In 2013, I realized a secret aspiration: to use old rock ‘n’ roll to remind people that even though we don’t know how to talk about certain subjects, favorite rock stars from our formative years have given us clues of ideas to share around.
Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, John Lennon, Neil Young, and others have written provocative songs that introduce topics that might still be rather taboo, but they opened the door for us.
Below are some songs I especially like to sing, my intros, and links to recordings I’ve been part of.
Cosmic Rock: Neil Young
“After the Gold Rush” by Neil Young is a great place to start, as he begins with a scene like a “past life” in the first verse; in the second, it’s night and he’s dreading something strange, wishing he could be gone, and he has missing time as the full moon suddenly becomes the full sun, and he hopes that his friend is wrong about what this means [I relate so strongly to that verse]; in the third and final verse, there are spaceships coming, and in one line he sings “we” of the pilots of the space ships who will take people away.
On the live recording of Neil doing this, the audience goes wild when the song is introduced. Why? How many people have had experiences like these? There’s obviously more interest in this subject than polite conversation would have us know.
Here’s Greg’s and my rendition of “After the Gold Rush” (The 1:30 introduction is a little hard to hear, but conveys well my purpose; since the recording was not well balanced, I laid over it our studio recording!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHYnES6ZWVQ
Another of our favorite songs of Neil’s is “Comes as a Time.” He sings about how “our souls were captured,” and “it’s a wonder tall trees ain’t laying down.” And: “We were right. We were giving. That’s how we kept what we gave away.” Soul capture. Soul survival.
And “Like a Hurricane“: “Once I thought I saw you … dancing on the light from star to star … far across the moonbeams, I know that who you are…. I’m blown away.”
Our version from 2011, one of the first times we ever sang this:
And the provocative last line of “Star of Bethlehem“: “Maybe the Star of Bethlehem wasn’t a star at all.” Others have opined on metaphors of heartache and hope; having seen about a dozen UFO’s in my life, I personally believe the Star of Bethlehem was an extra-terrestrial/dimensional craft, which links back to Neil’s second verse of “After the Goldrush,” in which he’s dreading something coming in the night, and of course the third verse, naming explicitly the source of the dread: “spaceships.”
Cosmic Rock: Jackson Browne
The Apocalypse is another favorite topic of mine, which Jackson Browne covers well “in “Road and the Sky.”
…I think I’ll break this into a few parts and save the rest of Jackson, our favorite, for Part Two – which I’ll get to soon, including the lyrics of “Crow on the Cradle,” “Lives in the Balance,” “Before the Deluge,” and “Rock Me on the Water.”
But I can at least leave you with our studio recording of “Road in the Sky,” probably my favorite of everything here:
– to be continued –
PS: Yes, I’ve heard/read conspiracy writers opine that Jackson Browne and various other rock stars were military kids (or others) subjected to mind control, and their lyrics are all part of the broad-scale mind control of our culture, inoculating us with ideas that will prepare us for grander manipulative lies later, like now. I play with the idea, and sing the lyrics, but take no stand yet; I just suggest readers and listeners consider it all for themselves.
Jean Ann Eisenhower 