Aging & Wisdom Quote by Randy Bachman

There’s a sly humility in calling your own work “cheap Neil Young copies,” and it lands because Randy Bachman knows exactly how rock mythology gets built: by proximity to cooler, stranger icons. Neil Young is the Canadian archetype of authenticity - ragged voice, moral seriousness, songs that sound like they were dragged out of the woods. By invoking him, Bachman picks the highest “realness” benchmark, then undercuts himself with “cheap,” a word that does double duty. It’s self-deprecation, sure, but it’s also a jab at the way the industry prices and packages sincerity.

The intent feels defensive and disarming. Bachman came up in a parallel Canada-to-the-world pipeline, but his legacy (The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive) skews tighter, more radio-ready, more “working class arena” than haunted-folk loner. Calling his songs copies flips the critic’s move before the critic can make it: if you accuse yourself first, you control the terms. He’s not denying influence; he’s shrinking the ego that often comes with it.

Subtext: songwriting is theft with taste, and audiences only tolerate the theft when you’re charismatic enough to make it feel like confession. Bachman’s line acknowledges the anxiety of influence while also winking at the impossible standard set by an artist like Young. It’s a musician admitting that the canon can be a trap: the closer you get to your hero, the more your work risks sounding like a receipt.