from Box Elder to Zuma

Last night, whilst tagging mp3s yet again, i noticed that the riff for Pavement's
Box Elder" was probably copped from Neil Young's "Don't Cry No Tears" from Zuma. That little guitar bit has always charmed me. Neil Young is usually an artist i avoided in the past, originally because he was a favorite of an ex-girlfriend, a strident classic rocker. As i moved on musically, he became attached in my memory to a certain pack of pot-smoking fry cooks who drove BMWs with Deadhead stickers on them. Damien further tarnished him by cursing his weedy voice, constantly comparing him to Kermit the Frog.

I'm constantly embarrassed by my artificial partitions of what i like and don't like based on arbitrary judgments, peer pressure, and tangential associations. If i heard this Zuma track first, would i have liked Pavement when i did? I initially liked to mock Pavement when a friend introduced them to me, just out of goodnatured spite. It wasn't that hard to come around to them after a few months of constant exposure.

My path back to Neil Young isn't through Pavement. Damien relented on his mockery, and conceded that Young's a good songwriter. The Deadheads that i loathed didn't go on to become yuppies. The ex-girlfriend later independently moved onto music that claimed as my own.
Now i'm going back through everything i rejected for possibly superficial reasons, to check if my kneejerk reaction was right.

Post-Barrett Pink Floyd still makes me wince. Pearl Jam is still boring. I don't know what to do with Neil Young. I followed my way back to him by way of Buffalo Springfield, a band that i never completely embraced, despite my '60s fetish. I'm still wrestling with connecting Young to Pavemenet, as it might make the transition easier.