Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'

Subject: Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'
From: GUEST,2581
Date: 29 May 12 - 02:28 AM

Billy Edd Wheeler wrote "High Flyin' Bird" in 1963. It's a song about freedom and mortality, personified by father of the singer, a coal miner who longs to escape the danger and drudgery of the mines. He dreams of escaping like "that high flyin' bird up in the sky"... However, ultimately his only way of finding freedom was by dying - or, as Billy Edd wrote, "He had to fly away and the only way to fly was to die". Now, Neil Young, in his new album "Americana", has covered Billy Edd's classic, which was covered many years ago by the Jefferson Airplane, Richie Havens, Judy Henske, Gram Parsons, the Wizards from Kansas, Stephen Stills (as lead singer of the Au Go-Go Singers), the brilliant Isaac Guillory, and others. And Uncle Neil has nailed it! Staying true to the lyrics of this classic coal mining song, he sings: I once knew a man, he worked in a mine/ Well, he never saw the sun, but then he never stopped trying/ And then one day that old man he up and he died/ Yeah, he up and he died, he up and he died/ Well, he wanted to fly and the only way to fly was to die/... Look at me here, I'm just rooted like a tree here/ I got the sit down, can't cry, Oh Lord I'm gonna die blues... Kudos to Neil Young and Crazy Horse. And, of course, to Billy Edd Wheeler for this timeless classic!

Subject: RE: Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 May 12 - 07:56 PM

Just a nudge before it slides from view....

Subject: RE: Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'
From: bobad
Date: 29 May 12 - 08:14 PM

The album can be previewed in it's entirety (today only, I believe) at Rolling Stone

Subject: RE: Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 12 - 08:35 PM

Well, if anyone could kill this song Neil Young would be the one you'd want to do it...

B~

Subject: RE: Review: Neil Young nails 'High Flyin' Bird'
From: 2581
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:38 AM

The crazy thing about "Americana" is that another song on the album, "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" - which Neil calls "Jesus' Chariot" - may also be considered a coal mining song...
According to the album's liner notes, the "she" who's coming around the mountain may refer to Mother Jones coming to organize the Appalachian coal mines! Who would have thought that Uncle Neil and Crazy Horse would be singing two coal mining songs?!