“Heart of Gold” by Neil Young, 1971
I’m being brought back to the days when I used to lock myself in my room with my acoustic and teach myself Neil Young songs. I’d stay up until four AM because I couldn’t get enough of certain albums. I remember listening to Tonight’s the Night over and over again because I thought it told the most heartbreaking, honest and unforgiving story. Can you even call the vocals on that record singing? It’s forty-five minutes of whiskey slicked venting. I felt that we were kindred spirits, as if you can even say such a thing without knowing someone. But his music was, and still is, an inspiration. Me, with my acoustic and my composition notebook scrawled with song lyrics, perhaps I was hoping that an ounce of his simple artistry would rub off on me. I feel like I’ve birthed numerous different Caitlins since then. But what would have become of this one had I kept it up? Would I have learned harmonica and been exponentially cooler for it? Likely not, but out of my many musical muses I did start to find my own sound. I don’t know that I ever fully uncovered it, but merely hinted at it before migrating in a new direction. Sometimes I find myself wishing I hadn’t gotten distracted, but then I realize that I’d never have developed my writing voice had I not allowed myself to be side tracked. I’ve traded staff paper for playbooks and my composition notebooks are scribbled with character dialogue and development rather than guitar tabs and choruses, but they’re all a part of me. In fact it’s a mistake to view them as separate. In a way it’s almost as if my music voice transposed itself into my writing voice. It’s all there, even now the notes are the same, they’ve just matured a bit.
