Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
Encyclopedia
"Hey Hey, My My" is a rock song by Neil Young
. Combined with its acoustic counterpart "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", it bookends Young's successful 1979
album Rust Never Sleeps
. Inspired by proto-new wave
group Devo
, the rise of punk
and what Young viewed as his own growing irrelevance, the song today crosses generations, inspiring admirers from punk to grunge
and significantly revitalizing Young's then-faltering career. The song is about the alternatives of continuing to produce similar music ("to rust" or — in "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" — "to fade away") or to burn out, as John Lydon
of the Sex Pistols
might be considered to have done by abandoning his Johnny Rotten persona
.
A part of a lyric from the song, "it's better to burn out than to fade away," became infamous in modern rock after being quoted in Nirvana
frontman Kurt Cobain's suicide note. Young later said that he was so shaken that he dedicated his 1994 album Sleeps with Angels
to Cobain. Because of Cobain's suicide, in live concerts he now emphasizes the line "once you're gone you can't come back".
and in particular Mark Mothersbaugh
. Devo was asked by Young in 1977 to participate in the creating of his film Human Highway
. A scene in the film shows Young playing the song in its entirety with Devo, who clearly want little to do with anything "radio-friendly" (of note is Mothersbaugh changing "Johnny Rotten" to "Johnny Spud"). While the famous line "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is often credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks
, its sentiment is also similar to an adage by President Millard Fillmore
: "It is better to wear out than to rust out."
Some reviewers viewed Young's career as skidding after the release of American Stars 'N Bars and Comes a Time
. With the explosion of punk
in 1977, some punks felt that Young and his contemporaries were becoming obsolete. Young worried that they were right. The death of Elvis Presley
that same year seemed to sound a death knell for rock, as The Clash
gleefully cried, "No Elvis, Beatles
or The Rolling Stones
in 1977!," in the song "1977".
From Young's fear of becoming obsolete sprang an appreciation of the punk ethic, and the song was born, initially an acoustic lament that became "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)". Upon embarking on a tour with his backing band Crazy Horse
, the song took on new life in a rock arrangement, punctuated by Young's guitar solos that would go on to inspire players of the proto-grunge
scene, including Sonic Youth
, The Meat Puppets, Pixies and Dinosaur Jr.
film (called Road-eyes), sound technicians in lab coats, audio recordings from Woodstock
played from disintegrating tapes, etc.) earned him a new generation of fans and good will, buoyed mainly by "Hey Hey, My My".
As Young's commercial popularity waned in the 1980s, an underground rock movement began to embrace the artist. At a time when glam metal
and bubblegum pop
saturated commercial airwaves, disaffected bands used Young as a prime example of the perfect blend of noise and melody, braggadocio and vulnerability, folk and hard rock. J Mascis
' guitar style, was based on Young's trademark screech captured in "Hey Hey, My My". A collection of Neil Young covers emerged in the late eighties, featuring a veritable who's-who of the pre-Nirvana
grunge scene. When Nirvana appeared on the national stage with Nevermind
, Cobain and Young took to acknowledging one another in the press.
"Hey Hey, My My"'s most memorable impact on modern rock comes from the line "It's better to burn out than to fade away" (actually only spoken in full in the acoustic "My My, Hey Hey" and the Human Highway film recording). Kurt Cobain's suicide note ended with the same line, shaking Young and inadvertently cementing his place as the so-called "Godfather of Grunge".
Ex-Beatle John Lennon
commented on the message of the song in a 1980 interview with David Sheff from Playboy:
Sheff: You disagree with Neil Young's lyric in Rust Never Sleeps: "It's better to burn out than to fade away..."
Lennon: I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don't appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison - it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive - Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer - he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that - I'm sorry for his family - but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean worshipping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy.
