Thursday, March 16, 2006

Neil Young - Like An Inca


I just got back from vacation last night and it is strange to come back to the "real" world after a few days of not being in the loop. I had been thinking of putting Like An Inca up for a couple of weeks and for some reason now seems like the right time. Maybe it has something to do with these lyrics:

Said the condor to the preying mantis
We're gonna lose this place just like we lost Atlantis
Brother we got to go sooner than you know
The Gypsy told my fortune, the Gypsy told my fortune,
The Gypsy told my fortune, she said that nothin' showed.

Who put the bomb on the sacred altar?
Why should we die if it comes our way?
Why should we care about a little button
Being pushed by someone we don't even know?

The track is off of Neil's 1982 "electronic" album called Trans which utilized a vocoder on his vocals as well as synthesizers and electric drums. I like the album quite a bit with it's weird mix of crunchy guitars and the previously mentioned strange instrumentation as far as Neil is concerned.

Like An Inca is not an electronic song, although there is a little synthesizer used as flavoring on it, but this apocalyptic tune is more like one of his long, classic epics like Cortez The Killer or Cowgirl In The Sand. I think it is brilliant and would be well known if it hadn't been the last cut at the end of Trans which many people never heard.

Buy it here.