“Rust never sleeps,” as Neil Young sings, and as so often in our times, Neil’s got it right. He was certainly spot-on last week when he told Spotify to take his songs down off their platform unless…
“Rust never sleeps,” as Neil Young sings, and as so often in our times, Neil’s got it right. He was certainly spot-on last week when he told Spotify to take his songs down off their platform unless they took down the medically dangerous ravings of (some comic I’ve never personally heard of) first. Because this insane spreading of people-killing misinformation by fools with crazy pseudo-scientific notions is a rust that if allowed to spread would take us all down en masse. Ol’ Neil. Is he one of the greatest Californians ever, or what? Plus one of the crankiest. I know, you might think of Neil Young as Canadian. Half a century, though, of first L.A. canyon living and then the magnificent ranch up above Half Moon Bay — that eminently qualifies him as Californian. And while this taking down of all his music from the streaming service is hurting no one more than me, who had just finally been getting into his latest release, “Barn,” filled with banging songs recorded with his longtime partners in stompin’ crime, Crazy Horse, and now I see on my playlist that this item is now longer available, so that the algorithm has to write me a note: “Let’s find some songs for your playlist” — well, I’m (temporarily) OK with that. No pain, no rock ‘n’ roll gain.
