My Neil Young song
Added 2018-04-30 16:23:43 +0000 UTCHowdy!
One of the projects I finished before I started my Youtube channel was I decided to write a Neil Young song. Luckily I had a guy that could imitate his voice fairly well, Mike Muggli. You've heard him on the first episode of the Signals Podcast.
I wrote a fingerpicking progression that went from D major to Fmaj7, two "god chords" that don't fit into a key, but give a dreamy floaty feel. Then I wrote a good-ol-boys progression in C major, that has a surprising amount of movement for just a chorus.
F//// C//// G//// G////
F//// C//// G//// Am////
F//// C//// G//// Am// Am/G//
F//// C//// G//// G////
C//// C////
The lyrics were written tongue-in-cheek, a parody of wistful 70s prose. I hope you all get a kick out of it.
I'm not even that big of a Neil fan, but I think its important as a song writer to try to emulate other styles and understand the elements that make them up. On top of that, its a lot of fun to do something like this, and these sort of projects count as practice towards music production, arrangement, and composition.
I often take silly ideas like this (lets make a neil young song) and run with them without looking back. I could probably spend the time doing things more productive, but in the end I always end up with some knowledge or skill that I might not have gained elsewhere.