Neil Young - Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)

Neil Percival Young,(born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation. Young began performing as a solo artist in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield along with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and later joined Crosby, Stills & Nash as a fourth member in 1969. He then forged a successful and acclaimed solo career, releasing his first album in 1968.
His career has since spanned over 40 years and 34 studio albums, with a continual and uncompromising exploration of musical styles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers". He has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice: first as a solo artist in 1995, and second as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1997.

Young's work is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature falsetto/tenor singing voice.Young has also directed (or co-directed) a number of films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, Young is an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and the welfare of small farmers, having co-founded in 1985 the benefit concert Farm Aid. In 1986, Young helped found The Bridge School,[ an educational organization for children with severe verbal and physical disabilities, and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts.

"Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" 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 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". "Out of the blue and into the black" was a Vietnam War-era phrase that originally referred to jumping out of the daylight into the darkness of a Vietcong tunnel[citation needed], and was later generalized to refer to various situations, including death.
"It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks.

"The above text is a mashup from AllMusic.com & Wikipedia."