“Opera Star” (1981) – Neil Young and Crazy Horse * Written by Neil Young * LP: Reactor * Produced by David Briggs, Tim Mulligan, and Neil Young with Jerry Napier * Label: Reprise
If you’ve listened to Neil Young’s 1981 “Opera Star” more than once, the odds are that the phrase “some things never change, they stay the way they are” plays through your brain at appropriate moments. Also ready for recall, in all likelihood, is this one: “you were born to rock, you’ll never be an opera star.” The song presents itself almost like a knucklehead rocker’s manifesto, but Young’s ’80s output, with its drastic stylistic changes, indicates that “Opera Star,” and possibly the entire Reactor album—which Rolling Stone had classified as “bozo rock”—was a razz on a certain type of audience, the type who would hear opera music and imitate it just like the guys in Crazy Horse: “oh-oh-oh-ohhh-oh-OHHH!”