by Neil Young
Walking along the road the same way from school every day, we were pretty predictable. There was a guy who lived in a house on our road, and he started waving to us from his front steps as we walked by. After passing him a few times, we waved back. One day, he asked us to come in. Curious as ever, we accepted and went inside the house. He sat us down in his living room in a big circle like we were at a meeting and told us he was going to teach us something he called “whacking off.” He unzipped his pants and pulled out his pecker. Then he began. He encouraged us all to do the same thing. So we did. We never got the results he did. He said you had to use your imagination, or something to that effect.
The whole thing took a bit too long and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. We all agreed he was weird and we never went back, at least I know I didn’t. I never told my mom and dad about it, either, and we made a pact that it would just be our own little secret. Every day when we walked by after that, we just kept going straight ahead and walked on, never looking over at that house again.
While we were living on Brock Road, we got a brand-new record player. It was a Seabreeze, and I think it was my mom who got it. It had a rectangular shape with a lid that opened on the top and three control knobs on the outside. There was a cloth on the front that had some shiny metallic threads in it and a speaker behind it. The finish was a blond wood, and I remember how excited my mother became because she had found a cabinet that matched it perfectly, a wonderful place to store all of her old records by Lena Horne and Satchmo. She loved those records. She arranged all the furniture so the record player was the center of attention.
My own 78 rpm record collection began there at Brock Road and consisted of Jerry Lee Lewis, Larry Williams, Little Richard, Elvis, and a few others. Rock and roll was just in its infancy when I played those records in the house alone, pretending I was singing those songs while I stood in front of a mirror, the Seabreeze blasting at full volume. I sang the songs right along with the singer and played my own imaginary guitar, making all my Elvis moves and soaking up the wild applause I was hearing in my head. I imagined I was winning some talent contest. I only did that when no one else was around; those moments alone in the house when Mom and Dad had gone out and Bob was at a high school dance or something. That Seabreeze had a magical transporting sound, and I would look forward to being left all alone in the house with my dreams.
Well, come along my baby, whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.
Yeah, come along my baby, we really got the bull by the horns.
We ain’t fakin’.
Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.
—JERRY LEE LEWIS, “WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’ GOING ON”
We were all very happy to be out of the city, with a lot of land behind our house like we used to have in Omemee, but Daddy had a job working at Orenda Engines near Toronto. He had to drive to work every day and was gone a lot. Orenda made the engine for a famous Canadian plane of the time, the Avro Arrow, a delta-winged interceptor aircraft that was touted to be superior to its American counterpart, the F-35. Daddy was a public relations assistant to the vice president, or something like that. That is the only time I can remember him doing something other than writing for a living and I imagine it was not that great for him. I guess sometimes his stories just didn’t sell.
Daddy sold his 1954 Monarch and got a 1956 Volkswagen shortly after we moved out to Pickering. It was fun to ride with him in it because it was small and we were close together. My mom had to have something to drive since my dad was gone so much in the city. For the first time, we were a two-car family! The little Volkswagen parked in our gravel driveway with my mother’s 1950 Ford coupe.
One birthday, I guess it was my eleventh, I got a plastic Arthur Godfrey ukulele. It had a picture of Arthur Godfrey right on it, with some musical notes. With its nylon strings to tune to the little whistle that came with it and an instruction booklet full of chords, I was ready to go. One day, getting nowhere, I was trying to play it in the backyard when Daddy came out and said something about showing me some old songs. I was dumbfounded when he started to play and sing “Bury Me out on the Prairie.” I had never heard him sing or play and didn’t even know he knew how to play. I knew Uncle Bob played uke and piano and sang; we had all sat around listening to him and my girl cousins, but not Daddy, and there he was, singing and playing great. He looked so different; so light and happy. I will never forget it. I learned a few chords from him and started to learn to play myself. That was my beginning in music, that and the Seabreeze. I never saw my dad play again, though. I don’t know why. There was some reason I didn’t understand.
In 1956, Daddy got simultaneous jobs with the Globe and Mail newspaper and also on TV! That was very exciting. He was hosting Hockey Night in Canada’s intermission program, The Hot Stove League, every Saturday night. Those two jobs returned him to the kind of work he loved, writing and sports. Of course, for our family that meant another move. It also meant more money than we had ever had before.
1956 Monarch Richelieu
CHAPTER SIX
hen we moved back to Toronto, our new house was at 49 Old Orchard Grove in North York. I checked into school at John Wanless Public School, a beautiful old brick-and-cement four-story building between Fairlawn and Brookdale Avenues, with a huge playground surrounded by a fence. I finished the last few weeks of grade seven there and then went for a full year, completing grade eight. I was then ready for high school at Lawrence Park Collegiate. Probably all that early moving around is why I am so happy traveling now. A lot of the kids I knew in school were reluctant to move. I always liked to go to new places, so that didn’t scare me at all.
