Dealing with newfound fame can’t help but be a disconcerting experience. Suddenly, you’re encountering people who you don’t know, yet they’re treating you like they know you. And in a way, they do, because being a public personality means sharing a side of yourself with strangers. Neil Young found himself in this exact position when Buffalo Springfield became popular with its hit single, “For What It’s Worth” in 1967.
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A medical emergency prompted Young to think about the strange phenomenon of fame, and he conveyed those thoughts in the Buffalo Springfield song “Mr. Soul,” also from 1967. Young has said he needed only five minutes to write the three-minute track from Buffalo Springfield’s sophomore album, Buffalo Springfield Again. Just because he didn’t dwell on the writing process for “Mr. Soul” doesn’t mean that Young didn’t capture the dynamic between fans and stars masterfully. He illustrates his bewilderment over being famous so clearly that it’s stunning how he was able to write the song so quickly.
Written in Recovery from Epilepsy
Young’s epilepsy played an important role in the writing of “Mr. Soul,” but it wasn’t the first of his songs to allude to the condition. He referenced his first seizures in “Flying on the Ground is Wrong” and “Burned” from Buffalo Springfield’s first album. An epileptic fit that Young had during a Buffalo Springfield show led to him writing “Mr. Soul.” After recovering from the episode, he thought about the seizures, which felt like a near-death experience. He also thought about the general experience of being on stage in front of throngs of fans.
Young begins the song with his only reference to the titular “Mr. Soul.” He wrote “Mr. Soul” while pondering his own mortality, so he may have addressed his thoughts in this way as a way of speaking to a higher power, or perhaps speaking to himself from outside of his own body.
Confused by His Own Fame
The topic Young brings to “Mr. Soul” is why his fans are so enamored with him.
Oh, hello, Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason
For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season
Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin’
I’ll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on
Young is clearly befuddled by the adoration of the fans at the show. I dropped by to pick up a reason is a clever turn of phrase, making his confusion sound less threatening, but Young is looking for an explanation for his popularity. The verse’s final line I’ll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on, also serves the dual purpose of creating a rhyme and conveying his confusion. The strangers in the audience can’t possibly be that enchanted by him, so it must be a tease.
Young Lets His Fans Change Him
For the second verse, Young switches the scene to his life offstage. He recalls getting cheered up by some fan mail, but Young also sees the downside of this otherwise pleasant experience.
I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter
I was raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her
Any girl in the world could have easily known me better
She said, “You’re strange, but don’t change,” and I let her
Here’s another reference to Young “copping out to the change.” In this verse, he makes it explicit that he has changed his behavior because he is trying to please his fans.
Young is back on stage for the third and final verse, but he is still thinking about the fan’s letter. In Young’s telling of the story, he has the letter on his mind while he is having his epileptic seizure.
In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?
Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don’t know, why don’t you ask her?
The trick of disaster is Young’s epileptic fit. The her whom Young refers to in the final line would appear to be the fan who sent Young the letter. He repeats the line as the song’s outro fades out, leaving us to appreciate the irony of Young looking for guidance on how to navigate fame from one of his fans.
The Impact of “Mr. Soul”
With more than half a billion streams, no Buffalo Springfield song comes close to “For What It’s Worth” in terms of popularity on Spotify. But “Mr. Soul” is the band’s next-most streamed entry with over 30 million plays. Over the years, listeners of album-oriented rock and classic rock stations have heard the song with some regularity.
A snippet of a live performance of “Mr. Soul” introduces the closing track of Buffalo Springfield Again, “Broken Arrow.” (The cheering that accompanies the snippet is actually from a Beatles performance.) Young brought “Mr. Soul” to the attention of fans again in 1982 on his electronic rock album, Trans. The vocoder-enhanced version went to No. 14 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. It was one of two singles from Trans to appear on a Billboard chart, the other being “Little Thing Called Love.” The album peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard 200.
Other artists have kept “Mr. Soul” in the cultural consciousness over the decades. It has been covered numerous times, with the Everly Brothers, Cher, The Icicle Works, The Dream Syndicate, Rush, Nils Lofgren, Yo La Tengo, and Black Oak Arkansas being among the artists to interpret the song. “Mr. Soul” may not have been a huge hit when it first came out, but to have such a diverse group of artists cover it over the span of seven decades speaks to its lasting appeal.
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