My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) Album: Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) Album: Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
Cortez the Killer Album: Zuma (1975)
Cinnamon Girl Album: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Young alludes to three specific artists in the lyrics of My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue):
"Rock and roll is here to stay" - This is the title of a 1958 song by Danny & the Juniors, a vocal group best known for their hit "At The Hop." They proclaim, "Rock 'n roll is here to stay, it will never die."
"The king is gone but he's not forgotten" - "The King" is Elvis Presley, who died in 1977, two years before this song was released.
"This is the story of a Johnny Rotten" - Johnny Rotten (real name: John Lydon) was lead singer of punk rock pioneers The Sex Pistols. He often seemed hell-bent on self destruction to ensure he would burn out and not fade away, but ended up having a very long and productive career.
Around 1977 Neil Young formed a band called The Ducks that included Jeff Blackburn. The band played for a $3 cover charge in the hip Santa Cruz club environment. "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)" came out of this period and Jeff Blackburn received co-writing credit on the track with Young.
Jeff Blackburn recalled to Uncut magazine: "We were old friends going back to the '60s. I was playing in Santa Cruz with John Craviotto and Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) who were a great rhythm section, when Neil ducked into it. That was a great summer. We played about 30 shows with The Ducks, we played every night. It really was a mighty month.
Neil and I swapped ideas. We both had material, we had ideas and things came together as we were rocking together pretty good. I had a song with the line, 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It's better to burn out than it is to rust.' Neil liked that and the whole rust thing came from that line - rust never sleeps. Not many people share a credit with Neil Young. It's hard to say why I got one, you'd need to ask Neil. But you never know what he's going to do next."
Young released two versions of the song on the album: an acoustic rendition called "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)," and an electric version called "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)" that he recorded with his band, Crazy Horse. Both versions were included on the single, with "Hey Hey, My My" the A-side, which is what most radio stations play. The electric version has slightly different lyric and omits the famous line, "It's better to burn out than to fade away."
"My My, Hey Hey" is on the first side of the album, which is all acoustic.
My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) was the first track on Rust Never Sleeps. Young released a concert documentary with that title the same day as the album.
Kurt Cobain's suicide note contained a line from My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue): "It's better to burn out than to fade away." That line has become one of the most famous song lyrics of all time. When Young was asked text limit
