Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Neil Young And The Songs That Inspired Him

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Neil Young sits down for a special conversation with Conan about the songs that inspired him. Follow along with the full list of songs here: Four Strong Winds (Ian & Sylvia)The Wayward Wind (Gogi Grant)Baby, What You Want Me to Do (Jimmy Reed)Ballad of a Teenage Queen (Johnny Cash)Bob-A-Lena (Ronnie Self)

I had a really terrific conversation with Neil Young recently that aired on SXM's Team Cocoa Radio, Channel 106. We talked about music that inspired Neil when he was very young and because it was on the radio on SiriusXM we were able to play the songs and then get Neil's in-the-moment reaction to hearing this material sometimes for the first time in years. I love the conversation so much that I wanted to share it with my podcast listeners but here's the catch. Unfortunately we're not able to play the songs in the podcast itself so here's what I would encourage you to do. I would encourage you if you're listening

right now and you want to hear these songs that Neil Young is responding to. If you're a SiriusXM subscriber open up the SXM app and search Conan and you'll be able to find the conversation with the songs or if you're not a SiriusXM subscriber we're going to provide a list of the songs in the episode notes so that you can listen along to the songs with the music streaming service of your choice. I think it's just going to make the experience much cooler. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Neil Young. Hey this is Conan O'Brien and what you're about to hear is a very special sit

down with Neil Young. Incredibly special to me. He's one of my heroes and he has a new record out called World Record and this was an opportunity to use his new record as a jumping off point but then move on to look at the entirety of Neil Young's his work but also his intentions as an artist and have some fun along the way and I'm joined by Jim Pitt. Jim. Hello Conan. I'm very professional. I like it. Jim is also my accountant and my parole officer. Jim you know booked all the music on my show for you know 95% of my late-night career and so he was responsible for a lot of the great stuff that we were able to accomplish

musically with with the late-night show but also he's a fellow Neil Young fanatic. Correct. So then this is this is cool because Neil doesn't do a lot of stuff like this so we were really honored that this came together. Yeah yeah we've talked about this before but Neil has such a special place in the history of your show you know that the week that he did when the Prairie Wind album came out that was a big deal for us yeah just a really special time. He was there every night of the week and again it's not something Neil Young really does. Right right and yeah he moved in with us for a week yeah and it's not like

we felt really good about it until the following week he did every episode of the Muppet TV show and that I mean I don't know that ruined it for me. I'm kidding I have to ruin moments with my jokes but no that was very special he came on at the end of the night show and an amazing performance there and has always been a friend to us so just great to get to sit down with him and one of the fun things about this interview is we asked Neil to give us some songs that inspired him when he was a young lad coming up in in that northern climate and up in Canada and he gave us some incredible songs some I

didn't know had never heard of before and they were great window into Neil Young his early life what inspired him and it's it's incredible that he let us do this yeah it's just such a treat. It was it was it was really touching to watch him listen to some of these songs and yeah and we talk about some of his TV appearances and some of those crazy TV TV appearances including one on a crime detective show from the sixties with the Buffalo Springfield so all in all this is really fun this is you're about to hear me having the time of my life so let's let's begin this special sit down with Neil Young I wanted to

start out by thanking you from the bottom of my heart because you have famously been very nice to me throughout my career and in ways that I can never repay but then when COVID hit we were forced to move into a studio Largo studio and because we couldn't have an audience I said I asked all my fans to send in life-size cutouts of themselves and we would put them in the audience so that my cardboard fans would be represented what shows up from you a life-size cutout of you sitting and we were blown away but you had this photo taken turn into this life-size thing sent it in so you were in the audience

front and center every night during COVID that I went out and did my COVID show and told my jokes to no one the eyes I were looking I was looking into were yours Neil you didn't crack a smile once no it was no it was that's my when I think about COVID everyone has their memories of COVID and what we all went through and mine is Neil Young staring at me sitting in the audience made of cardboard well I'm trying to make something happen so I want to thank you for being here and congrats on world record I'm gonna tell you I really enjoy the record what I love the most about it is that there's some optimism you're

obviously talking about serious shit the environment and where are we and what are we doing to this planet and this has been an important cause for you but what I really love so much is on songs like love earth and this old planet there is a feeling like there's a way forward if and we can do this and the songs are lovely but to me my experience has been when I try to be optimistic with people in this current climate they sometimes get angry with me and I really appreciate people that are saying there is a way forward here there really is I don't really know what it is but I do know there's there is a feeling when

