Neil Young Goes to the Movies

Neil Young is bringing the film version of his ambitious 2002 concept album Greendale to theaters this winter. After a February 13th screening at New York's Lincoln Center, the movie will open in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles and Irvine, California, on February 27th, and then play in select cities over the following couple of months. Several of screenings will coincide with Young's upcoming Greendale tour.

"The whole cast and crew, we're all going back to Greendale," says Young. "We'll go out and celebrate Greendale for another six or eight weeks."

Young directed the eighty-minute film -- a fictional musical portrait of the Green family (natives to a town that bears the album/film's name) who face an impending eco-disaster -- under his Bernard Shakey alias. He describes it as "a song you can see."

The cast members, who act out and lip-synch the album's ten songs, consist of Young's family and friends. Young's wife Pegi plays Edith Green, steel guitarist Ben Keith plays Grandpa, and road manager Eric Johnson does double duty as Jed Green and the devil. For the role of environmental activist Sun Green, Young recruited Sarah White, who appeared in high school plays with his daughter.

"Sarah was the perfect one for the part," he says. "I never had any doubts that she was the one to play it.

"I knew what the actors could do," he continues. "I'm lucky to know a lot of really talented people."

Greendale theatrical openings:
2/27: Los Angeles; Irvine, CA; Austin
3/5: St. Louis, MO; Denver (tentative)
3/12: San Francisco, Berkeley, CA; Milwaukee (tentative)
3/19: New York, Washington, DC; Baltimore; Pleasantville, NY; Cleveland; Atlanta; Montclair, NJ
3/26: Boston; Amherst, MA
4/2: Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Great Barrington, MA
4/9: Cincinnati (tentative); Gainesville, FL
4/16: Chapel Hill, NC; Eugene, OR
4/23: Nashville

Neil Young tour dates:
2/19: Vancouver, Queen Elizabeth Theater
2/20: Portland, OR, Rose Garden Arena
2/23: Sacramento, CA, Memorial Auditorium
2/24: Los Angeles, Shrine Auditorium
2/28: Albuquerque, NM, Tingley Coliseum
2/29: Colorado Springs, CO, World Arena
3/2: Milwaukee, WI, Milwaukee Theater
3/4-5: Rosemont, IL, Rosemont Theater
3/7: Moline, IL, Mark of the Quad Cities
3/9: Detroit, Fox Theater
3/11: Cleveland, CSU Convocation Center
3/12: Hershey, PA, Giant Center
3/14: Camden, NJ, Tweeter Center
3/15: Wallingford, CT, Oakdale Theater
3/17-18: New York, Lincoln Center
3/21 Amherst, MA, Mullins Center

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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