The first album I ever bought was Déjá Vü by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I bought it at Lechmere, in the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, Mass., and I barely left the store before going back in to buy Eat A Peach by The Allman Bros. In a bin nearby was Black Sabbath's Master of Reality and I wanted it so badly I tried to cram it down my pants, under my coat. At 80 pounds the record was wider than I was and it took a week of saving quarters and another trip to Lechmere before I could scream along to Sweet Leaf and Into the Void.

Déjá Vü made me want to hear more Neil Young and I bought Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After the Goldrush and Harvest. After the Goldrush I bought on vinyl, cassette, CD, vinyl again and then as an mp3. Same with Harvest, minus the cassette. I listen to everything from punk to pop and change songs on my Shuffle weekly, yet I always leave something from one of those albums. It's not nostalgia I hear when I listen to him; his music shows me what I know but didn't know I knew.

On Tuesday I went to see Neil Young play at Madison Square Garden, first time ever. My entertainment lawyer has become a close friend and her law firm has a box there. The box is far back from the stage, behind the sound board, which means the band is far away but the sound is perfect. Neil Young came out on stage and kibbutzed around a bit, then he casually hit a note on his guitar. It was a gutteral plang, beautiful and raucous. It was what I grew up with and pure today. What surprised me the most was how rock and roll his sound was. It was like hearing him for the very first time.