Mix Tape: Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

A long time favorite of mine has been one of the lesser known tunes on Neil Young's first Crazy Horse disc, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" -it's the succinct title track, which, for some odd reason, is less well known than the ten-plus minute workout "Cowgirl In The Sand," also on this album.

I've always loved the title track for its hybrid punk/country feeling and its bordering-on-the-metaphysical lyrics:
' I think I'd like to go back home/ And take it easyThere's a woman that I'd like to get to know /Living there...'

As it turns out, however, the narrator really doesn't yearn to be somewhere else (or at least, this is my interpretation of the whole thing). He's really trying to get himself out of a rut, and imagining better days is his way out of it. So when he sings "Everybody seems to wonder /What it's like down here / I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around /Everybody knows this is nowhere...." I think he's just saying that even his life is nothing great and he gets down, too. So his head is not as great a place to be as some might think.

Despite the could-be-depressing lyrics, "Everybody" has a great crunchy guitar sound and enough country twang to keep the cowpunk fans satisifed. I always wished Jason and the Scorchers had covered this one.....It ought to get more credit among the Neil Young die-hards....