1. Steve Youn… Read Full Bio ↴There are multiple artists using the name Steve Young.
1. Steve Young (July 12, 1942 – March 17, 2016) was an American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist, known for his song "Seven Bridges Road" (on Rock Salt & Nails & Seven Bridges Road). He was a pioneer of the country rock, Americana, and alternative country sounds, and also a vital force behind the "outlaw movement" that gave support to the careers of Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Jr. and more. Young was also featured in the 1975 Outlaw Country documentary Heartworn Highways. He was the subject of the song "The All Golden" by Van Dyke Parks. Young's first album, Rock Salt & Nails, on A&M, was performed on and supported by Gram Parsons, Gene Clark and other musicians from the 1969 musical community in Southern California.
Steve Young has never fit comfortably into categories. He follows his own musical and spiritual quest, weaving together Southern roots with a wide experience of life, and creating new traditions in American music.
Young was born in Georgia and grew up in Alabama, Georgia and Texas in a family which moved frequently in search of work. By the time he had completed high school in Beaumont, Texas, he was playing guitar and writing songs which incorporated influences of folk , country , gospel, and blues musicians and people like Hank Williams , Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and others. Once as a teenager he was blown away by seeing Carlos Montoya , a Flamenco Guitarist. He managed to use that too!
By his late teens, Young was back in Alabama, where he established some reputation on the local music scene. However, the wandering spirit soon took over again. He immersed himself briefly in the Greenwich Village folk scene, at a time when Bob Dylan and others were just being noticed.
Returning to Alabama, Steve found that "my New York folk-protest songs didn't fly in the South." Searching for more receptive audiences, he made short forays to California and other locations before moving to the West Coast in 1964.
In California, he worked with musicians like Van Dyke Parks and Stephen Stills, at one point holding a day job as a mailman. A major-label record deal led to a short-lived stint with a psychedelic country-folk band, Stone Country.
Settling into a solo career, Steve Young became an integral part of the movement which defined the California country-rock sound. Appearing on Steve's 1969 classic album, Rock, Salt & Nails were fellow pioneers like Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, Bernie Leadon and Gram Parsons.
Through 12 albums and countless live performances, Steve Young's music has remained fresh and aggressive, with a sense of deepening spirituality, and a consistent intellectual and artistic challenge, to himself and to his audience.
Many of the stars of the music industry have recorded Steve Young songs, and in some cases forged a career image around them. "Lonesome, Orn'ry & Mean," for example, became the signature tune for 'Outlaw' Waylon Jennings. Hank Williams Jr.'s cover of "Montgomery In The Rain" remains a classic.
Certainly the most-covered Steve Young song of all is "Seven Bridges Road," which has been recorded at various times by artists like Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, Ian Matthews, the Eagles, Ricochet, and, most recently, Dolly Parton.
While Steve Young songs have brought commercial success to others, Young has never been close enough to the mainstream to sustain his occasional brushes with stardom . He has been unwilling to accept the loss of artistic control that the industry expects of its stars.
And while Steve has lived in country music towns like Nashville and Austin, and his songs have had a strong impact on the direction of country music, he rejects the country label for himself. Young is in many ways a cultural dynamic in himself.
Part Cherokee (from his father) by birth, steeped in Baptist fundamentalism as a child, yet attracted to a Zen spirituality, the young man from the South with a nomadic spirit went on to create a unique form of American roots music with a truly global perspective.
Steve Young has literally toured the world. He has performed in many countries of Europe, in Australia and New Zealand, in Micronesia, China and Mongolia, in Egypt and East Africa and beyond. Wherever he has gone, he has filled the dual role of ambassador for American music and student of the cultures of others.
Young's live performances express the depth and power of his vision. He draws on his own songs, on Southern folk songs from varied traditions, on collaborations and on the best of contemporary songwriters such as J.D. Loudermilk, David Olney and others.
Steve passed away on March 17, 2016 at age 73
2. 'Steve Young' is also a pseudonym of Peter Friel, ambient tape musician.
Coyote
Steve Young Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
What have they done?
My little brother, where...
where do you run?
They strychinined the mountains,
they strychnined the plains
My little brother, the coyote,
When you hear him singing,
the few that are left,
He's warning the human race
of his death.
Don't poison the mesas,
don't poison the sky,
Or you won't be back;
little brother, goodbye.
There will be no one to listen,
and no one to sing,
And never and never
will there be spring.
Coyot', Coyotee-ee-ee!
What have they done?
My little brother, where...
where do you run?
The lyrics of Steve Young's song "Coyote" lament the tragic consequences of human interference in nature. The singer addresses the coyote, perhaps as a representative of all wildlife, asking what humans have done. The coyote's "little brother" has been killed by strychnine, a poison often used by ranchers and farmers to control coyotes and other predators. The singer mourns the loss of the coyote, singing that he "won't come back again."
The coyote's song, which serves as a warning to humanity, is all that is left. The singer urges people not to "poison the mesas" and "the sky," warning that if they do, they will never return. The final lines of the song are particularly poignant, as they suggest a desolate world where no one is left to "listen" or "sing," and "never and never will there be spring." The song thus urges listeners to consider the consequences of their actions and to take responsibility for the health and well-being of the natural world.
Line by Line Meaning
Coyot', Coyotee-ee-ee!
Steve Young is calling out for Coyote, the character and personification of the coyotes that existed in the wild
What have they done?
Steve Young questions the actions of humans and the impact they have on the coyotes' habitats
My little brother, where...
where do you run?
Steve Young is metaphorically addressing the coyotes and wondering where they will go as humans continue to destroy their homes
They strychinined the mountains,
they strychnined the plains
My little brother, the coyote,
won't come back again.
Steve Young is referring to the use of toxic substances such as strychnine and how it has led to the coyotes' extinction in certain areas. He expresses dismay that once they are gone, they may never return
When you hear him singing,
the few that are left,
He's warning the human race
of his death.
Steve Young suggests that the coyotes that still exist are warning humans about their own extinction through their songs
Don't poison the mesas,
don't poison the sky,
Or you won't be back;
little brother, goodbye.
Steve Young begs humans not to poison the environment as it could lead to their own destruction, much like the coyotes. He ends the stanza with a farewell to the coyotes who may eventually disappear
There will be no one to listen,
and no one to sing,
And never and never
will there be spring.
Steve Young reflects on a future where humans have poisoned the planet and destroyed the habitats of the coyotes. In this reality, there will be no one and nothing left to listen to the songs of spring as it no longer exists
Coyot', Coyotee-ee-ee!
What have they done?
My little brother, where...
where do you run?
Steve Young repeats the opening stanza, reiterating his concern for the state of the planet and asking where the coyotes will go as their homes continue to be destroyed
Contributed by Gavin R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Kim Young
on Lonesome, On'ry and Mean
The lyrics posted here are not actually correct and I don't understand why they are not. If you listen to Steve's vocal you will hear what they should be. This song is truly about getting clean and sober, according to what Steve told me!