Icewind's Ramblings

On Aug. 15 to 17, 1969, (and into the 18 th ) hundreds of thousands of people, me among them, gathered in a lovely natural amphitheater in Bethel (not Woodstock ), New York . It was the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in upstate New York officially billed as “Aquarian Exposition” in White Lake , NY . New York was foreign to me at the time, worlds away from a typical southern boy’s existence growing up in Atlanta during the 60’s civil rights movement and all of the national chaos going on around the country during those times. I was just a funny kid with places to see and things to do in what I now, years later have jokingly called the series of my travels, “Looking for America ”. Gasoline was cheap back then at fifty cents a gallon so three boyhood friends were going to make the trek from Atlanta , Georgia to a farm in New York State . Steve Nash, Stuart Morris and I planned to leave three days before the concert started s...

I heard this Neil Young song today and it brought back many thoughts. I have always been intrigued by the lyrics and the possible meanings from which Neil was writing at the time. In different interviews over the years he has said he has no idea and probably was from whatever he was taking at the time (drugs or high fever?). I have always looked at the song from the perspective of past, present, and future. As time has progressed from 1970 until now its possible meanings have also changed when I think about it. I’m going to give you three versions of the song and with each, if you take the time to listen, will bring with it something different. The imagery throughout the song is haunting in one sense, a past from medieval times and the pageantry, painting pictures of a possible lost planet in another, and possibly new beginnings at the end. Either way great music from a long ago time that still impacts the listener if you can stop and take the ti...