I have been reading Neil Young’s new book, Waging Heavy Peace, over the past several weeks.  I got the book for Christmas and have really been enjoying it.  I would highly recommend it for Neil Young fans but I doubt that others will find the it to be enjoyable.  It rambles a lot, making significant leaps across Neil’s career as he tells his story and that alone is probably enough to put off all but hardcore fans.

I like it for the little insights that it provides about Neil and his music.  As one example, the love and respect that Neil has for Stephen Stills comes through loud and clear in the book.  This information helps me to understand how they have continued coming back together to make such great music over the last 40-50 years after having many rough patches in-between.  The end of the Stills-Young band was one of those rough patches and I posted last year about the abrupt end of that tour.  Speaking of the Stills-Young band, the book also helped me understand Long May You Run, a song that was recorded the band.

I noted in last year’s post that song was written about a car but I didn’t have the details until I read the book.  Neil talk at length about Mort, a 1948 Buick Hearse that his mother bought for him.  The demise of Mort is described as part of a discussion of Neil’s decision to leave Fort Williams where he and his first band, The Squires, had been playing.

Late one night I was hanging out with a bunch of guys from local bands, some guys from the Bonnevilles and Terry Erickson, a bass player who also played good guitar.  We were thinking of him becoming a Squire and had even taken some pictures together.  I decided to drive Terry to Sault Set. Marie in Mort.  We jumped in the hearse and left.  Just like that.  Ken was back at the YMCA, so he missed the trip and was left behind.  Bob Clark and the Bonnevilles came along with us.  We took Terry’s motorbike with us in the back of Mort.

We were about halfway there, near a town called Blind River, when we broke down.  Mort’s transmission was toast.  We got towed to Bill’s Garage, a harrowing experience with the hearse being towed backward, the rear tires in the air and me steering in reverse.  After holding on for dear life at high speed and terrified, we finally got to Bill’s Garage in Blind River, Ontario.  Bill said he could find us a part to fix the hearse and get us going.  Several days later, we were still there and running out of money; we were living on roasted potatoes from the market .  We hung out in an old junkyard/dump near the edge of town.

A graveyard was just across a gravel road from that dump.  We were a funky lot.  The Bonnevilles hitched back to Fort Williams for a gig they had that weekend.  Bob went with them.  Realizing that Mort was gone, I thought that being in Fort William without the hearse would be nowhere.  It was a feeling.  The hearse was just part of the whole thing.  The picture the image. There  is  an intangible to a group and a persona.  You can’t lose that.  If you do, you have to start again.  I felt that Mort was a large part of my identify, so I took off with Terry to North Bay…..

So that was the end of Mort!   Here is the song that Neil wrote many years later about Mort…..

This sequence of events ended up being a big turning point in Neil’s career.  It’s funny how fate, in this case the death of Mort, can have such a huge impact a person’s life!  In case you are interested, here is a picture of The Squires with Mort.

See how many references to the events described above you can find in the lyrics to Long May You Run.

We’ve been through
Some things together
With trunks of memories
Still to come
We found things to do
In stormy weather
Long may you run.Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.Well, it was
Back in Blind River in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift
On the long decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe The Beach Boys
Have got you now
With those waves
Singing “Caroline No”
Rollin’ down
That empty ocean road
Gettin’ to the surf on time.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

As always….let me know what you think!