella song, between Kung Fu Fighting and Seasons in the Sun.

So true and so weird.

Or, Mason William's Classical Gas played in-between the Archies' Sugar Sugar and The Oak Ridge Boys' Daddy Sang Bass.

Memories. Misty water-colored memories.
posted by uraniumwilly at 6:36 PM on September 23, 2010

Yeah, 70's AM top-40 was one weird filter.
posted by ovvl at 6:42 PM on September 23, 2010

This was one of my favorite songs as a child, even though it terrified me. The lyrics' sheer failure to connect to anything in my known world, except in a very abstract way -- unlike 99% of pop music -- made it both gorgeous and frightening. Lately I've had precisely the same response to the Arcade Fire's "Intervention".
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 6:46 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, 70's AM top-40 was one weird filter.

Thank goodness for the soothing sounds of AM radio commercials and the calming voice of early-mid 70s era disc jockeys.
posted by uraniumwilly at 6:49 PM on September 23, 2010

I first heard this song as a kid after I had read Philip Wylie's When World's Collide, and I thought of this song as kind of a soundtrack for it - with the Earth about to be destroyed, and people getting in a spaceship to escape.
posted by rfs at 7:12 PM on September 23, 2010

Thom York on Niel Young and playing "After the Gold Rush" on Niel Young's piano at his house. 1 2

And thanks for the post.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:16 PM on September 23, 2010

Thanks for this. These are the posts that make metafilter special, imho.
posted by georg_cantor at 7:47 PM on September 23, 2010

She's got pictures on the wall-- they make me look up
from her big brass bed
Now I'm runnin' down the road, tryin' to stay up
somewhere in her head
The woman I'm thinkin' of, she loved me all up
But I'm so down today.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:56 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

ambulance blues, eh?
posted by pyramid termite at 8:32 PM on September 23, 2010

Jesus Christ I can't even spell Neil right today :( I kept spelling definitely as definitley in another thread.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:18 PM on September 23, 2010

I dreamed I saw ...
posted by kneecapped at 9:42 PM on September 23, 2010

"hitchhiker" from neil's new album
posted by pyramid termite at 10:13 PM on September 23, 2010

The lyrics' sheer failure to connect to anything in my known world, except in a very abstract way

... and yet, emotionally, it absolutely gets inside you. The word that comes to mind is magic.
posted by philip-random at 10:18 PM on September 23, 2010

Neil Young makes melodies that can just rip your heart out. Music is such a mystery to me, and songs like this are a big part of it...it's just a series of tones, but it has such a profound effect. I wanted to cry the first time I heard this song, and I want to cry right now.

Music...how the fuck does that work?
posted by Jimmy Havok at 12:27 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Weird -- I was singing this while I cycled home from work yesterday, but bukking like a chicken because I couldn't remember all the words. Try it! It totally works.
posted by Shepherd at 2:52 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

I need someone to live with me
To keep my bed warm and keep my shorts clean
I need a maid to give for free
O oooh and sew patches on my jeans

I dreamed I found my cowgirl housewife
I was driving in my pickup through L.A.
I gotta love you while I can, babe
Before I become an old man

Southern California brings me down
Southern California brings me down
Southern California brings me down

O I need some place to go
O North Ontario
It's safer than Alabama
It's safer than O-Ohio O-Ohio O

Gonna go home now where I can grow old
With the cowgirl of my dreams
Gonna stayed stoned now
Stare out my basement window and scream
Aa-aaa

Southern California brings me down
Southern California brings me down
Southern California brings me down
O gotta get away now

Southern California brings me down
Topanga Canyon freaks, you won't see me around no more
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:46 AM on September 25, 2010