people get together to do something good yeah it happens no matter what level you're on if you're joining into something good you can see it on street corners when you see like the people cheering for the on behalf of the the the women of Iran mm-hmm and they are possessed by this good feeling that they have as they're expressing themselves but that's not the same as doing something good like something good for the land like dedicating yourself to you know not doing some bad thing that you had been doing to do you know things that people can can share everyday people can do good things together and it

gives you a feeling of power and that's and power is very important to the recovery of what we're trying to do because we're here yeah I'm not really making a good a good story for it but there's a feeling when people do something good together mm-hmm like trying to make something happen that you know is good yep and a lot of people are into it I think in the end that's all we're gonna be able to do well I think so many people feel if you look at the whole picture it's overwhelming because you think even if I do all the right things technically that doesn't stop you know if you really get technical that

doesn't stop India doesn't stop China even if the United States completely got its shit together it doesn't stop the rest of the world so what's the point and I think what you're tapping into which I completely agree with I think it's you know and it can be anything it can be music it can be comedy it can be you know anyone's fear of life is let's let's try and do something let me try and do something positive with some other people and you get a charge from it you get a yeah you get you're empowered because I think when you look at the whole thing it's overwhelming and that's what I really what I really liked

about the new album is that it made me unafraid to be optimistic and maybe a little inspired as opposed to we're all screwed which is I think and being is negative for putting somebody that are making some comment there's that we have so much of that that we don't need it so it's it's abundant but but finding a way forward where we're and it's not just this country and not worried about just this country the same feelings are going to happen around the world yeah as it becomes more apparent what's going on you can see it more every year and when people you know you first of all it helps if you've been around for a long

time because then you know the difference if you haven't been around for very long this has been going on pretty quickly for the last 20 years yeah you know so yeah you you have the experience in your bone marrow of being alive in Canada in the 50s 60s experiencing you know long before we had gotten to this level of missions in the environment so seeing things grow yeah seeing seasons change in an intense huge way like so grand piles of leaves that are like four or five feet high yeah that you're you know moving around and and it's incredible when fall comes and it really is fall I mean when it really happens so

these beautiful natural things like the changing of the colors of the leaves in the fall and and spring rains and things like that when you when you've been living with them in a cycle as I have for 77 years then it becomes something you feel and a good feeling about protecting that you know people feel good about trying to do things to make the the air cleaner and stuff like that and that's that's great that's the whole thing you know but doing it together doing it together by habit by something that you've picked up on whether you might not be able to drive an electric car you can't afford it but it

doesn't matter electric cars aren't going to take over the world anyway and it's not the answer the electric car is not the answer because that energy is coming from somewhere it's it's it's a step yeah but it's not the answer it's not the only answer it's one little answer you can do that and you take a chance with where the power comes from but it's it's it can be fixed because now if the power source is good it works okay so that's that's great and the same thing with the cars is if we use biofuels and we could still use the infrastructure and it may sound strange to hear this now but in a few years it's

going to be very important yeah that we have fuel to get around with and it's also important that we get back to the ground and that the that the earth is like the carbon comes back into the earth out of the sky yeah these things have to happen and they happen through farming and doing things correctly so that we can have all the food and all the fuel that we need so while we're replacing the bad with good natural things we're actually helping the earth at the same time to recover from what's happened so and there's a feeling to doing that when a few people get the vibe that they're doing something like

that and there's a movement towards that right that's a powerful thing and doesn't matter what country you're in because it's gonna happen everywhere people are you know there was it there's a track on world record that grabbed my attention because I was thinking a lot about this you've explored so many like you have you know there's classic themes in rock and roll and I think with Chuck Berry at all Chuck Berry is the one I think of who hit an obsession with the American car and then there's so many songs you know Eddie Cochran I'm gonna get that car this car is gonna make all the difference and you see it

this obsession with cars and you've always loved these old cars and you love them and you wrote this song that really speaks to me because it's it's called Chevrolet and you're talking about you still have you say this car is talking to me you see this car yeah it's got like the it's got the pearl gloss on on the old steering wheel and it's god this car looks good and I love the line it's really talking to me this car and then you start thinking huh that's gonna burn a lot of fuel and yeah it's the first time that this old really one of the age-old obsessions in in rock and roll and Chevrolet is a rock and

crunchy song you plugged in but you're talking about this dilemma now and you're not being negative you're just saying huh well this is interesting what do I do about this yeah I've converted my Buick I have a Buick straight 8 it's being converted right now to run on e100 ethanol so I can run the same car mm-hmm and the conversion is not ridiculously expensive I can have a car like that and a clean conscience about what I'm burning so the ethanol it's natural yeah and does it have a there've been times where people have told me you can drive a car and you know I once heard that I don't know if it's true but like Willie

