The 500 - #210 - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #210
Album Title: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Artist: Neil Young
Genre: Hard Rock, Country Rock, Proto-Grunge
Recorded: Wally Heider Studio (Hollywood, California)

Released: May, 1969
My age at release: 3
How familiar was I with it before this week: A couple of songs

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #407, dropping 193 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Down By The River

"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans" is a quote often attributed to Beatle John Lennon because he used it in the song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) from his 1980 album, Double Fantasy. However, Lennon borrowed the lyric from writer and cartoonist Allen Saunders who was credited with the quote in a 1958 edition of Reader's Digest Magazine.

Saunder's meme had originally appeared (in a slightly varied form) in his American newspaper comic strip, Mary Worth. However, the sentiment is one that has been with man for centuries. Semantic precursors can be found as far back as c. 43 B.C.E. with the Latin proverb

"Homo semper aliud, Fortuna aliud cogitat" (Man intends one thing, Fate another). 

Proverb 16:9 of the Old Testament offers a similar proposition: 

"A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps." 

c. 350 B.C.E.

Personal events over the past few weeks have had me thinking about the unpredictability of life and how our "best laid plans", in the words of Scottish poet Robbie Burns, "gang aft agley" (often go astray).

As you may have gathered, this has been a week of deep contemplation. The soundtrack to many of these pensive, thoughtful moments of reflection was found in Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere -- a record full of crunchy, hypnotic guitar jams, captivating melodies and evocative lyrics that are just abstract enough to provoke introspection.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the second studio release from Neil Young and the first that features backing band Crazy Horse -- a group of musicians who continue to tour with him today. In fact, Neil and two of the original members, Billy Talbot (bass, vocals) and Ralph Molina (drums, vocals) will perform in July (2024) in my hometown of London, Ontario, at the city’s annual Rock The Park Festival. The fourth original member, guitarist Danny Whitten, died in November, 1972 of a drug overdose.

The title track, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, describes Young's disillusionment with the music scene in Los Angeles in the late-sixties. The chorus features the lyric; "I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around", while  the verses pine for a simpler life  "back home" where it is "cool and breezy" and one can "take it easy...just passing time." It posits the notion that even a successful life isn't as fulfilling as just being "home".

I suppose that is a universal message to which we can all relate. Regardless of where we are and what we are doing, “home” beckons within. Abraham Maslow recognized this as the first step in his theory about humans’ Hierarchy of Needs -- we want our physiological needs met before anything else -- this includes shelter and safety.

In his 2018 stand-up special, Disgraceful, comedian Tom Segura puts a humourous spin on this prevailing sentiment suggesting that even when he is doing something he enjoys (attending a party with good friends or even recording the very comedy special we are watching) he is really just thinking, "I wish I was home right now."

If “life is something that happens when you are busy making other plans”, then the most meaningful way to exist is to escape the hurly-burly of our distracting commitments.

Sure, much like the mouse in Burns' classic poem, whose home is overturned by a farmer's plow, the chaos of the world will inevitably come crashing in on us. But, for a short time, we can disappear into the predictability of our favourite chair, a warm meal, a hot cup of tea and the love of those who share that place we call home. Even, perhaps, by giving this wonderful record from Neil Young and Crazy Horse another listen.