Everybody seems to wonder what it’s like down here. [But] I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around – everybody knows this is nowhere.

I see country music, I see people who take care of their own. You got 75 year-old guys on the road. That’s what I was put here to do, y’know, so I wanna make sure I surround myself with people who are gonna take care of me. ‘Cause I’m in it for the long run. Willie Nelson’s 54 years-old* and he’s a happy man, doing what he loves to do. I can’t think of one rock and roller like that. So what am I gonna do?

- Neil Young in “Legend of a Loner”, an interview with Adam Swetting in Melody Maker; 7th September 1985 [source]

* this age was true in 1985. Willie Nelson’s date of birth is 29th April 1933 – so get that calculator out!

The preacher took his bible and laid it on the stool. He said, “with the congregation running, why should I play the fool?”

I was chopping down a palm tree, when a friend dropped by to ask if I would feel less lonely if he helped me swing the axe. I said “No, it’s not a case of being lonely we have here – I’ve been working on this palm tree for eighty-seven years!”

He said “Go get lost!” – and walked towards his Cadillac; I chopped down the palm tree, and it landed on his back.

It’s hard enough losing, without the confusion of knowing I tried. But you’ve made your mind up; that I’ll be alone now, there’s nothing to hide.

I think in some ways – only in some ways – but in some ways, rock and roll has let me down. It really doesn’t leave you a way to grow old gracefully and continue to work. If you’re gonna rock you better burn out, ‘cos that’s the way they wanna see you. They wanna see you right on the edge where you’re glowing, right on the living edge, which is where young people are. They’re discovering themselves, and rock and roll is young people’s music. I think that’s a reality, and I still love rock and roll and I love to play the songs in my set that are sort of rock and roll, but I don’t see a future for me there.

- Neil Young in “Legend of a Loner”, an interview with Adam Swetting in Melody Maker; 7th September 1985 [source]

I even go as far as to think that in the plan of things, the natural plan of things, that the rockets and the satellites, spaceships, that we’re creating now are really… we’re pollinating, as a universe, and it’s part of the universe. Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.

- Neil Young in “Legend of a Loner”, an interview with Adam Swetting in Melody Maker; 7th September 1985 [source]

They say the old laughing lady dropped by to call, and when she leaves, she leaves nothing at all.

See the drunkard of the village falling on the street: [he] can’t tell his ankles from the rest of his feet. He loves his old laughing lady ’cause her taste is so sweet, but his laughing lady’s loving ain’t the kind he can keep.

What if she came to me -  would she be kind? And if she stayed with me – do you think that she’d like to do anything I would, or would she leave me?