Nelson had a tour bus or something that ran on you know biofuel biodiesel some kind of biodiesel but that if you were behind it along with the other fumes that follow Willie's bus you would smell you could smell like freshly cooked popcorn because that was the scent that was in the air and I thought that's kind of nice yeah that's where they got it but it's a good it's a good thing but the real good thing is unlike electricity there's an infrastructure in place everywhere that can distribute this and the cars are there and some of the old cars are capable of becoming this mm-hmm so it's not like something that can't

happen it's something that can happen and will happen more frequently yeah I think so people doing it together though as soon as other people realize that this is a good thing and it's not this is a good thing oh look at me I'm good no it's like look what we're up against yep we are up against it you know and we don't we don't get that feeling yet because our leaders have not all gotten on the same station at the same time and stood together and told us yeah they may never actually they may never that that may not be part of the the modern that may not be the job description no that's not what what's happening so far

yeah I don't count anybody out I think I think there are our possibility of great leaders yeah I do too they tend to come along when we need the most I hope so and I'm just thinking through history and wait a minute no they don't forget what I said that was screwy you know I've been thinking a lot and it's not just not just me but my my good friend and associate Jim Pitt who's been working with me since the beginning we started with me in 93 working on what kind of music we wanted to explore and what we wanted the philosophy our philosophy to be of putting new stuff out there and taking chances and we were

talking a lot about your work and one of the things that was coming to mind so much is there's a lot of yearning a lot of looking back in your work from the very beginning and it's been a theme of getting back to some place getting to something that evokes strong feelings for you whether it's a place that you you know in in helpless whether it's whether it's a time in your life it feels like it's a theme you've been working through so we had the notion that maybe would ask you if you go back to your youth or there are a couple of songs that spoke to you that were evocative of something and you gave us a couple yeah

I gave you a few there yeah and if you're if you're cool with it I'd love to play them right now we'll take you down we should play them memory Lane the first one is four strong wins by Ian and Sylvia do you remember where you were when you heard this song for the first time or no but I loved it so much that I would you know put nickels and dimes in the jukebox to play it over and over and over again till I didn't have any change I just stand there in front of it and play and listen to it was a beautiful song for some reason it really really got to me and I could feel the magic of the music let's take you

back you're you're a kid at this point when you're hearing this song I guess I'm probably 11 11 okay or something like that maybe a little older I'm not sure but I would say you're 12 I'm just gonna throw that out there cuz we're gonna pick a date and you're 12 years old and where are you living in Winnipeg you living in Winnipeg and I was and I was I heard the song before but I I was at Falcon Lake a place that's near Winnipeg kind of just a lake with you can pitch tents around it sure so we had our tent my friend Jack and I who played drums in the Squires my first band and we were we were out there and I would

find I found this thing on the jukebox in the restaurant let's give it a listen just play it that's a beautiful song that's quite a song yeah would it that's not the original version that I heard them do though because that's stereo right okay that was mono when I was listening to right into a jukebox mix in a jukebox yeah so it's more jangly guitars and what do you think when you hear it now does it take you right back there eventually it at first it disturbed me a little because it was stereo and it wasn't where I had gone in my head when I was talking about it so I but because I have a memory of it

that's so strong but the music is there and it's it's that's it's it got there and I can hear her singing and him singing and the whole thing I'm still seems a little I don't know if this is the version they may have even re-recorded it for stereo because they may have sang it all on one mic and done everything together and mono first time so when that song came out and you heard and it's a popular song and it's a hit and it's great and he's saying I'm going to Alberta was there some part of you that was like this this well it's it this resonates he's talking about where I'm from he's talking about my country

and this is a hit on the radio that must have been powerful it was great you know it's nice to hear one of the other provinces you know could easily have been Manitoba or Saskatchewan nothing rhymes with Manitoba or Saskatchewan Alberta wins again no wait Saskatchewan moving on we got that yeah so you know so there's another song you gave us which is by someone I didn't wasn't familiar with gogi Grant oh yeah I just wasn't I didn't know of her this is a song I used to hear when I was going to school I think I was in grade three or grade four mm-hmm it couldn't be more than grade four I think it was great for

and so I heard this song and I for some reason I associate it with the school and the highway and the railroad tracks going behind the school yeah and the whole thing and again it's something I heard on the radio when I was I never had a record of it or anything right you just had to wait yeah just wait for it to come around and then it would play and you'd hear it I remember those days well I remember hoping a song I liked would come on the radio and sometimes catching it halfway through yeah right and very hard to explain that to my son and my daughter now right they don't you used to have to hope that you would

