‘Barn’ Finds Neil Young And Crazy Horse Refusing To Grow Old Gracefully 

Growing old gracefully has always been a problem for aging rockers. First generation heroes like Chuck Berry had the advantage of already being men when they struck rock n’ roll gold, while Elvis avoided the conundrum by dying at 42 (for perspective, that’s two years younger than Kanye West is now). For Neil Young, the answer seems to be “To hell with growing old gracefully.” One of rock’s great curmudgeons, even in his youth, the 76-year-old has no interest in riding into the sunset or turning down his amp. Just this week, he pulled his music off Spotify to protest what he believes to be misinformation about the Covid vaccine spread on the streaming services’ flagship podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, saying, “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

While his contemporaries retire or rest on their past glory, Young continues to pump out new music at a steady pace. In December 2021, he released his 41st album, Barn. The album was recorded with Crazy Horse, the storied backing band Young breaks out of jail — or, these days, the retirement home — whenever he wants to return to his safe space in the mud. Barn the documentary, subtitled Neil Young & Crazy Horse – A Band A Brotherhood A Barn, chronicles the album’s creation and was directed by Young’s wife, the actress Daryl Hannah. Originally only available on the AARP Members Only Access service (I shit you not), it snuck its way onto YouTube last week where it is available for free streaming. At an hour and 14 minutes, it features the band performing and recording under a full moon in an old barn on Young’s Colorado property.   

Though Neil Young’s artistic output includes films and books and forays into other genres, his best work is all of a piece which reaches back to 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. It’s rough hewn and hand-made and centered around Young’s creaky vocals and crunchy guitars as sweet as the crystallized honey at the bottom of an old jar in the back of your grandmother’s cupboard. Young knows what he likes; old guitars, old amps and analog recording equipment. The recording of Barn is similarly old school; the band records the songs live, sometimes while they’re still learning them. Longtime Young producer Niko Bolas says working with Young means having to be prepared for anything at all times.

The barn is old and weathered, like the musicians themselves, rebuilt but hardly refurbished. Light peaks through the timber logs that make up its walls while rugs hang over the entranceway, keeping out the draft while letting the sound escape. One can work up a good sweat playing loud, passionate rock n’ roll, but I imagine you can still feel the cold inside the barn when the wind comes off the side of the Rocky Mountains seen in the distance. Shaggy dogs sleep in the doorway and a bottle of tequila rests atop a piano. The band members drink undisclosed liquids out of mason jars and piss outside.  

Besides Young, Crazy Horse includes drummer Ralph Molina, bassist Billy Talbot, and Nils Lofgren, who plays guitar but is also pretty nice on the piano. Lofgren, the youngest at 70, also plays with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Molina busts his balls about it. The band has an easy camaraderie, which probably benefits from their on-again, off-again status. They sport funny, frumpy hats, tattered jeans and jackets that look warm and practical. All their clothing looks like it could use a good wash. They’re just about the coolest looking rock band I’ve seen in 25 years.    

Neil Young and Crazy Horse aren’t always loud, but they do loud very fucking well. The album and film’s most exciting moments find them kicking out the jams and raging against environmental disaster, political ignorance, moral indifference, and the cruelties of age. “Today no one cares,” Young rails in “Human Race” as a hard rain falls outside, before asking, “Who’s gonna save the human race?” If the lyrics are simplistic and lack grace, there’s also an emotional truth in their anger and frustration. 

Other songs, sweeter songs, speak of love and memory. In the best of them, “They Might Be Lost,” Young sings, “The jury is out on the old days, you know, the judgment is soon coming down, I can’t quite remember what it was that I knew…,” the lyrics trailing off like he forgot what he was going to say and for all the viewer knows, maybe he did. Is every song great? No, though the 8-minute minor key lament “Welcome Back” rates with his best, as Young and Lofgren bounce distorted chord structures off each other which sound utterly new and relevant no matter how familiar they are.  

Hannah’s simple direction is as unencumbered by overthinking as the music itself. The band is shot mostly dead on, facing out as if they were on stage, or from angles that share more in common with security camera footage than cinema. The lone artistic flourishes are time lapse filming of the ripples on a pond outside under the daytime sun and the stars and moon crossing the sky at night. Barn the album and Barn the film are a matched set, presenting heartfelt music at the moment of inspiration, and documentary film making in its truest sense, recording the events as they happen. 

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter: @BHSmithNYC.