DENIM SPIRIT: Neil Young and the earthquake

I was a sophomore at a very small college, sitting in my dorm room on the third floor of a 19th-century building, when my world began to shake. Literally, the building shook.

I was sitting in a rotted old leather chair with headphones on, listening to Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” when the needle skipped across the vinyl. What the heck?

I happened to glimpse out the window and saw a crowd gathered below on the sidewalk looking up. Opening the window I yelled down, “What’s going on?” “Earthquake!” came the shouts from below.

Huh, imagine that. Then I sat down and played the song again from the beginning:

“Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming sayin’ something about a queen … Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteenth century … ” Or, as Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt sang in........

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