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Neil Young Mixes Old and Slightly Less Old in 28-Minute ‘Driftin’ Back’ Video

Neil Young's "Driftin' Back" video

Above you’ll find a video for a 28-minute Neil Young and Crazy Horse song called “Driftin’ Back,” from an album called Psychedelic Pill. That’s about all you need to know — in fact, if you count the album title, it might be more than you need to know — to take a fairly accurate guess at what type of experience watching it will be, and whether you’ll want to undertake it. Vintage footage of Young gives way to trippy Winamp-style visualizations (too bad we already have a moratorium on using the word “kaleidoscopic”), which give way to vintage-ier footage of, hmm, not Young. Gnarled guitars spar like cowboys and nostalgic memories from black-and-white TV shows where cowboys used to spar with harshly stereotyped versions of Native Americans. Young, who turns 67 today, chants in a honeyed coo, “I’m driftin’ back.” Get yourself a hip-hop haircut, get over your mp3 collection, and join him for a half-hour or so. Young’s memory lane is a pleasantly cranky place.