catch something rather than I can have it instantly have it instantly but it's not the same as the one that you had to wait for right because it was all there yes and the the way it was coming through the air and the radio was all there everything was there sonically much different from today the the song the wayward wind you covered this yeah yeah I did I covered I might have I don't know if I love that you said I think I didn't know I because I I know I did four strong winds mm-hmm I don't think I did the wayward wind but I almost did it on old ways okay but I I don't think I did it I'd have to go back and check well if

you'd like to do it I'll split the publishing with you we can do that for sure that'll be great I can't wait to hear that can I say something that's an oral contract and that's gonna hold up in court it will I love you're just laughing through this oh yeah bring it on Irish you try that all right let's check it out the wayward wind by gogi Grant that's beautiful song she's got an amazing voice yes she's something else yeah was she was she from Philly is that Philadelphia yeah yeah there you go see something good came out of Philadelphia yeah that was

good that in the Constitution yeah that's right you know it's funny cuz you talk about I was thinking about your in the time that I've known you it was such a big deal to me when you when you came on my program you did a residency there for a week and it just meant the world to all of us and was very important and one of the things that was so cool is that you weren't someone who did a lot of things like that so it had a lot of meaning you weren't someone that was always out there on television so it really had a great weight for me and for you Jim and for everybody at the show and it was a it was a big deal and

then I find out that you had done some television back in the 60s and some of it maybe against your will because you're with Buffalo Springfield was pretty wild you're in an episode of Manics that's right it is one of the craziest things Manics a detective show with Mike Connors and he comes into a he comes into a bar to check out the scene and in the background is Buffalo Springfield you guys are playing but the camera doesn't even focus on you guys and this pardon I'm sort of an anger any Manics fans out there but this kind of run-of-the-mill 60s show is going on that no one watches anymore and the real

story is in the background do you remember that at all do you ever be in there yeah there were a couple of those we did I remember that one whose idea was let's get Buffalo Springfield oh that was oh I don't know yeah I don't know but I know that our managers thought this was a great opportunity right to move into television did you ever notice it you know we're kind of far back all the actions happening up front we are 50 feet away from the cameras you know I don't think we even looked at it that's the thing as we just kept going right it's like as we don't watch you know I didn't watch Manics right I was not a

Manics fan okay we're breaking but I do know what Manics looked like yes I can picture the show I've seen it yeah you know he had yeah he was oh he's he was always jumping out of his car just before it crashed I think that was his move he was I think in a Mustang and it was always he would always it was about to go off the cliff because they had you know fixed his brakes or something I think I don't know how he got reinsured after the 35th crash but I was watching and there's and it's funny because the 60s in particular is a time I'm fascinated by it because there's such a culture clash TV's been pretty much

more or less the same for a long time just an extension of radio same old guys writing it cranking it out and then suddenly the world changes 63 64 65 everything's changing and I love watching there was a show that you did was it the what's the Hollywood Palace the Hollywood Palace oh yeah the Hollywood Palace and and you guys are great right I mean you guys are it's I can't remember what they played on the Hollywood Palace was it we did mr. soul mr. soul yeah yeah that's right you didn't start it with for what it's worth yeah what it's worth and mr. soul and then you switched in and it's a it's well the tape

switched in they taped this whole thing you know yeah it was the record and so you were playing along to the record but was there any live aspect to it there might have been some live singing yeah I feel like your vocals and your solo were live well they were why I watched it in your solo feels live oh good and the bass player was look in the other way yeah yeah that's because he wasn't there so we had to use our road manager looking the other way so there's a guy who's the emcee and this is the part I love and he comes out and he's it's very what kind of borscht belt old-school show business I I'm not sure who it is

but he comes out and he goes next we got Buffalo Springfield these guys these guys of me had so many hits in the last year made so much money they could buy Buffalo and Springfield and you're like what you guys have to just all right and you can just think there's like some 55 year old writers in the back oh yeah give us a joke for Buffalo Springfield yeah what's what the fuck is that that's right they had to have it but you know we didn't again Conan we didn't even notice yeah yeah we don't yeah man that stuff never even had never even got on our screen right because we were just we did a TV show it's like we went to Mars

exactly and then we left Mars that's what it looks like and I and I think it's it's it looks like okay we've entered this world that you kind of have to show up at you know and so as yourself we're gonna yeah we're gonna show up and we're gonna do this and but we're entering a world that's I mean I remember watching you guys on the Buffalo Springfield on the Smothers Brothers and again it was great it was an amazing performance you guys gave but they kept doing cutaways to Tommy Smothers doing bits while you're doing for what it's worth yeah and I thought huh I don't know about that that's television yeah that's a pretty

