Now why did I not go see Neil Young when he played Outside Lands a couple months ago? Mistake!
I looked up this song's origins and meaning on wikipedia (see below). Essentially, it proposes that it's better to burn out than to fade away. I prefer to former, but as I grow older the latter seems more of a possibility. I'm not ready to cede just yet, though.
From wikipedia:
Ex-Beatle John Lennon commented on the message of the song in a 1980 interview with David Sheff from Playboy:
Sheff: You disagree with Neil Young's lyric in Rust Never Sleeps: "It's better to burn out than to fade away..." Lennon: I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don't appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison - it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive - Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer - he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that - I'm sorry for his family - but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean worshipping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy.Young would reply two years later when asked to respond to Lennon's comments:
The rock'n'roll spirit is not survival. Of course the people who play rock'n'roll should survive. But the essence of the rock'n'roll spirit to me, is that it's better to burn out really bright than to sort of decay off into infinity. Even though if you look at it in a mature way, you'll think, "well, yes ... you should decay off into infinity, and keep going along". Rock'n'roll doesn't look that far ahead. Rock'n'roll is right now. What's happening right this second. Is it bright? Or is it dim because it's waiting for tomorrow - that's what people want to know. And that's why I say that.
