When you're young, you don't have any experience - you're charged up, but you're out of control. And if you're old and you're not charged up, then all you have is memories. But if you're charged and stimulated by what's going on around you, and you also have experience, you know what to appreciate and what to pass by.
— Neil Young
All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don't subscribe to any of that. It's all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the '70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the '80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the '90s. Who's to say what is and isn't a certain type of music?
We need to spread out now in the universe. I think in 100 years we'll be living on other planets.
Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They're very annoying.
When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.
This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.
The rockets and the satellites, spaceships that we're creating now, we're pollinating the universe.
Studios are passe for me. I'd rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.
My music isn't anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock'n'roll, and it has an urgency to it.
I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing.
I was a Reagan backer. It was a shock for some people that I could agree with anything that man would say.
I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.
I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It's a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That's a real danger.
I don't think there is one president that's come down the line that hasn't done something good somewhere.
I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.
I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.
Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.
I don't think that one day really relates to the next day in life.
Live music is better.
Something comes along and you have to jump on and do it. You can't stop until it's done.
One new feature or fresh take can change everything.
When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near.
There's an edge to real rock 'n' roll. It's all that matters.
The cutthroat avenues of rock 'n' roll, I am fed up with. I don't want anything to do with it.
Some people put down all presidents. If you say anything good about any of them, they think you're supporting everything they do.
It's cool to go places where working people are happy.
I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature.
I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else.
I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.
I go in and sing the song and arrange it and mix it and that's it. It's no different than playing in clubs.
I don't think I'm a thorn in the industry, I'm just another part of it.
I don't like to be labeled, to be anything. I've made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it's counter-productive.
I can get away with saying a lot of ideas that are young and naive. I'm liberated.
As you go through life, you've got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.
I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master.
Rock and roll is here to stay.
As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.
With Crazy Horse, it's all one big, growing, smoldering sound, and I'm part of it. It's like gliding, or some sort of natural surfing.
To protect our freedoms, it seems we're going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time.
The thing about my music is, there really is no point.
The '60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together.
Of course you have to support the troops. They're just kids. They're doing for their country what's expected of them.
It's a blue album, but it's not a blues album. I'm not pretending all of a sudden now I'm blues.
I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.
I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.
I just do what I do. I like to make music.
I feel like I could be likened to an old hound circling on a rug for the last five years.
I don't look at a knife the way I used to. I'm more aware of what it is. I think twice. This is a key finger. It's in every chord.
I don't like the American media - particularly Fox.
Earth is a flower and it's pollinating.
