Neil Young with Crazy Horse “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” 1969. Today, November 12th, is Neil Young’s 75th birthday (b. 1945). Everybody Knows This is Nowhere was Young’s second LP; it went to #34 in the US and is considered among the top record releases of all-time. Rough-rocking, beautiful and classic, the album has a few of my favorite Young songs including “Cinnamon Girl” (#55 US); the country-twinged title track “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere;” the darkly plaintive “Down By the River” (released as a single – I don’t think Young’s original charted but some covers of it did including ones by Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge and Buddy Miles, both in ‘70) which Young says isn’t truly about murder but rather “it’s a plea, a desperate cry for help;” and the excellent long-jam “Cowgirl in the Sand.”

My early exposure to Neil Young was via my parents in the 70′s and mostly in conjunction with CS&N (my folks really dug the harmonies). I didn’t really listen to much of Young’s solo work until college in the late 80′s/early 90′s where my roommate’s CD copy of Decade was on heavy rotation, mostly for the track “Cinnamon Girl,” the lyrics of which she’d switch to Cinnamon Boy as she was dating a redhead dude at the time. I got to see Neil Young perform in ‘91 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee when he was on tour to promote Ragged Glory (’90) supported by Social Distortion and Sonic Youth. We had shit seats and the sound was even shittier (lots of concrete + noise rock/punk/heavy guitar = muddied and deafening….Young apparently got a case of tinnitus as a result of this tour) but the concert was VERY cool and Young did perform “Cinnamon Girl.”