Hey Hey, My My ( into the black ) - wikipedia Hey Hey, My My ( into the black ) `` Hey Hey, My My ( Into the Black ) '' Single by Neil Young and Crazy Horse from the album Rust Never Sleeps B - side `` My My, Hey Hey ( Out of the Blue ) '' Released August 27, 1979 Format 45 RPM Record Recorded October 22, 1978, The Cow Palace, Daly City, California Genre Hard rock Length 5 : 18 Label Reprise Songwriter ( s ) Neil Young, Jeff Blackburn Producer ( s ) Neil Young, David Briggs, Tim Mulligan `` Hey Hey, My My ( Into the Black ) '' is a song written by Canadian musician 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 electropunk group Devo, the rise of punk and what Young viewed as his own growing irrelevance, the song significantly revitalized Young 's career at the time, and today crosses generations, inspiring admirers from punk to grunge. 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. A line from the acoustic version of the song, `` it 's better to burn out than to fade away, '' became infamous 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. Contents 1 Origins 2 Legacy 2.1 Quotations 3 References 4 External links 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 Devo 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 '' ). 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. 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 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. 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 film Star Wars ( 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. A collection of Neil Young covers titled The Bridge emerged in the late ' 80s, 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 influence 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 do n'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 did n't whip cancer. It whipped him. I do n't want Sean worshiping 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 does n'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 does n'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 influenced Britpop artists. 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, and the remastered edition of their live album Without the Aid of a Safety Net. It is also used as live - intro to System of a Down 's `` Kill Rock ' n Roll '' in some live performances. The song still appears frequently on FM radio today, most often on `` classic rock '' stations. Young 's penchant for `` bookending '' an album with the same song in different renditions, first seen 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. Many other bands and singers have played or recorded covers of this song : System of a Down ( Festival of Hurricane in 2005 ), Dave Matthews Band, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Battleme ( closing track of the Sons of Anarchy Season 3 finale ), Rick Derringer, Nomeansno ( FUBAR soundtrack ), Mexican rock & roll band El Tri, Finnish glam rock band Negative, Argentine rock band La Renga, Chromatics, Jake Bugg ( played live at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival ), Axel Rudi Pell on his 2014 album Into the Storm. Romanian act Fjord covered the song for their 2016 album Textures. Brazilian doom metal band HellLight recorded a version for an album of covers ( The Light That Brought Darkness in 2012 ). Blixa Bargeld and Teho Teardo covered the song on their 2017 album Fall. The song is 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 ). Peter Buck of R.E.M. has acknowledged in interviews that his band 's first hit, `` The One I Love '', is actually a rewriting on Neil Young 's `` Hey Hey, My My ''. Quotations Courtney Love, singer for Hole and Cobain 's widow, alludes both to this song and her husband 's suicide note in the song `` Reasons To Be Beautiful '' from the album Celebrity Skin. In `` Reasons To Be Beautiful, '' she changes the verse to `` It 's better to rise than fade away. '' 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 and used in the Queen song `` Gimme The Prize ( Kurgan 's Theme ) '' on their A Kind Of Magic album. Metalcore band Killswitch Engage have quoted the line in their song `` New Awakening ''. The lyrics of the song, in particular `` out of the blue and into the black '', are an epigraph and also a prominent feature in Stephen King 's It. Lana Del Rey mentions the song through the lyrics `` out of the black, into the blue '' on her song `` Get Free '' from her fifth studio album Lust for Life ( Lana Del Rey album ). References Jump up ^ Shakey : Neil Young 's Biography, Jimmy McDonough, 2002, Anchor Jump up ^ Oh Yes, It 's Devo : An Interview with