We're Not In Kansas Anymore

Thornton Wilder used a fictional town in New Hampshire to explore simple American values and the more universal existential dilemmas of life, death, and what it all means. In Our Town (a perennial staple on any respectable eighth grade syllabus), the characters die in war, childbirth, and from simple old age. They are not agents in these needless deaths, and they remind us of the heavy burden we all carry--awareness of our powerlessness and vulnerabilty.

Replace all the wholesomeness of Grover's Corners with hippies, drug-users, and old men and you have Greendale, Neil Young's new concept album. The story revolves around the Green family, composed of Earl and Edith Green, Grandpa and Grandma Green, cousin Jed, and the rambunctious daughter, Sun Green. Fleeing the scene of some crime, Jed Green is pulled over and in an act of irrationality slays Officer Carmichael. The rest of the album addresses the aftermath of the murder and the media frenzy that descends upon the town.

Young leaps back and forth from dialogue to narration to stream-of-consciousness moralizing, giving us a piecemeal impression of the characters through loose rhyme, and incorporating quotes from John Lennon and Bob Dylan along the way.

Where Young shines is in his poetic use of detail and ambiguity, devices present throughout his work, but fully realized in the narrative. This is seen in the chilly account of Jed's crime in "Leave the Driving": "Jed's life flashed before him / Like a scratchy old Super-8 / He heard the sound of the future / On an RPM 78".

The album falls short in the half-hearted proselytizing interspersed between narratives. Young should have picked a theme and stuck with it rather than biting off topics as diverse as human hypocrisy, the media, and big oil. Short asides at the beginning of the album ("meanwhile across the ocean / living in the Internet / is the cause of an explosion / no one has heard yet," from "Leave the Driving") converge into the epic and embarrassing "Be the Rain," featuring the lines: "We got a job to do / we got to save Mother Earth / be the ocean when it meets the sky / you can make a difference." That doesn't even rhyme! And while his intention may be parody, the construction is so shoddy and vague that it's not worth the effort of dissecting its sincerity.

God bless you if you make it to the end of the album. With nary a memorable melody, near-identical song construction throughout, and Ralph Molina's maddeningly monotonous drumming, the effort Young put into the lyrics was not matched by the music. When coming upon the sixth song, "Bandit," listeners may wonder if the monotony of the album is intentional. By far the strongest song in terms of structure, "Bandit" shelves the drums and weaves delicate rhythmic guitars through a heart-wrenching account of a man who is down on his luck. The refrain, "Someday you'll find everything you're lookin' for," offers a refreshing and sincere optimism alongside an album otherwise characterized by a dark and bitter portrayal of human behavior. Fans are left wishing Young had taken that same time with all the songs.

What Thornton Wilder understood and what Young should note is that investing the audience in the characters' fates is actually important. Why should I feel sympathy for Jed the cop killer? Am I to believe that Grandpa died while defying the media? Greendale's character development and story line is patchy at best. Goodbye Greendale. Goodbye showy packaging. Goodbye attention span.