Review of Young at Heart (2008) by Rhondas. — 17 Mar 2006

This movie took me totally by surprise. I was unprepared for the incredible emotional impact it had on me. It shook me to the core. I had not heard the Prarie Wind songs before. I hadn't kept up with Neil Young's music.

I knew I liked Neil Young--but that was a long time ago--I was 18, lost, moved back home, hid in my old childhood bedroom, listiening to Heart of Gold & Old Man over and over. Eventually I was well enough to leave and I never went back.

I forgot that time. Seeing him in this beautiful, subtle film, brought it back. And more. I started crying during "It's only a dream." I was crying for recent losses, the kind you have with age, the kind most young people can't understand.

Simply because they haven't experienced it yet. I stayed for the 2nd show, to hear that song again and try to understand why it evoked such a response (I don't cry ever at movies). I watched him sing again, the pain and courage in his aged face, his heart breaking in his voice.

I really heard the lyrics and I understood. Does anyone else see that Prarie Wind is more than a song about personal losses, aging, death of loved ones, the near-death of the singer himself? Neil Young is mourning the loss of America.

This country died on 9/11 and it will never come back. The images--wheat fields, yellow air, a boy fishing, his bicycle nearby, an old man walking down the street. It's gone. This is not nostalgia for the good old days and it's not the death of a Norman Rockwell America.

Neil Young is feeling the death of a great country and the sense of place we once had and will never have again. With "no place to stay" even a memory dies. No one will remember what this country once was.

There is no nostalgia because no one remembers and that is the most horrible death of all.