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May 17, 2015
This song is simply about the rancher that cane with the ranch he bought in California. This is common in Canada as well, where Young is from, Common misconception is that the song is about his father who left the home while Young was still a young child. This ranch was purchased after living in the posh Laurel Canyon. Cass Eliot, the Turtles, Joni Mitchel, the Doors all had homes in the Canyon. Charlie Manson was a close neighbor and acquaintance who looked to Neil to further as Neil puts it, his "song spewing."
May 17, 2015
This song is actually a poem with versions going back hundreds of years that is an obvious metaphor about the evils of alcohol. Each verse is symbolic of the harvest process as it was in England then, making "Barleycorn" seem like a victim, the moral of the poem being that the alcohol destroy s all in the end despite the many attempts of the 3 men to kill (harvest) the barley. The earliest written versions of the many variations of the poem date back to the 1600's. The irony, despite this tragic warning people celebrate by drinking the "blood" of John Barleycorn. Many versions of this song have been covered by different musicians, most notably Traffics' "John Barleycorn Must Die" in their 1970 Album of the same name.
May 17, 2015