Jerry Casale Brian L. Knight, The Vermont Review, Retrieved December 15, 2007 Jump up ^ Shakey : Neil Young 's Biography, Jimmy McDonough, 2002, Anchor, pp. 534 - 535 Jump up ^ The Last Gang in Town : The Story and Myth of the Clash, Marcus Gray, 1996, New York : Henry Holt and Company, pp. 187 - 188 ^ Jump up to : `` Neil and The Beatles ''. HyperRust.org. Retrieved 2016 - 10 - 15. Jump up ^ `` Oasis Pay Tribute to Cobain ''. NME news. 2000 - 06 - 04. Retrieved December 15, 2007 Jump up ^ FjordVEVO ( 2016 - 06 - 13 ), Fjord - Hey Hey, My My ( Into The Black ) ( Neil Young Cover Video ), retrieved 2016 - 10 - 30 Jump up ^ `` Funeral Doom / The Light That Brought Darkness, by Helllight ''. Helllight. Retrieved 2016 - 11 - 01. External links Song lyrics at Metrolyrics 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 Sonic Youth and Neil Young - details Sonic Youth 's involvement with Young during the early 1990s Ruth Israel, Rachel Auger and Patrick McAllister - Theatrical Blues Performance dedicated to Neil Young Neil Young Crazy Horse The Stray Gators Promise of the Real Studio albums Neil Young Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere After the Gold Rush Harvest On the Beach Tonight 's the Night Zuma American Stars ' n Bars Comes a Time Hawks & Doves Re ac tor Trans Everybody 's Rockin ' Old Ways Landing on Water This Note 's for You Freedom Ragged Glory Harvest Moon Sleeps with Angels Mirror Ball Broken Arrow Silver & Gold Are You Passionate ? Greendale Prairie Wind Living with War Chrome Dreams II Fork in the Road Le Noise Americana Psychedelic Pill A Letter Home Storytone The Monsanto Years Peace Trail Hitchhiker EPs Eldorado Live albums Time Fades Away Rust Never Sleeps Live Rust Life Arc Weld Unplugged Year of the Horse Road Rock Vol. 1 Earth Soundtracks Journey Through the Past Where the Buffalo Roam Philadelphia Dead Man Compilations Decade Lucky Thirteen Greatest Hits Archives series The Archives Vol. 1 1963 -- 1972 Archives Performance series Live at the Fillmore East Live at Massey Hall 1971 Sugar Mountain -- Live at Canterbury House 1968 Live at the Riverboat 1969 Dreamin ' Man Live ' 92 A Treasure Live at the Cellar Door Bluenote Café Unreleased albums Homegrown Chrome Dreams Songs `` Mr. Soul '' `` Broken Arrow '' `` Expecting to Fly '' `` Sugar Mountain '' `` The Loner '' `` I 've Been Waiting for You '' `` Cinnamon Girl '' `` Down by the River '' `` Cowgirl in the Sand '' `` Helpless '' `` Ohio '' `` Tell Me Why '' `` After the Gold Rush '' `` Only Love Can Break Your Heart '' `` Southern Man '' `` Do n't Let It Bring You Down '' `` When You Dance I Can Really Love '' `` Bad Fog of Loneliness '' `` A Man Needs a Maid '' `` Heart of Gold '' `` Are You Ready for the Country ? '' `` Old Man '' `` The Needle and the Damage Done '' `` Cortez the Killer '' `` Will to Love '' `` Like a Hurricane '' `` Love Is a Rose '' `` Lotta Love '' `` Hey Hey, My My ( Into the Black ) '' `` Pocahontas '' `` Powderfinger '' `` Sedan Delivery '' `` Rockin ' in the Free World '' `` No More '' `` Wrecking Ball '' `` Downtown '' `` Let 's Impeach the President '' `` Angry World '' `` A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop '' Films and Videos Journey Through the Past Human Highway Neil Young in Berlin Solo Trans Year of the Horse Greendale Neil Young : Heart of Gold CSNY / Déjà Vu Neil Young Trunk Show Neil Young Journeys Books Waging Heavy Peace : A Hippie Dream Related Discography The Squires The Mynah Birds Buffalo Springfield Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young The Stills -- Young Band The Bridge : A Tribute to Neil Young Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi Pono Old Black Farm Aid Bridge School Benefit Pegi Young ( former wife ) Carrie Snodgress Portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hey_Hey,_My_My_(Into_the_Black)&oldid=806134837 '' Categories : Neil Young songs 1979 singles Songs written by Neil Young Oasis ( band ) songs Songs about suicide Song recordings produced by David Briggs ( producer ) 1979 songs Reprise Records singles Music videos directed by Julien Temple Hidden categories : Articles with hAudio microformats Wikipedia articles needing clarification from February 2010 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from January 2015 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Español Euskara Français Italiano Nederlands Norsk nynorsk Slovenčina Suomi Edit links This page was last edited on 19 October 2017, at 22 : 53. 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Question: who said its better to burn out than fade away
Answer: Neil Young