Tag: Everybody’s Rockin’

I heard this song in the 80s and really liked the video. When I first saw the 80s time lapsed video…I thought Young looked a little like Stephen King around this time…looking at it again…I still do. I want to thank Dave for the post that jarred my memory about After The Gold Rush. 

It’s a song that was left off of After The Gold Rush back in 1970. He played it live with Crazy Horse but it would be 1983 when it finally appeared on the album Everybody’s Rockin’. It was re-cut into a 1950s style to fit the rest of the album. He made the album as Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. There is a story in that as well.

In the early eighties, David Geffen signed Neil Young to a huge contract with Geffen Records. Neil Young who will do his own thing no matter what or when…released an album called “Trans” which was his foray into electronic music. Geffen wanted another “Harvest” with another Heart of Gold or Old Man…instead, he got “Computer Age” and “We R in Control” with Neil singing through a Vocoder.

After that album Neil was asked to do more rock and roll by a Geffen record company executive…the record company was thinking more along the lines of the harder rock Rust Never Sleeps…so Neil gave them rock and roll all right… “Everybody’s Rockin” is an album full of early fifties Doo-wop and rockabilly-sounding songs in the middle of the 80s (thank you, Neil!). The record company was not amused…he then released an album full of country music… In his contract, Neil had full artistic freedom.

Geffen had claimed the new albums were  “unrepresentative” of Neil’s music. He sued Neil for 3.3 million dollars but the case was settled and Geffen lost and had to apologize to Neil. That shows you…sometimes life is fair.

If you look at Neil’s career…it was all about change and evolving so I don’t know what Geffen expected. Neil rarely repeats himself.  Geffen was expecting early seventies Neil and that wasn’t happening. Young is not an artist that you mess with.

After hearing the original version…I like both.. and I do enjoy the early rock and roll feel of it in the 80s version. The album peaked at #46 on the Billboard Album Charts, #22 in Canada, #21 in New Zealand, and #50 in the UK.

Wonderin’

I’ve been walking all night long
My footsteps made me crazy
Baby, you’ve been gone so long
I’m wonderin’ if you’ll come home
I’m hopin’ that you’ll be my baby
I’m wonderin’ if I’ll be alone
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.

I’ve been talking all day long
To keep my heart from sadness
Baby, you’ve been gone so long
I’m wonderin’ if you’ll come home
I’m hopin’ that you’ll be my baby
I’m wonderin’ if I’ll be alone
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.

I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’.

Well, I’m knowin’
that I need you to save me
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’.