Album: Learning to Crawl
Year: 1983
. . .
In the liner notes for his epochal 1977 triple-disc compilation Decade, Neil Young infamously wrote “’Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people there.”
This was in reference to what Neil fans have always called the “Ditch Trilogy,” the raggedy, cranky albums that basically killed the commercial momentum he’d built up with Harvest, and as Chrissie Hynde is a long-time Neil Young fan — she was friends with one of the students killed at Kent State, about which he wrote “Ohio” — I can’t help but think that quote was the inspiration for the opening track of 1984’s fine comeback album, Learning to Crawl.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1640: Pretenders – “Middle of The Road”