During this time, my dad did something quite unusual and different. He purchased a very cool and deluxe car, a 1956 Monarch two-door hardtop convertible. It was an attractive and sporty design with no post between the windows, so when they were down there was an openness. I was an avid follower of all the car designs, fascinated by every new twist and turn. When my father purchased this car it was the first time we had ever had a car that was more than just a standard sedan or coupe. This really got my attention. Perhaps he was rewarding himself for all of the success he was enjoying. It was a very big and stylish car, a statement, new in every way! I was thinking to myself, Wow! Daddy has a cool car. This is really something.
Life in the city rolled on. I had only a few friends at my new school. I never really had a lot of close friends anywhere we lived, though, usually just one or two. One I met was Brian (Bunny) Stuart, who lived one block over from Old Orchard Grove. He was into sports and I was into music and cars, but somehow we related really well and he became my best friend there at old John Wanless Public School. We spent a lot of time together, and I got to know his family well and spent many hours at his house. His brother had a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne. I knew that the Impala was the nicest Chevrolet model that year, but that Biscayne of his brother’s was really sharp. Every time I visited Bunny’s house, I checked it out thoroughly when it was parked in the driveway, imagining the differences between it and the Impala. The Impala had a very sexy treatment over the rear window and more taillights than the Biscayne.
I missed my dad. He was in and out of our house and was writing in an apartment in the city a lot. I would always look for the big Monarch in the driveway when I came back from school in the afternoon, but it wasn’t there much.
At noon hour, I would regularly stop by another friend’s house where I could listen to some records. I don’t remember his name, but music was always playing at his house and I really liked that. Every afternoon after school we would gather there to watch American Bandstand on TV. I couldn’t wait to get to that part of the day! Dick Clark gave us the music news as Conway Twitty and Johnny Burnette served up hits along with Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Jack Scott, the Kalin Twins, Marty Robbins, and several others. Music was taking up most of my spare time as my interests were all starting to revolve arou
nd it.
Once you told me long ago,
To the prom with me you’d go.
Now you’ve changed your mind it seems.
Someone else will have my dreams.
—MARTY ROBBINS, “A WHITE SPORT COAT (AND A PINK CARNATION)”
That fall, I started grade nine at Lawrence Park Collegiate. During this time there was a group called the Sultans that played at some of our local dances, and I would go to watch them every week with my friend Comrie Smith. Comrie was a schoolmate one year ahead of me who had dreams of a life in music, dreams like mine. We were the best of friends and used to buy records at a local store, Robinson’s Radio and Appliances, on Yonge Street, located conveniently between our houses, about three blocks from mine and two blocks from his. When we started jamming in his attic with my uke and his guitar and bongos, it was the beginning of me playing music with others.
About Christmastime, Comrie failed math and was put back into my class for that subject. We walked to school together a lot after that, becoming good friends, listening to a little transistor radio and talking about music, music, music. We built a solid friendship, and he was one of my two best friends during that time of dreams and big plans of a life in music.
Every day on our walk to school, at some point we would leave Yonge Street and pass through residential streets, crisscrossing our way toward Lawrence Park Collegiate and listening to Gene Vincent or Bo Diddley on the transistor as loud as it could go. Sometimes we would try to play these songs at home on our instruments. We were pretty primitive. I don’t think we even knew how to find those chords yet, but we were exploring.
Well, she’s the gal in the red blue jeans
She’s the queen of all the teens
She’s the one that I know
She’s the one that loves me so.
—GENE VINCENT, “BE-BOP-A-LULA”
Comrie had a car called Priscilla. She was an old Plymouth, a fun old car. He and his girlfriend, Lynda, a really happy, friendly, and pretty girl, used to spend a lot of time with me. Often the three of us would get in Priscilla and go for a ride to a nearby park overlooking Yonge Street, the main drag, where we would hang out and talk about music and life. Just sitting there on a bench or on the grass, talking together, looking through the trees at the cars going down the hill into Don Valley, dreaming about music and bands; we became three good friends. I always thought Comrie and Lynda would be together forever.
Well, pretty soon I met a friend,
He played guitar.
We used to sit
On the steps at school
And dream of being stars.
We started a band,
We played all night.
—“DON’T BE DENIED”
Comrie and I dreamed about how someday we would make it in music. I don’t remember any specific plans, but we were big dreamers. Every time there was a dance with a live band, we would go and watch them play. Church dances were popular and we would travel around Toronto, following the bands. The Sultans were one of our favorites, but we would go anywhere we could to see any band. Sometimes we went to areas where the dances were a little dangerous, with gangs fighting and older kids around, drinking. We stayed away from that, but still we always went to see the bands. Sometimes we were too young to get in and had to listen from outside. Occasionally, we could watch through a window in the side of the building, standing on something to get enough elevation to see. Each time we would take note of the equipment, the outfits they wore, the singers, the guitar players, drummers, and organists, anything to do with the music being made. We knew who was hot and why, and we had our own favorites.
