This is one of Neil’s very best songs, the lyrics can be interpreted a few different ways I think, but then I can also see what seems like one obvious meaning, especially after all these years of following NY, reading bios (‘Shakey’, specifically. What a great read!)...that he was so young when he wrote it (<25!) makes me think that when these great writers claim to be just “conduits” for inspiration, there’s something to it. Or he was a precociously intelligent young man - probably both are true.
There’s an element of the passive-aggressive present (of which NY has been guilty many times) - OK, I gave you time to come to love me, but now I’M confused about MY feelings about YOU. So there. And regardless of whether Neil was being petty or not, this passage, and the entire song, contains an honesty rare in popular music.
Of course there’s more to it than that but I don’t wanna write a short story.
This is one of Neil’s very best songs, the lyrics can be interpreted a few different ways I think, but then I can also see what seems like one obvious meaning, especially after all these years of following NY, reading bios (‘Shakey’, specifically. What a great read!)...that he was so young when he wrote it (<25!) makes me think that when these great writers claim to be just “conduits” for inspiration, there’s something to it. Or he was a precociously intelligent young man - probably both are true.
There’s an element of the passive-aggressive present (of which NY has been guilty many times) - OK, I gave you time to come to love me, but now I’M confused about MY feelings about YOU. So there. And regardless of whether Neil was being petty or not, this passage, and the entire song, contains an honesty rare in popular music.
Of course there’s more to it than that but I don’t wanna write a short story.