heavy song yeah I don't want people to think about that but he says like they went Steven's things like there's a man with a gun over there they cut to Tommy Smothers holding a gun and the audience laughs and I'm thinking yeah I don't know I don't know if this is wasn't genius Conan it wasn't genius really I thought all television comedy was genius you know you did you know one of the things I you did a the Johnny Cash show and that was cool and I would imagine that I mean there's a guy that's a very different situation where you're being invited on of this massive American Stars TV show but also he's someone who you would

really respect yeah yeah no I really like Johnny Cash was he nice to you was there you know hardly even got to speak to him really but that's okay he was busy yeah he was it was the Johnny Cash show yeah you got to realize in our eyes doing this I'm what 23 years old right I'm going on a television show I was petrified yeah so I was gonna thinking about the song I was gonna sing was I gonna screw it up or not and that's all I thought about yeah so I really don't remember much else about it right well it's funny because one of the songs that you picked is a Johnny Cash song oh yeah and again this is a ballad of a teenage

Queen what did this song mean to you when does this enter your radar all right in the 50s there about the same time as I was talking was I was talking about the the wayward wind and the other song four strong winds four strong winds was after the wayward wind was sooner and this song was sooner than the wayward wind back farther in my life I've been maybe great two great three and this is what I was thinking about is that you are a storyteller you like you I think better than just about anybody you tell a great story when you're in your songs and this is the classic story song this is Johnny Cash telling us the tale of

the teenage beauty Queen so let's give it a listen see where it takes you ballad of a teenage Queen by the great Johnny Cash what do you think hold up hold up for you oh yeah yeah definitely man I I got up I mean that's a couple things I need to say about that song I love that song it's so great when is that happened that a woman's left town made it big in Hollywood and then said I'm gonna give up all my money and go back to the boy who works at the candy store three one show me one example of that happening in history and I'll back off yeah I just I had heard that song before but when you

mentioned it I went back and was listening to it and those I don't know we don't know who this doing the backup vocals I don't know if it sounds like it could it could it be the Jordan airs or is it just I think it's the I think it's the I thought it was the Tennessee to yeah they sound good yeah they do sound good but there might been someone else singing with them too yeah had the girl singing the high voice going through the whole thing yeah yeah that's but that's such a I mean that sounded like the record that I was remembering when I wrote it down right that that's what the sound is and the other two songs sounded

kind of like that that one was an original I think right close anyway same vibe I feel like it would be a blessing and a curse to have your ear because I don't pick that stuff apart necessarily but you hear it and if it's in stereo it's been remixed you're like I'm out well I'm different I'm going when they did that mm-hmm what else did they do things are different they have more room for the bass and more of thread spread things around so it's not for me it's the it's the feeling of the mix the feeling of the song the more immediate it was the closer to the original one yeah and then you feel the song in the

essence of it and then as things get modified and changed you you get farther away from that so that's that's all I'm missing it's not so much the mix or one thing or another but it's the essence of the song that comes from the original yeah it's funny when I hear songs from that period of my life that are evocative to me and actually some of them yours it's like I take I go right to usually hearing it through you know our Pontiac station wagon you know system analog radio that's how I heard 99% of our music we weren't allowed to mess with my dad's record player because he had like a nice record player so I mean we

could some but mostly I'm hearing stuff on the radio and that was how I experienced everything and so I associate a lot of these songs now with being in a car and moving yeah and it's it's interesting how that affects how you then later on hear the song yeah it because when it's way back there in your life and you have this memory it's vivid and who knows what you do with it in all those years you may have enhanced it you may have it may be exactly the way it was or maybe maybe you know it just may be different in some way because when you have a thought for so long and you remember a memory it becomes more than

just that over time so that's why when you go back sometimes it's not like you thought it was gonna be right I you're that great no I was thinking did I scary with my glasses no they don't know that's good it's a bold statement my glasses yeah it is it's a kind of a Clark can you see through those absolutely not I didn't think so you're gone now you're just a you're a smear you're a smear I see a smear and a floating hat radios saved us again there's a big business for radio in the future trust me it's not lost on me that people are very happy that I got off TV and into radio I know it is happening but also

there's an implied insult there which is so nice to hear you and not see your goddamn face it's the future radios the future that's where we're gonna hear what music is yeah because you can broadcast what people love about vinyl over the radio and this and the transmitters are still in the top of all the old buildings around different towns so a new radio station could come along and broadcast in analog so everybody got vinyl quality all you need is the right radio to pick it up with which is a fortune-making thing that any investment so be great if you busted out your product right now

