Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)

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"Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"
Hey Hey My My cover.jpg
Single by Neil Young and Crazy Horse
from the album Rust Never Sleeps
B-side "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)"
ReleasedAugust 27, 1979
RecordedOctober 22, 1978
VenueThe Cow Palace, Daly City, California
Genre
Length5:18
Label Reprise
Songwriter Neil Young
Producers
Neil Young and Crazy Horse singles chronology
"Four Strong Winds"
(1978)		"Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"
(1979)		"The Loner (Live)"
(1980)

"Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" is a song written by Canadian-American musician Neil Young. Combined with its acoustic counterpart "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", it bookends Young's 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps . The song was influenced by the punk rock zeitgeist of the late 1970s, in particular by Young's collaborations with the American art punk band Devo, and what he viewed as his own growing irrelevance.

Contents

Origins

The song "Hey Hey, My My...", as well as the titular phrase of the album on which it was featured, "rust never sleeps," sprang from Young's collaborations with Devo and, in particular, the band's frontman, Mark Mothersbaugh. [2] In 1977, Devo had been asked by Young to participate in the creation of his film, Human Highway , [3] and a scene in the film shows Young playing the song in its entirety with Devo (with Mothersbaugh changing a lyric about "Johnny Rotten" to "Johnny Spud").

On May 28, 1978, Young collaborated with Devo on a version of "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" at the Different Fur studio in San Francisco and would later introduce the song to Crazy Horse. [2] During the Different Fur studio sessions, Mothersbaugh added the lyrics "rust never sleeps", a slogan he remembered from his graphic arts career that promoted the automobile rust proofing product Rust-Oleum. Young adopted the line and used it in the Crazy Horse version of the song, as well as for the title of his album. [4] The lyrics from counterpart My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), "it's better to burn out than to fade away" were widely quoted by his peers and by critics. [2] The line "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is often credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks. [5]

According to Young, the version of the song on Rust Never Sleeps is the same as that on Live Rust , except that for the Rust Never Sleeps version they removed the crowd noise and added sound effects such as hand claps and slamming doors in the studio. [6]

Reception

Cash Box called it a "grinding three-chord rocker" that makes "a challenging musical and lyrical statement" with "thrashing drums and brash fuzz guitar." [7] Record World called it "a perfect anthem with its slam-bang 'rock'n'roll will never die.'" [8]

Texas author and journalist Brad Tyer wrote in the Houston Press that "Hey Hey, My My" was stylistically "proto-grunge grunt rock". [1]

Legacy

The song appeared on Young's Greatest Hits in 2004 and was included at #93 in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles in 2010. The Chromatics version was used as the closing music in HBO's The Sex Lives of College Girls season 1, episode1. [9]

Personnel

References

  1. 1 2 Tyer, Brad (13 July 1995). "CD Review - Mirror Ball review". Houston Press. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 McDonough 2002, pp. 531–532.
  3. ↑ Oh Yes, It's Devo: An Interview with Jerry Casale Brian L. Knight, The Vermont Review, Retrieved December 15, 2007
  4. ↑ McDonough 2002, pp. 531.
  5. ↑ McDonough 2002, pp. 534–535.
  6. ↑ Neil Young (February 3, 2022). Neil Young Radio. Sirius XM.
  7. ↑ "CashBox Singles Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. September 8, 1979. p. 18. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
  8. ↑ "Hits of the Week" (PDF). Record World. September 15, 1979. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  9. ↑ "Music from the Sex Lives of College Girls S1E01".
  10. ↑ "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" . Retrieved July 5, 2025.

Sources

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