Young would reply two years later when asked to respond to Lennon's comments:
"The rock'n'roll spirit is not survival. Of course the people who play rock'n'roll should survive. But the essence of the rock'n'roll spirit to me, is that it's better to burn out really bright than to sort of decay off into infinity. Even though if you look at it in a mature way, you'll think, "well, yes ... you should decay off into infinity, and keep going along". Rock'n'roll doesn't look that far ahead. Rock'n'roll is right now. What's happening right this second. Is it bright? Or is it dim because it's waiting for tomorrow - that's what people want to know. And that's why I say that."
The song also had an impact on Britpop
artists. Most notably Oasis
covered the song on their 2000 world tour, including it on their live album and DVD Familiar to Millions
. Not coincidentally, the band acknowledged Cobain's attachment to the song by dedicating it to him when they played it in Seattle on the sixth anniversary of his death. Scottish band Big Country
recorded a version, which can be heard on their Under Covers album. It is also used as live-intro to System of a Down
's "Kill Rock 'n Roll" in some live performances.
The song still frequently appears on FM radio today, most often on stations formatted for "classic rock". Young's penchant for bookending an album with the same song in different renditions, which had already been utilised once on Tonight's the Night, returned on his second "comeback" album, Freedom, in 1989, with "Rockin' in the Free World
".
Young performs the song at nearly every concert in one form or another. It is included on his Greatest Hits
.
Def Leppard
begins their song "Rock of Ages" with the lines "I got something to say / It's better to burn out than fade away"; the same lines were used in the movie Highlander
by The Kurgan
.
In the video game Unreal Championship 2 one of Sobeks taunts is "It's better to burn out, than to fade away".
This song was covered by System Of A Down before "Kill Rock´n´Roll" in the Festival of Hurricane in 2005.
The Mexican
rock & roll band El Tri
covered the song in spanish on the album El Niño Sin Amor
in 1986.
The Argentine
rock band La Renga
covered this song on the album La Esquina del Infinito in 1999. Only the title was sung in English, the remainder of the song was translated into Spanish.
The Finnish
glam rock
band Negative recorded a cover of the song on their 2004 album Sweet & Deceitful entiltled "My My/Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", which was also released as a single.
Dave Matthews Band
included the song on their album Live Trax Vol. 13
.
New Zealand
band Die! Die! Die!
have a song titled "Out of the Blue" in which the repeated singing of the lyrics "Out of the blue, into the black" make up the chorus.
The song is also the title theme of Dennis Hopper's
movie Out of the Blue
.
The song was included at #93 in Bob Mersereau
's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles (2010).
A cover of the song by Battleme
appeared as the closing track of the Sons of Anarchy
Season 3 finale.
The song was covered by an unidentified group in the film Desperate but Willing.
Nomeansno
covered the song for the FUBAR soundtrack.
Cross Canadian Ragweed released "Live & Loud At the Wormy Dog Saloon" in 2001. It contains a live version of "Hey Hey My My".
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
. Combined with its acoustic counterpart "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", it bookends Young's successful 1979
1979 in music
See also:Record labels established in 1979* 1979 in music This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1979.-January–February:*January 1...
album Rust Never Sleeps
Rust Never Sleeps
Rust Never Sleeps is an album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse released in 1979. The bulk of the album was recorded live at San Francisco's Cow Palace, with overdubs added. Audience noise is removed as much as possible, although it is clearly audible at certain points, most noticeably on the opening...
. Inspired by proto-new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
group Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
, the rise of punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and what Young viewed as his own growing irrelevance, the song today crosses generations, inspiring admirers from punk to grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
and significantly revitalizing Young's then-faltering career. The song is about the alternatives of continuing to produce similar music ("to rust" or — in "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" — "to fade away") or to burn out, as John Lydon
John Lydon
John Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
of the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
might be considered to have done by abandoning his Johnny Rotten persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
.
