The title track from Young’s 35th album, “Sleeps With Angels,” is a sad, knowing eulogy for Cobain. The guitar riff is pure Nirvana: distorted, solitary and melodic. And the lyrics are pure Kurt and Courtney: She wasn’t perfect / She had some trips of her own / He wasn’t worried / At least he wasn’t alone . . . He sleeps with angels too soon. It’s a hypnotic, oddly gentle rock song and one of the highlights of an uneven album.
“Angels” combines the ornery garage rock of 1990’s “Ragged Glory” and the wistful folk of 1992’s “Harvest Moon.” A few songs seem to have been written on the run: “Change Your Mind,” which is 15 minutes long, is just an excuse for Young to go on an astounding guitar bender. And a few, like the maudlin “My Heart,” simply stink: Somewhere, somewhere / I’ve got to get somewhere / It’s not too late, it’s not too late / I’ve got to get somewhere. (Neil Young does “The Wizard of Oz.” No thanks.) Fortunately, there’s the courtly, acoustic “Western Hero” and its twin brother, “Train of Love.” There’s also the spookily beautiful “Driveby” and the wonderfully contentious “Piece of Crap,” a rave-up in the spirit of Young’s famous anti-endorsement screed “This Note’s For You.” Bands like Nirvana have been worshiping Young for years now, and he rarely makes a move without critics throwing palm fronds at his feet. Still, “Piece of Crap” suggests he’s not taking himself too seriously: the holy man can still make an unholy racket.
title: “Forever Young” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-09” author: “Marie Marks”
Bentsen’s subtly damning observation came to mind as he departed this week, replaced by the estimable Robert Rubin, but leaving the president with one fewer grown-up on staff – and as Newt Gingrich barreled onto the national scene, exuberant and impatient, at times nearly jumping out of his skin: another guy who came of age in the 1960s, with something to prove. Gingrich has reason to be exhilarated. He has done the Biblical, leading his tribe to power after 40 years in the desert. He has fresh, provocative ideas; he argues them well. He seems poised to become the most dominant legislative leader in memory.
But he doesn’t seem entirely . . . solid, does he? It isn’t just that he smoked dope, protested and messed around – and now seems desperate to ““exorcise’’ that past, as a friend says, by demagoguing on lifestyle issues (like his outrageous assertions about White House staff drug use, later regretted if not retracted). There is a blabby, effervescent, messianic quality to his public persona – a lack of restraint and gravitas – that seems quite generational. His speech to GOP colleagues this past week, upon being voted their leader, was a classic. Much of it was brilliant, but it went on and on, an undisciplined and emotional effusion – and he gave them a reading list. Did he have to suggest they study the Declaration of Independence? Will there be a pop quiz on ““Leadership and the Computer’’ by Mary Boone? Some of Gingrich’s strongest supporters are worried. ““I am afraid for Newt,’’ said one. ““He may be headed for a crash. He doesn’t seem very firmly planted.''
A question suggests itself, not a pleasant thought for one who marched and inhaled, but so be it: is this generation unfit to lead? Will we ever get our act together, or has the toll of peace, affluence and self-indulgence rotted away all sense of proportion and propriety? I don’t know: generational generalizations generally seem general. Most people who came of age in the sixties didn’t protest, take chemical leaves of absence or live in a commune. But many of those in the elite, the people now coming to power, did nibble about the edges of profligacy – and there was a sense of entitlement and self-importance that came with being demographically inevitable, and chosen, and coddled. That sense has now melded with an embarrassment over past excesses to create a hectic, humorless evangelism. Several years ago, in a book called ““Generations,’’ Neil Howe and William Strauss warned that we were born to crusade. But who imagined we’d be so boorish and fidgety about it?
The younger generation has noticed. ““Boomers have the worst follow-through of any generation,’’ says Frank Luntz, 32, a pollster who has worked for Gingrich (but doesn’t consider him a ““boomer’’). ““They have no loyalties. They don’t believe on Tuesday what they did on Monday. The older generation tends to see them as inconsistent – and the younger generation tends to identify more with their grandparents, because of the stability.’’ Certainly, the combination of profligacy and proselytizing – the unabashed, uninflected cocksureness of Gingrich on welfare and the Clintons on health care (or Al Gore on the environment or Joycelyn Elders on sex, for that matter) – doesn’t inspire confidence. Despite their best efforts, you get the feeling Bill Clinton doesn’t quite picture himself as commander in chief yet, that Gingrich is still too busy throwing spitballs from the back benches to realize that he now will be Mr. Speaker.
What is to be done? America seems stuck with us, in all our callowness and demographic enormity, for the next quarter century. ““Looks like it’s going to be a very talky era,’’ says William Bennett, 51, the ever-candid former secretary of education, ““but we may learn with experience.’’ It’s a bit late to manufacture the sorts of experiences that forged the steadfast character of the New Deal generation. But let me make a modest suggestion: we might try a touch of humility.
It could start with the recognition that the generation now passing from the scene – the stolid, reserved World War II vets whom we rebelled against back when (they never shared their feelings; they never understood!) – will live in history as the greatest Americans of this century. They left a better world for their children; we’ll be lucky to hold the fort. We might try, belatedly, to emulate their restraint: if the era is destined to be talky, let it be less of a harangue and more of a conversation. We might also consider taking ourselves – our past lives and present obsessions – less seriously. Wouldn’t it be nice if Clinton and Gingrich could treat the sixties the way Ronald Reagan used to treat his age: as a joke? They might take a lesson from Sen. Bob Kerrey, who, early in the 1992 presidential campaign, submitted himself to a private dinner of prominent New Yorkers who peppered him with questions. John Chancellor of NBC was especially aggressive, finally demanding, ““And why on earth did you major in pharmacology at the University of Nebraska?''
““Well,’’ Kerrey smiled, ““it was the sixties.''