started talking it you know the analog radio you know it's so funny cuz thinking about your work and all of it what with the new record with with world record and I know that now it's the harvest 50th and just everything going back to the beginning there's that great Walt Whitman line where he says I contain multitudes and that comes to mind when I think about your music because you do soft acoustic so well that when I'm listening to that I forget about your other side it's it pulls me in so much I think you know this is Neil Young but then you go over to hey hey my my rocking on the free world like a hurricane

you just this stuff that makes me forget about the other genre and to be able to do both with that kind of intensity blows my mind it really does and I was thinking you know when I was listening to your other selections I was thinking okay I can see the the softer Neil here and then you gave us baby what you want me to do right and I thought here we're seeing the other side of you a little bit you know when did you first this is Jimmy Reed yeah and when when are you hearing this song why this had to be right around when he wrote it mm-hmm put the 50s early 60s mm-hmm and it's very I mean it is so simple blues great what's

so great about it because it is I don't know what simple and real yeah and it's honest and it's it is what it is mm-hmm he's not trying to impress anybody that's not there yeah that's cool and it's been covered by everybody everybody I mean it was it's a rite of passage yeah it's a great song great song let's explore the burblings of this other side of Neil baby what you want me to do but Jimmy Reed holding up for you yeah oh yeah it's so funny because I was thinking and I'm just that he's doing yeah yeah yeah and this is a song that was huge for any

British invasion band Rolling Stones cover it and you know everybody knows it but I know when the Beatles show up in 64 and they're saying yeah yeah yeah everyone's saying the hell is that it's Jimmy Reed I think unless it's someone else that I'm not thinking of I don't know but it's just when he goes yeah yeah yeah I don't know if that's happened before maybe it has smarter person than I will figure it out well if such a person exists there's no proof there's an out some people looking but they never came back yeah I don't know what happened to him you know in this is one of the you did a concert for the BBC and

I think was 71 mm-hmm and it's great but you said something off the cuff there's a there's a it's terrific you can you can see it and I think it's part of a harvest 50th catalog but it's just you just say it off but it struck me because it's very you you're playing these songs that are all going to become classics but this audience hasn't heard them before yeah and you're in London and you're playing and they're a nice crowd but at one point you say how you all doing and they go they don't go they you know they go like yeah yeah good you know good they're polite English people listening to new songs from this man

and they're like yeah yeah it's good yeah good and you went yeah yeah I can tell that you you're sensing that they're fine but they're not and you go yeah yeah well must be that they're new songs and then you say but that's what's happening and I love that because that release and then you don't try to be funny you just say yeah but that's what's happening and then you proceed to you know play a song that will become a classic but they don't know it yet and what struck me about that is that to me that's the philosophy you have to have whether it's in music or comedy which is your job is not to try and figure out what they want

and make them happy you've got to do what you're gonna do that and this is what's happening yeah and then on the on the new record on world record there's a clip of you and someone in your someone is talking to you I don't know if it's Rick Rubin or someone's talking to you and says man this one you got a lyric here about every you know I take every breath and I feel like I'm doing a dance a dance with death it's about COVID and and he says man that's really dark and you wouldn't you go fuck them they don't have to buy it that has to be the way it is you know what I mean that has to be you're

echoing what you're saying in 71 in London now with world record you're saying I think that song is break the chain you're saying I'm driving this bus you might not like where we're going you're welcome to get off if you don't like where we're going and I believe in that philosophy I think that's the way it has to be if you're trying to be it sounds high-falutin but if you're trying to be an artist that's what you have to do yeah it's easy I mean if as long as you do that and then you feel good about it too no matter what you're doing you feel good about it because you're doing it the way you want to do

it right and that's a good thing yeah and it feels like you've had times too where you've had this enormous success and people really love the music and then there's part of you that's like how do I how do I crank the wheel here and get them off my trail I really got it all right you follow me this far I'm gonna go I'm gonna take this thing this old jalopy up the side of this muddy hill right and challenge them a little bit yeah well every once in a while they if they all go the other way yeah and that's a that's a good thing you like that that's fine yeah you know it's just that I went somewhere I'll come back

probably yeah it doesn't matter the thing is did we do what we wanted to do yes because that's what we're supposed to be doing yes yeah you know we don't want to do what they want us to do that's not what they're looking for really right right no they don't know what they want they that's the other thing so I think that's kind of the magic of it there's this last song which we have to get to because I don't know if you rock ability is I don't know why because I'm a suburban Irish Catholic kid from Boston but rock ability is in my DNA Jim you've seen it oh yeah all I wanted to ever do was grow my hair up it's where

