Neil Young - Special Deluxe

After Special Deluxe, it's somewhat doubtful whether Young's writerly talents stretch to extended narratives. 2012's mostly acclaimed Waging Heavy Peace made (for the most part) a virtue of the randomness that resulted from Young's first take, best take approach to creativity, with warily revealing glimpses of Young’s motivations as a musician, heartfelt tributes to companions musical and otherwise, and slyly funny anecdotes from the mists of the seemingly ancient past of California in the late 60's and early 70's when songwriters such as Young ruled supreme fighting for space with rants about digital audio and mundane excursions that at times reached truly staggering levels of inconsequence. The outcome was a fair bit like 2012’s long-overdue Crazy Horse reunion Psychedelic Pill - alongside 2010's solo electric Le Noise, the one record in Young’s recent, tirelessly growing output that packs serious substance - the writing of the book seemed to inspire: equal parts mesmerising and breathtakingly self-indulgent.

If Waging Heavy Peace was the famously private Young’s attempt to reveal at least a glimpse of his inner thoughts and be understood, its hastily published follow-up draws the curtains to Young’s world shut again: too often, Special Deluxe reads like the memoirs of a man who doesn't want to share his reminisces with his public, pulling back from the brink just when it looks we’re in for something insightful or revelatory. Such contrary instincts fit with Young's famously stubborn refusal to please the crowds and do what is expected of him, instincts that have arguably kept the 68-year old vital (last summer’s Crazy Horse shows frizzled with energy and passion you'd expect from a newcomer) where his contemporaries have faded into insignificance, but it does make for some fairly flimsy reading here.

Then again, as Young keeps pointing out, this book isn't really about him: it's about cars. And cars we get, an extensive litany of vintage American motors which Young seems to view as borderline sentient beings with personalities and even feelings. The idea of telling Young’s epic journey from small town Ontario to the heights of the rock biz via the cars he's owned works well during the recounting of his childhood and earliest musical endeavors in Canada. For example, the saga of Mort, the late 40’s Buick Roadmaster hearse that transported Young's first group The Squires and whose demise in the town of Blind River inspired the golden classic "Long May You Run", is sprinkled with the sly humour and warm conversational tones that helped make Waging Heavy Peace an enjoyable read. Framed with the motors he was cruising in at the time, Young’s regret-tinged tales of his difficult behaviour during the brief and stormy saga of Buffalo Springfield, inventive attempts to separate himself from CSNY debauchery, and various drug- and booze-fuelled escapades with Crazy Horse and other compatriots during the early to mid-70's (Young geeks will salivate at these descriptions of still-unreleased recording sessions that Young somehow managed to find the energy for amidst dense clouds of weed smoke and not exactly small amounts of cocaine) are also a treat. Fans may well end up hoping for a fully functioning time machine to capture one of the low-key dates on Crazy Horse's 1975 Northern California Bar Tour, when the band - travelling in Young's gas-guzzling car of choice at the time - turned up unannounced to entertain the boozehounds at various bars, an impressively utilitarian undertaking for an artist at the peak of his fame, as well as a captivating glimpse of a sadly outdated ethos where music really does come first.

Unfortunately, things unravel pretty rapidly once the car obsession and Young’s growing concern for the damage his petrolhead habits have caused to the environment overtake the musical concerns and Young gives up any attempts to maintain a linear narrative or reflect on his past. Young’s insistence on using his status as a celebrity to promote climate change awareness, alternatives for fossil fuels and various worthy causes has to be applauded; few artists of his stature have been willing to lay their reputation and resources on the line with quite the same uncompromising vigour for the issues they believe in. However, the extended narrative on the development and road-testing of the Lincvolt hybrid car that closes the book is hard work, with Young's prose becoming more and more artlessly flat and leaden the further away from music he ventures.

People will undoubtedly compare Young’s book with the hugely celebrated equivalent efforts by Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, but that’s missing the point. Unlike Dylan and Smith, Young’s work has never been fuelled by any obvious literary ambitions; his songwriting lexicon has always been uncomplicated and sparse, excelling in saying complicated things in a deceptively simple way. The less effective parts of Special Deluxe, however, just come across as downright lazy. The final pages seem every bit as rushed as his least accomplished latter-day records, with hard craft taking the place of genuine inspiration; a shame, as the tale of Young’s idea of setting out to prove it was possible to cross the US in a car that doesn't rely on fossil fuels could have made a cracking story.