But Neil Young never stopped reinventing himself. Not one to rest on his laurels, Young has taken up with anyone who will have him over the years. He brought Nils Loghren in for "Tron", the electro pop album, and this gem with New Agers Devo, the Spud Boys from Akron. Long may he run:
"The song "Hey Hey, My My...", as well as the titular phrase of the album on which it was featured, "rust never sleeps," sprang from Young's collaborations with Devo and, in particular, the band's frontman, Mark Mothersbaugh. In 1977, Devo had been asked by Young to participate in the creation of his film, Human Highway, and a scene in the film shows Young playing the song in its entirety with Devo (with Mothersbaugh changing a lyric about "Johnny Rotten" to "Johnny Spud".
On May 28, 1978, Young collaborated with Devo on a version of "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" at the Different Fur studio in San Francisco and would later introduce the song to Crazy Horse. During the Different Fur studio sessions, Mothersbaugh added the lyrics "rust never sleeps", a slogan he remembered from his graphic arts career that promoted the automobile rust proofing product Rust-Oleum. Young adopted the line and used it in the Crazy Horse version of the song, as well as for the title of his album. The lyrics from counterpart My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), "it's better to burn out than to fade away" were widely quoted by his peers and by critics. The line "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is often credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks."
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