the pompadour came from grow my sideburns out and play train kept a rolling or any rock ability song if I could do that for a living you'd never see me in comedy again that's a promise to people out there if I could make one dime doing that I would do it I thought I knew every rock ability great classic and then you come up with this rock ability song I've never heard of before by a guy I had heard of I had heard of Ronnie's self because he's yeah kind of a legend in England not from England but they just they care the British care more about our really good roots music I think often or for a period anyway more

than we did they value it they value it and rock ability I so I didn't know about Ronnie's self who I guess had kind of a it never came together for him and he died I think at like 40 or 41 so it never quite happened but this song blows my mind yeah it's great I used to hear it when I was 11 years old or 10 or nine or something in my bedroom at night from WLS in Chicago on the 8 on the transmitter from Chicago to Winnipeg or to where I know to Toronto that's where I close to Toronto a place called Pickering I was living there in this house and it was the same place where I all the other songs that I've

told you about came from except for the wayward the wayward wind or the four strong winds the Indian and Soviet song that came from later in life but all these four songs came from that one area and and and this one I couldn't believe it I could pick it up but I they seemed to play at the same time almost every night so I would be in bed and I have my little transistor radio tuned into this and I'd hear this thing and I got God that is insane no it's not also I can't imagine hearing this song and then trying to go to sleep I know especially the last verse yeah of this it's insanely great he just you can you can

tell you know he's totally got possessed yeah amazing and this track blows my mind and I'm so happy that you brought this to my attention I played this earlier today I came in and I said to Eduardo give me bop Alina loud and we were in this room and he turned it up all the way and I stood there and I was shaking like a leaf on a tree as they say I just was I was doing the St. Vitus dance I couldn't I couldn't believe it so let's listen to and you got to turn up the volume on this yeah yeah let's do it yeah all right bop Alina Ronnie so man god damn it if they asked for a take after that I'd have killed everybody can

you imagine that was pretty good Ronnie let's have one more let's have one more yeah that you first of all I think that comes out in 56 is that before a little Richard I mean it's it's totally right around the same right around the same time totally channeling that energy it is it's absolute abandon and madness and also impossible to fake you can't fake that got to be there for that he's so there and then the end of that he's totally just goes you know he is he is taken over by the devil he and I one of my favorites of all time is Ronnie Hawkins version of 40 days and I just love always grabbed me I used to play

that a lot with my guys because it's so fast and then I ran into Robbie Robertson somewhere and I'm like you know I play 40 days it's so it's man it's so fast he's like yeah we were all on a lot of pills oh okay well at least I know what the prescription is if I want to replicate that yeah I don't know what was in this guy Ronnie self but God bless him that was amazing and the background vocalists they were crazy yeah so when you hear this music we've listened to these tunes now I think one of the things that inspires me most about you is that you keep you keep re I don't say reinventing

yourself but you keep coming back with like new growth on the tree you keep coming back with something else to offer and that's very inspiring to me and I'm wondering if like hearing these old songs does that is that inspire you in any way like well these songs got to me when I first heard him when I was just a kid so and that I never forgot Bopalina I never forgot that I was just going okay that's out there that exists and you can go there anytime that you're ready to yes and you got to be with the right people and gotta be everything's got to be right then you can get there and it's I just love that kind of music and but

it's it's so radically different from my other music that I am sometimes people can't go they can't go both places right and that's yeah well you've done you know it's like we talked about this once before but bearish repeating that I was in the as I was in studio 8h when you did keep on rocking in the free world as was Jim and I tell anybody tell me anybody because Lauren Michaels as he's saying television is the worst way to experience music and I think he's usually right except you and the guys did something happen that night something was good yeah something was not just good was transcendent and punched through

the television and I thought well okay I'm on the floor at 8h I'm a kid I'm in my 20s I'm watching you do that and the place you just melted it you just I think there was structural damage to 30 and it's never been quite repaired and I was blown away by that performance and then go online and find out that people who weren't there who just saw it on TV feel the same way so when it it did punch through yeah did punch through yeah I remembered that I you can't tell when that's going to happen but it was very focused the band was very good and everyone was establishing themselves in a relationship with each other there's

was four guys who never played together I played with poncho and crazy horse but Steve and and Charlie had never played with they played with each other but they'd never played with us and to God though it was just so good and then we got in the studio we played a couple of times then when we went somehow when we got to Broadway video and we had our own dressing room then look they'd completely dismantled the dressing room between poncho and Steve and Charlie it completely it was you know and then the staff came in and they were looked at it and I was like what you know what the hell is going on yeah I mean they