On weekend afternoons, a lot of the kids I knew would go to the Glendale Theater on Avenue Road and Brookdale Avenue. It was just a couple of blocks from John Wanless school. We would go to the matinees. I loved horror movies and sci-fi and I would watch the westerns, too. We would go there and have popcorn and meet girls. Every weekend it was the greatest fun. Saturday morning at the end of my paper route, I would see the marquee and know what movies I would see at the double feature later in the day.
I can still smell the popcorn and see the girls. That’s where we would all hang out. One weekend I saw The Blob in living color. The advertising said, “See the Blob in living color.” It didn’t say that everything else in the movie was in black and white. I saw Invaders from Mars, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Crimson Pirate, Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Jack the Ripper, and The Adventures of Robin Hood, just to name a few, and every week there was a serial as well as the double feature. It would have a fifteen-minute episode continuing on from the prior week. The hours there at the Glendale went by so fast. It usually started around noon or so. Week in and week out, I was in a groove, having the time of my life.
Late 1950s Triumph TR3
CHAPTER SEVEN
ear the beginning of my first year at Lawrence Park Collegiate, my dad picked me up at school and took me for a weekend trip to a sportswriters’ golf tournament. When he showed up, I was surprised to see him riding in a sharp little yellow Triumph TR3 convertible. He had borrowed it for the trip because it was a fun car. We traveled along for some time in the little sports car; completely different from the many cars we had ridden in together. Somewhere on the trip he told me that, someday, if the family was not together, it did not mean he didn’t love me. Then we went on with the rest of the weekend trip, arrived at the golf course, and played in the tournament, hanging out with NHL hockey players and sportswriters who were Daddy’s friends. The next day he dropped me off near school and went back to his studio apartment to finish some stories he was working on. I don’t remember him ever coming back to our house or ever seeing the TR3 again.
A couple of weeks later I came home from school and Mommy was crying and crying. Daddy had left a letter that said he was leaving and would not be back. Bob, Mommy, and I were all in the living room. Then it dawned on me what Daddy had been telling me in the TR3, and I blurted out, “I knew it. I knew it!” Crying loudly, I ran upstairs to my room and closed the door. Mommy came up and said, “You knew what?” Then I told her about the trip and what Daddy had said to me about not always being together. My mother was really beside herself, with tears running down her face, and I just held on to her.
A few days later, I came home from school and found Mommy in the driveway in front of the garage. She had her record collection out, a big pile of 78s from a couple of boxes. At first, it looked like she was organizing something. But Mommy was crying now, taking out each 78, looking at it, and breaking it on the cement driveway. That was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I try to block it out of my mind. Just a late afternoon, sun getting ready to set, and there is this picture of her crying and breaking each record, making a little comment with each one.
We used to listen to Lena Horne and a lot of other old popular records that Mommy would put on the Seabreeze record player, which she always set up in our living rooms, wherever we were living. Lena Horne’s Stormy Weather was one of her favorites. That Seabreeze was a big part of our family. Music is full with memories of love and happiness from the times of our lives. Songs are like little time capsules that take us back to those good times. That is part of music’s magic. The other side of this is the music that brings back sadness, waking it up inside of you with just a few familiar strains of a song.
After a few quiet days, we started getting back to a routine, and things around the house got a little looser than they had ever been. About that time, Mommy decided she did not mind it if we called her Rassy, which was her nickname and what everyone else called her. She became very supportive of the musical dreams my friends and I were having. From that point on, she was behind everything we wanted to do and gave us a lot of freedom.
I was allowed to buy some cool clothes that I had seen down at Halpern’s Men’s Store on Yonge
Street. One was a shirt that had a shiny front on it that looked like something a rock and roll singer would wear. A few blocks away was Robinson’s Radio and Appliances, where Comrie and I were allowed to listen to records in the bargain bin, but not the Top 30. A nice lady there really treated us well. I got “Only the Lonely” by Roy Orbison there and that was my first 45 rpm record, all the others I had were 78s. I think “Only the Lonely” was the first time I put the plastic adapter in a 45 rpm record and switched the turntable speed to 45 rpm, but it may have been “Book of Love” by the Monotones, back while we were still at Brock Road.
There goes my baby
There goes my heart
They’re gone forever
So far apart.
But only the lonely
Know why
I cry.
—ROY ORBISON, “ONLY THE LONELY”
That Christmas, Rassy got me a banjo uke that I had seen at the music store. It had quite a folk sound. I would listen to a Kingston Trio LP my brother Bob had bought, and try to play along. There was a song called “They Call the Wind Maria” that I almost learned. It had a lot of minor chords and I liked the sound of them. That may have even been my first introduction to the minor keys I love so much and have used throughout my life.
Before I knew Maria’s name
And heard her wail and whinin’,
I had a girl and she had me
And the sun was always shinin’.
But then one day I left my gal,
I left her far behind me.
And now I’m lost, so gol darn lost
Not even God can find me.
—KINGSTON TRIO, “THEY CALL THE WIND MARIA”