The Clash famously declared punk’s manifesto on an early song, 1977, which featured the kiss-off line “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones!” Yet, while a “Year Zero” mentality was one of the punk movement’s crucial tenets, a few of rock’s older guard also actively endorsed this desire to rip things up and start again. Among them was Neil Young, who cited Sex Pistols’ frontman, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), as an agent of change on 1979’s charged Rust Never Sleeps album.
The backstory: “People became aware that there was more to it than perfection”
“I never met Johnny Rotten, but I like what he did to people,” Young reflected in a 1988 interview with Spin magazine. “He pissed off a lot of people who I think needed waking up. Rock’n’roll people, who in the 70s were asleep and thinking they were just so fucking cool.”
Young furthered, “People became aware that there was more to it than perfection and overdubs, and fucking equipment and limousines back and forth to Studio B, and the other group down the hall and getting high in the bathroom with the other group that’s going in and singing on their record. That’s not intense enough for me.”
Bearing in mind that he’d breezed through the mid-to-late 70s with help from big-hitting, country- and roots-flavoured albums such as American Stars ’N Bars and Comes A Time, it might seem strange that Young would become such an enthusiastic advocate for punk rock. Yet, when he turned to making Rust Never Sleeps, in 1978, the iconoclastic singer-songwriter was keen to shake things up.
- Best Neil Young Songs: 20 Classics That Hit Like A Hurricane
- ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’: Behind Neil Young And Crazy Horse’s Landmark Debut
- ‘Live At Massey Hall 1971’: Solo Neil Young At His Very Finest
Further inspiring him was an art-rock band from Akron, Ohio, who also took punk’s manifesto on board. The group in question, Devo, had signed to Warner Bros on the recommendation of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, and ended up being looked after by Young’s manager, Elliot Roberts.
Young first saw Devo perform at Los Angeles punk haunt The Starwood, and was immediately impressed by their surreal humour and the satirical content of their songs. He later ended up joining the band onstage at a San Franciscan punk club, The Mabuhay Gardens, in May 1978, when he was in town to perform a series of solo shows at the same city’s Boarding House venue.
What did Neil Young mean by ‘Rust Never Sleeps’?
Devo had a direct influence on Young’s next album, as it was their frontman, Mark Mothersbaugh, originally coined the term “rust never sleeps”. It was a slogan the group had used during their early graphic-arts phase, when they promoted an automobile rust-proofing company called Rust-Oleum. Mothersbaugh later said that Devo saw the phrase “rust never sleeps” as “referring to corruption of innocence, the de-evolution of the planet”, though Young interpreted it in an entirely different way.
“It caught my ear,” Young explained in a 1979 interview with KMET-FM DJ Mary Turner. “I thought, Wow, right off, they write better lyrics than I did. I can relate to ‘rust never sleeps’. It relates to my career. The longer I keep going, the longer I have to fight this corrosion.”
- ‘Fu##in’ Up’ Review: Neil Young’s Gloriously Ragged Return To Grunge
- This Note’s For You: Behind Neil Young’s Furious Challenge To Big Business
- Nils Lofgren Reveals “The Music And The Madness” Behind Neil Young’s ‘Tonight’s The Night’ Tour
As his chaotic first live album, 1973’s Time Fades Away, had previously revealed, Young had no qualms about challenging his audience’s expectations. However, his embrace of punk’s carpe diem mentality produced rather more cohesive results on Rust Never Sleeps, which featured one side of (largely) solo acoustic songs and a second side of full-on rock cuts recorded with his on-off backing band, Crazy Horse.
The recording: “The punk zeitgeist had gotten into Neil’s brain”
Rust Never Sleeps’ acoustic first half was culled primarily from material recorded during Young’s ten solo performances (spread over five nights) at San Francisco’s Boarding House during May 1978. These shows yielded several compelling, stripped-back takes on the songs Thrasher, Ride My Llama and My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue), the latter of which Young would revisit in full electric guise on the album’s second side. However, the album’s first half also blurred the lines between live and studio performance, as Pocahontas and Sail Away were studio tracks dating from 1976 and 1977 which were later completed with subtle overdubs.