A part of a lyric from the song, "it's better to burn out than to fade away," became infamous in modern rock after being quoted in Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
frontman Kurt Cobain's suicide note. Young later said that he was so shaken that he dedicated his 1994 album Sleeps with Angels
Sleeps with Angels
Sleeps With Angels is the twenty-second studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, his sixth with Crazy Horse, released on the Warner Bros. Records/Reprise label....
to Cobain. Because of Cobain's suicide, in live concerts he now emphasizes the line "once you're gone you can't come back".
Origins
The song "Hey, Hey, My, My..." and the title phrase of the album, "rust never sleeps" on which it was featured sprang from Young's encounters with DevoDevo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
and in particular Mark Mothersbaugh
Mark Mothersbaugh
Mark Allen Mothersbaugh is an American musician, composer, singer and painter. He is the co-founder of the new wave band Devo and has been its lead singer since 1972. His other musical projects include work for television series, films, and video games....
. Devo was asked by Young in 1977 to participate in the creating of his film Human Highway
Human Highway
Human Highway is a 1982 comedy film starring and co-directed by Neil Young under his pseudonym Bernard Shakey. Dean Stockwell co-directed the film and acted along with Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, and the band Devo...
. A scene in the film shows Young playing the song in its entirety with Devo, who clearly want little to do with anything "radio-friendly" (of note is Mothersbaugh changing "Johnny Rotten" to "Johnny Spud"). While the famous line "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is often credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks
The Ducks
The Ducks were a short-lived hard rock supergroup formed in the summer of 1977 by singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn, and consisted of musicians Bob Mosley , Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, and Johnny Craviotto. The band played a series of impromptu bar gigs around the Santa Cruz area in 1977...
, its sentiment is also similar to an adage by President Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office of president...
: "It is better to wear out than to rust out."
Some reviewers viewed Young's career as skidding after the release of American Stars 'N Bars and Comes a Time
Comes a Time
Comes a Time is the ninth album by Neil Young, and a return to the country/folk rock sound of Harvest . Many of the tracks include harmony vocals from Nicolette Larson. Originally, it had started out as a solo record, but when Young played it for Reprise executives they asked him if he wouldn't...
. With the explosion of punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
in 1977, some punks felt that Young and his contemporaries were becoming obsolete. Young worried that they were right. The death of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
that same year seemed to sound a death knell for rock, as The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
gleefully cried, "No Elvis, Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
or The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
in 1977!," in the song "1977".
From Young's fear of becoming obsolete sprang an appreciation of the punk ethic, and the song was born, initially an acoustic lament that became "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)". Upon embarking on a tour with his backing band Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse (band)
Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for its association with Neil Young. It has been co-credited on a number of albums throughout Young's career and has released five albums of its own.-Early years:...
, the song took on new life in a rock arrangement, punctuated by Young's guitar solos that would go on to inspire players of the proto-grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
scene, including Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, The Meat Puppets, Pixies and Dinosaur Jr.
Legacy
Upon its release, Rust Never Sleeps was hailed as a commercial and critical revitalization for Young, and the successful, bizarre tour (featuring oversized amps, road crews dressed as Jawas from the then-new Star WarsStar Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
film (called Road-eyes), sound technicians in lab coats, audio recordings from Woodstock
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
played from disintegrating tapes, etc.) earned him a new generation of fans and good will, buoyed mainly by "Hey Hey, My My".
As Young's commercial popularity waned in the 1980s, an underground rock movement began to embrace the artist. At a time when glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
and bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...
saturated commercial airwaves, disaffected bands used Young as a prime example of the perfect blend of noise and melody, braggadocio and vulnerability, folk and hard rock. J Mascis
J Mascis
J Mascis is an American musician, best known as the singer, guitarist and songwriter for Dinosaur Jr.. In 2011, he was ranked in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.- Biography :...
' guitar style, was based on Young's trademark screech captured in "Hey Hey, My My". A collection of Neil Young covers emerged in the late eighties, featuring a veritable who's-who of the pre-Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
grunge scene. When Nirvana appeared on the national stage with Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
, Cobain and Young took to acknowledging one another in the press.
