Usually, we don’t regret what we said; we regret that we said it. Telling someone you fancy them, telling someone they’re an arse; chances are those emotions were always present; it’s just no one was supposed to hear them. (Farout)
There is nowhere that people are more honest than in their creative work. Subdued thoughts are brought to the surface and vocalised beautifully. That vocalisation is what makes people connect with art. People are also honest when they’ve had a drink. As such, when someone engages with their art while drunk, you will get a glimpse into exactly what was on their mind at the time.
In Neil Young’s case, he was feeling a sense of longing when he wrote the track ‘Barstool Blues’. Whether this was longing for his youth or a lost love isn’t clear, as both are referenced in the song. Chances are, we are getting a glimpse into a drunk mind feeling lots of different emotions at once and putting them down onto paper.
It’s worth pointing out that none of this is speculation; Neil Young himself confessed that he was blackout drunk when he initially penned ‘Barstool Blues’, to the point that he doesn’t remember writing it. “We came home from the bar, and I wrote that song,” he said, “I woke up, and I went, ‘Fuck!’ I couldn’t remember writing it.”
The first verse sees Young pine for youth and sobriety as he seems to lose track of the world around him. The second verse sees the narrator look elsewhere as they stare at an empty bar stool and reflect on the person who should be sitting on it. Finally, in the third verse, we hear Young sing about somebody who oddly reflects himself. “Once there was a friend of mine who died a thousand deaths / His life was filled with parasites and countless idle threats.”
With ‘Barstool Blues’, we are given unfiltered access to Young’s mind. Already willing to be vulnerable due to the nature of creativity, the fact he was drunk at the time of writing means the messages portrayed in the lyrics are as on the surface as you could possibly want. The difficulty comes from trying to properly work out what they mean and who they’re about.
As Young began venturing into his solo career, he got a call from his old bandmate Stephen Stills about the prospect of working alongside David Crosby and Graham Nash. Although the trio had already created a phenomenal debut record, Young would come on for the album Deja Vu, adding his signature flair to the other members’ songs while turning in stellar tracks like ‘Helpless’.
Looking back on that era of his songwriting, Young would single out ‘Ohio’ as one of his finest moments, recalling in Classic Rock Stories, “It was really like the folk process at work. You know, that was really like music as news. It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song. It’s ironic that I capitalised on the death of these American students. My best CSN&Y cut”.
Stephen Stills and Neil Young teamed once again on stage with other fellow music legends Willie Nelson and Joe Walsh. The occasion is the sixth edition of Stills’ Light Up the Blues concert series, which was held April 22, 2023, at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, benefitting Autism Speaks.
