In 2009, I proposed a rock bestiary here at Rock and Theology. As a further entry (search ‘bestiary’ for earlier entries), I propose this description of Neil Young from a recent show in New York City, as told by critic Ben Ratliff:

Neil Young is “not a wistful old man; he’s tense and obdurate even in the presence of pleasant or affirming words. Singing the first lines of ‘Sign of Love,’ presumably written for his wife — ‘When we go for a little walk / out on the land / When we’re just walkin’ and holdin’ hands / You can take it as a sign of love’ — he bared his teeth and looked ready to bite.”

“The Les Paul’s dark, fat, mattelike sound felt doomed out and righteous, to be admired from afar, but the Gretsch’s was something you’d want to take home and live with: brighter, more expressive, more fluent with its feedback. (He shook the Gretsch, holding it by the headstock and swinging it near the amplifier, toward the end of ‘Walk With Me,’ his encore.)”

Tom Beaudoin

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA

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