On the 1979 track My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Neil Young sings “It’s better to burn out than to fade away-” his most famous lyric. In February this year, The Joe Rogan Experience podcast contract for exclusive distribution with Spotify lapsed, and the program was promptly added to every other streaming platform you can think of. Not long after that, Young returned his music to Spotify. Joni Mitchell followed suit soon after. They had taken their music off the platform in protest to what they saw as Rogan’s dangerous peddling of misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines. Young said he couldn’t remove his music from every platform in protest, so returning to Spotify was a leveling of the playing field . He had some choice words about Rogan and the streaming quality of Spotify, but his music is back nonetheless. I’ve seen estimates that the initial move away from Spotify could have cost Young US$300,000 but true to his ethos, he preferred to burn with moral indignity.
I’ve seen thinkpieces suggest that all Young’s morals amounted to nothing, but does that matter? To be morally outraged by Rogan is one thing, and it is a sentiment I share with Young and Mitchell — especially surrounding the way the aforementioned podcast always seems to end up in my recommended list despite never having shown a modicum of interest in it. But being gentle to oneself is another. The cards are on the table, and the streaming platforms aren’t going to take a stand on Rogan given the current amount of rubbish that he spouts. Excuse my cynicism, but this, of course, could change if he says something; perhaps not something truly awful, but a quip or phrase that hurts the bottom lines of these streaming services via association. Young and Mitchell can reserve moral outrage and at the same time take the same money that Rogan has no problem with.
On the 1979 track Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), Young sings “it’s better to burn out ’cause rust never sleeps.” The night before my last HSC exam — Chemistry, which I was acing for those wondering — I imploded. Rather than studying and revising, I found a dusty VCR of Young’s concert Live Rust, and I put it on. I turned the old sound system up as loud as it could get, watched the concert on an ancient cathode ray television, and got drunk off stolen beers sitting on the bare floor . My father found me with tears streaming down my cheeks, and gently put me to bed. I did an awful job on the exam, which significantly dented in my ATAR.
My mother had died a few months earlier. I was really hard on myself. I didn’t want to grieve at all because I had all these goals, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of them. I grew up listening to Neil Young and Crazy Horse with Mum and Dad. I was too young and immature to appreciate Joni Mitchell while Mum was still alive, but I get it now and I wish I could have shared that epiphany with her. Burning out is so harsh and violent. It is very hard to come back from. I know, because that’s what I did when I was downing VB stubbies and crying to the lyrics of Sugar Mountain.
Rust gets all of us in the end; that’s why Sugar Mountain still makes me cry. The song Borrowed Tune, on a completely different album, makes me weep like that 18-year-old kid on the floor again. Helpless by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young does the same, and it was never removed from Spotify. Over the years the tears have evolved from ones of sadness to ones of catharsis. The day Young’s music returned to Spotify, I felt a huge relief, and I realised that I wasn’t aware of how much I’d been missing it. I can try to think of as many justifications as possible that echo famous lyrics as to why he hasn’t lost some ill-defined moral battle. I genuinely believe that he hasn’t, but that’s immaterial. I’m just happy to be listening to his music again