"Hey Hey, My My"'s most memorable impact on modern rock comes from the line "It's better to burn out than to fade away" (actually only spoken in full in the acoustic "My My, Hey Hey" and the Human Highway film recording). Kurt Cobain's suicide note ended with the same line, shaking Young and inadvertently cementing his place as the so-called "Godfather of Grunge".
Ex-Beatle John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
commented on the message of the song in a 1980 interview with David Sheff from Playboy:
Sheff: You disagree with Neil Young's lyric in Rust Never Sleeps: "It's better to burn out than to fade away..."
Lennon: I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don't appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison - it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive - Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer - he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that - I'm sorry for his family - but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean worshipping John Wayne or Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy.
Young would reply two years later when asked to respond to Lennon's comments:
"The rock'n'roll spirit is not survival. Of course the people who play rock'n'roll should survive. But the essence of the rock'n'roll spirit to me, is that it's better to burn out really bright than to sort of decay off into infinity. Even though if you look at it in a mature way, you'll think, "well, yes ... you should decay off into infinity, and keep going along". Rock'n'roll doesn't look that far ahead. Rock'n'roll is right now. What's happening right this second. Is it bright? Or is it dim because it's waiting for tomorrow - that's what people want to know. And that's why I say that."
The song also had an impact on Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
artists. Most notably Oasis
Oasis (band)
Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
covered the song on their 2000 world tour, including it on their live album and DVD Familiar to Millions
Familiar to Millions
Familiar to Millions is a live album by the British rock band Oasis. It was recorded at Wembley Stadium on 21 July 2000. It debuted at #5 in the UK charts with 57,000 copies sold in the first week. To date Familiar to Millions has sold around 310,000 copies in Britain alone , about 70,000 copies in...
. Not coincidentally, the band acknowledged Cobain's attachment to the song by dedicating it to him when they played it in Seattle on the sixth anniversary of his death. Scottish band Big Country
Big Country
Big Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife in 1981. They were most popular in the early to mid-1980s, but they still release material for a cult following...
recorded a version, which can be heard on their Under Covers album. It is also used as live-intro to System of a Down
System of a Down
System of a Down, also known by the acronym SOAD and often shortened to System, is a rock band from Southern California. The band was formed in 1994. It consists of Serj Tankian , Daron Malakian , Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan...
's "Kill Rock 'n Roll" in some live performances.
The song still frequently appears on FM radio today, most often on stations formatted for "classic rock". Young's penchant for bookending an album with the same song in different renditions, which had already been utilised once on Tonight's the Night, returned on his second "comeback" album, Freedom, in 1989, with "Rockin' in the Free World
Rockin' in the Free World
"Rockin' in the Free World" is a song by Neil Young, released on his 1989 album Freedom. Two versions of the song were released, similar to the song "Hey Hey, My My " of Young's Rust Never Sleeps album, one of which is performed with a predominantly acoustic arrangement, and the other with a...
".
Young performs the song at nearly every concert in one form or another. It is included on his Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits (Neil Young album)
Greatest Hits is Neil Young's third compilation album after Decade and Lucky Thirteen. Eleven of the first twelve tracks appear on Decade, and the disc spans his solo career from 1969 through 1992...
.
Def Leppard
Def Leppard
Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell...
begins their song "Rock of Ages" with the lines "I got something to say / It's better to burn out than fade away"; the same lines were used in the movie Highlander
Highlander (film)
Highlander is a 1986 fantasy action film directed by Russell Mulcahy and based on a story by Gregory Widen. It stars Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, and Roxanne Hart. The film depicts the climax of an ages-old battle between immortal warriors, depicted through interwoven past and...
by The Kurgan
The Kurgan
The Kurgan is a fictional character from the first Highlander film, portrayed by actor Clancy Brown. He is an Immortal and the main antagonist to the character Connor MacLeod in Highlander, and the latter's ultimate opponent in the Gathering....