were they couldn't believe it but to these it was like a rock and roll myth you know you crash you trash your dressing room yeah okay yeah it's the key so these guys trash this dressing room yeah and I'm going okay well that's a rock and roll that's a that's a moment but it seemed to be establishing itself and no matter where we went at those kind of things kept happening like we're supposed to run down rocking in the free world for the run for the run through and we did fucking up instead yeah and didn't didn't tell anybody we just did that because you didn't want to you didn't want to spend that no

point on the rehearsal show no but the fucking up that we did is really good yeah I was a good one I think we have that but I mean I don't think you that's interesting because I don't think you that you to do it to do keep on rockin at the dress rehearsal you might not have been able to get there for there is no rehearsal you know so we threw a song away that wasn't going to be in the study and didn't tell him what's gonna be so we didn't we didn't sacrifice it yeah just didn't think NBC would be okay with fucking up you sort of knew they wouldn't it's good thing you had that in your back pocket yeah that's a

good one for that I always think whenever if someone ever puts a video camera in my face if I'm on the street and starts to ask me a question I don't want to answer I'll just start singing an unclearable song by Led Zeppelin and be like look if you guys can clear that you can go ahead and hear my comments but I might do that if I'm ever forced to testify in front of the Senate there is so much goodness you brought so much more goodness into the world world record is the new album and I do love it and I do love how optimistic it is who is this on the cover that's my dad is that your dad yeah that's my dad that's

a good-looking that's a good-looking serious man there's a serious good-looking dad it was a writer and I was writing for the Toronto Globe and Mail at that time wow did he approve of your musical aspirations not quite as much as my mom did yeah my mom was totally supportive and got me everything I would go to the wall you get you know anything that I needed yep and so I was able to make enough money playing and then getting help from her to get amplifiers and stuff like that right right well remember the big thing between my mom and dad about who's gonna pay for this amp you know you know he's got to have the

amp wow you cannot not have an amp you have to have you know so I was looking at this I'm paying echo twin and another fender tremolochs or something anyway ultimately we got the amps I feel like you would have gotten them one way or the other we were we and I knew where they were yeah you would case the joint and harvest 50th anniversary edition if you don't have this all I can say is you're a fool it is brilliantly done it's a beautiful job thank you you know it's it's a moment in time so we just happen to have footage of all of it and recordings of the outtakes and all that

stuff you know we put it all in there and I also before we wrap up I just want to I'm excited that barn the film has been nominated for Grammy isn't that interesting when that happened now and this thing comes out and we're playing in a barn and it's 50 years ago yeah there's almost the same shots you can see the car camera comes in through the barn door and the band is playing and there's so many similarities and then scenery shots of outside yeah both places and it's a 50 year difference it's kind of interesting it's funny I was watching barn and I was thinking it it's beautifully done and and I'm glad

that it's been recognized one of the things that just to me isn't you know seems counterintuitive is you can see daylight coming through the slats in the barn yeah and I'm thinking is this a good place to record is this it looks cool had great air well you know what you should do and if we can get if we can it's nice you to come back sometime for the next project you'll see that this room will be made of old cedar with and there'll be a lot of wind blowing through a lot of manure on the floor yeah yeah we're gonna go the Neil Young route good yeah and it's just gonna be a horrible Eduardo get on this get those fans out

there blowing the air through here Neil it is one of the great privileges of my life and I've had a lucky life so that is really saying something but to get to hang with you anytime is magical for me and I appreciate your positive cool courageous spirit thank you so much for doing this it really means a lot thank you man I appreciate it I'm glad that you got this record and I hope people get to hear it this is so much I put out too much stuff you know I put out harvest at almost the same time as I put this out right so it's like the record people ever say no no no come on hold on hold on hold on this and then let's wait six

months and then yeah yeah well no as have a lot of stuff to quote you in 1971 this is what's happening yeah that's right so all right God bless thanks man thank everybody thank you so much Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorely produced by me Matt Gorely executive produced by Adam Sacks Joanna Solotarov and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf theme song by the White Stripes incidental music by Jimmy Vivino take it away Jimmy our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer samples engineering by Eduardo

Perez additional production support by Mars Melnik talent booking by Paula Davis Gina Batista and Britt Kahn you can rate and review this show on Apple podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode got a question for Conan call the team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message it too could be featured on a future episode and if you haven't already please subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a friend on Apple podcasts stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are down this has been a team Coco production in association with EWOLF