LONG MAY YOU RUN by NEIL YOUNG. Story by David Oke.

Anglesea, Victoria. September 2023.

Across a normal month I attend four different jam sessions in various locations. Gone are my days of regularly playing, and being committed to one band, carting around large amounts of music gear, lugging in and setting up P.A. systems.

At one recent jam session I led the group in the Neil Young song Heart Of Gold. I even cracked out my six-string acoustic guitar and a G harmonica for the event. The group had only ever seen me play bass. I thought that it went pretty well and others happily joined in.

It was right near the end of the session and straight away another participant came up to me. Shaking. ‘That was so good – I couldn’t even play or sing’. I could tell that the song must have been particularly special to them. ‘I hope it brought back some good memories to you’ I replied. ‘Yes’, they responded with a smile, and then almost immediately came the request ‘Do you know Long May You Run’? I started to sing and play the song straight away. Obviously, it too has special meaning so it will go onto the playlist for next month.

I’ve always loved the simple melody and catchy sing-along chorus of the 1976 song:

Long may you run, long may you run,
Although these changes have come,
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run.

A few years ago I read Neil Young’s book Special Deluxe (Viking 2014) and discovered the background to this song. Neil has a love of older cars, especially from the 1950s and 1960s. The song is dedicated to his 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse named Mort.

Neil was on his way to Toronto and Mort broke down. The next day he had picked up Mort and was on the road for an hour when there was a mechanical scraping noise. Mort broke down again and limped into a parking lot at a place called Blind River. Mort was abandoned and Neil continued to Toronto by hitch hiking. He was always wondering whatever happened to that car, Mort. This is why the second verse goes:

Well, it was back in Blind River in 1962
when I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift on the long decline.
Long may you run.

I got thinking about people I had met whose cars defined them and reflected their personalities. I couldn’t say that about myself. However, there are a few cars I have driven that I have ‘bonded’ with more than others. Up until very recently I had always been a Holden driver. I grew up in the era of the Ford v Holden dichotomy and had always preferred the General. Dad had an FC wagon, my first car was a hand me down EJ wagon, then it was a succession of VC, VP, VX and VE Commodore wagons. These days I drive a Kia as Holdens are no more.

Although I never had a strong emotional attachment to any of these cars, I do remember feeling a bit sentimental when, on a rainy Saturday morning, Dad’s 1959 FC was backed out of the driveway for the last time. It was dying of rust and Dad had put it in the Saturday newspaper for sale. It was gone by 11:00am. That was the car in which we would have our Sunday family drives, go on holidays around the state, go to visit aunties and uncles and it was the first car where I ever got to sit behind the wheel and drive.

Dad’s 1959 FC Holden.

Another moment where there was a twinge of sadness was when we dropped the blue 2001 VX wagon off at the mechanic as it was off to the wrecker. I passed that car on to my son Dan who, by the end of its life, had spent a lot of time getting repairs to various engine components. He even wrote a song about that car on his self-titled Jarrow album called MPH. I really liked that car and had it long enough that it went from having kiddie seats in the back to a learner driver in the front. Like in the car from my own childhood, this one had memories of family holidays and driving adventures with my own young family.

Dan’s Holden VX Commodore.

The third verse of Long May You Run goes:

Maybe the Beach Boys have got you now
With all those waves singing ‘Caroline’ no
Rolling down that empty ocean road
Getting to the surf on time

Another car that I had was the 1963 EJ wagon. It too died of rust and disappeared on a Saturday morning through the newspaper classifieds. As a teenager I loved driving down to Torquay or down the Great Ocean Road to what was my favourite beach at Ocean View. That car had thousands of kilometres of memories of cruising around with Cold Chisel tapes turned up really loud, driving down to the coast, first dates, band gigs, losing my licence due to speeding on ‘P’ plates, university days, summer holidays and driving to my first workplace. I do admit to feeling a bit sad saying goodbye to it all those years ago.

Long may you run indeed.

My Holden EJ.

Stereo Story # 766