.
In the video game Unreal Championship 2 one of Sobeks taunts is "It's better to burn out, than to fade away".
This song was covered by System Of A Down before "Kill Rock´n´Roll" in the Festival of Hurricane in 2005.
The Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
rock & roll band El Tri
El Tri
El Tri is a Mexican rock band from Mexico City fronted by Alex Lora. Founded in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind, the group is regarded as influential in the development of Mexican rock music....
covered the song in spanish on the album El Niño Sin Amor
El Niño Sin Amor
El Niño Sin Amor is the third studio album by Mexican rock, Blues band El Tri.The name of the album is from the main single, which is a history of a homeless kid, reflecting the big problem of homeless population in Mexico....
in 1986.
The Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
rock band La Renga
La Renga
La Renga are a hard rock and Heavy Metal band from Argentina, formed in 1988.They have a moderate success with the albums A Dónde Me Lleva La Vida and Bailando en una pata, between 1993 and 1995, but it was the release of Despedazado por Mil Partes, in 1996, that made them nationally famous.With...
covered this song on the album La Esquina del Infinito in 1999. Only the title was sung in English, the remainder of the song was translated into Spanish.
The Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
band Negative recorded a cover of the song on their 2004 album Sweet & Deceitful entiltled "My My/Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", which was also released as a single.
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
included the song on their album Live Trax Vol. 13
Live Trax Vol. 13
Live Trax Vol. 13 is a live album by Dave Matthews Band, and is the 13th volume in the band's Live Trax series. The album was recorded on June 7, 2008 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri...
.
New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
band Die! Die! Die!
Die! Die! Die!
Die! Die! Die! is a noise pop/punk three-piece from Dunedin, New Zealand, formed in late 2003 and signed to Flying Nun Records.Their self-titled album Die! Die! Die! was released in 2005 in New Zealand, with an international release soon after. It was recorded in Chicago's Electrical Audio by...
have a song titled "Out of the Blue" in which the repeated singing of the lyrics "Out of the blue, into the black" make up the chorus.
The song is also the title theme of Dennis Hopper's
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
movie Out of the Blue
Out of the Blue (1980 film)
Out of the Blue is a 1980 film featuring and directed by Dennis Hopper. The film was written and produced by Gary Jules Jouvenat. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival...
.
The song was included at #93 in Bob Mersereau
Bob Mersereau
Bob Mersereau is a Canadian arts journalist.Mersereau is a music columnist and longtime arts reporter for CBC Television in New Brunswick. Since 1982, he has been a reporter on the East Coast music scene for CBC Radio, CBC Television, and the Telegraph-Journal...
's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles (2010).
A cover of the song by Battleme
Battleme
Battleme is the moniker and band of American musician and Lions singer Matt Drenik. It was started as a creative outlet to other projects Drenik was involved in during 2009.-Career:...
appeared as the closing track of the Sons of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy
Sons of Anarchy is an American television drama series created by Kurt Sutter about the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in Northern California...
Season 3 finale.
The song was covered by an unidentified group in the film Desperate but Willing.
Nomeansno
Nomeansno
NoMeansNo is a Canadian progressive punk rock music group originally from Victoria, British Columbia and now located in Vancouver.The band has never had, nor have they seemed to pursue, strong mainstream success, but they do have a devoted underground following in North America and Europe...
covered the song for the FUBAR soundtrack.
Cross Canadian Ragweed released "Live & Loud At the Wormy Dog Saloon" in 2001. It contains a live version of "Hey Hey My My".
External links
- HyperRust Never Sleeps - a Neil Young database with information and further lyrics
- Kurt Cobain and Neil Young - details the connection between Nirvana and Young, as well as Cobain's suicide note
- 'My My Hey Hey' song of the day on thishereboogie.com 17 Oct 2008
- Sonic Youth and Neil Young - details Sonic Youth's involvement with Young during the early 1990s