If you’ve taken even a passing interest in Neil Young’s career, you’ll know he’s not afraid to take on a fight or speak his mind, whatever the consequences.

This week he started a wave of protest against Spotify, asking them to remove his music. His issue was misinformation about Covid and vaccines on one of Spotify’s popular podcasts. You can have Joe Rogan or Neil Young, but you can’t have both was his message, as he requested his music be removed.

In solidarity, people cancelled their subscriptions and other musicians, most notably Joni Mitchell also removed their music. A sixties-esque musical protest led by Neil and Joni who have done their fair share of protesting over the years. Will the brouhaha bother Spotify? Most likely not, although its share price did plummet this week.

There’s a million other reasons not to support Spotify … namely the poor rate they pay the artists that provide the content for their platform.

But that’s a rant for another day.

This week a few things converged and took me somewhere quite unexpected and it all started with Neil Young.

I was raised a Catholic, which left me innately suspicious of religion, especially ones that want you to give them money. Those years of catholic schooling also bred a healthy scepticism, so it’s fair to say I’m not someone spiritually tuned in to the universe.

But the older I get, the more I’m inclined to believe there is an energy or a force (no, not The Force) at work and sometimes the universe does send you a message.

Neil Young always leads me to Cal. I was a peripheral fan, but Cal was a dedicated deep diver. He took me out beyond the safe waters of Harvest and After the Gold Rush and gifted me a random selection of tracks that I have no context for in terms of Neil’s discography. But they’re so full of context for us and our story. The night we stood watching Neil Young in the rain at a winery in Geelong is etched in my brain. Cal’s face was alight with joy. “You are like a hurricane,” Neil howled, as the wind and rain came sweeping in.

When someone dies, it’s hard to find the words. The words you need to comfort, to grieve, to express the essence of the one whose absence is overwhelming. Rather than try, I turned to Neil. In the quiet dark hours when I roamed the house at 3am in the weeks and months after Cal died, “Razor Love” was the soundtrack. And it was Neil Young I quoted on Cal’s memorial cards to try and capture some of his spirit. “Rolling down that empty ocean road, gettin’ to the surf on time, long may you run … with your chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run.”

Perhaps the universe wanted me to think a little deeper about love and loss.

Later in the week, driving down the highway I found myself in tears listening to a man on the radio talking about his terminal cancer diagnosis. I had tuned in because I wanted to hear what he had to say, but it turns out it was more than I could bear. Everyone wants to die at home, surrounded by their family he said. My body reacted before my brain did. I realised today that grief has muscle memory. That my grief is in my throat and jaw and my chest which makes it hard to breathe when it comes flooding back in.

It’s more than six years since Cal died. Today I reflected again on how it changed me and how I will always carry this well of grief and sadness inside me. Mostly it sits deep inside, but sometimes, like today it rises up and spills out. And that’s how it should be. Accepting and absorbing that grief is a way of keeping the love we had alive and bringing him with me. And whether it’s Neil making a stand against Spotify, listening to “Razor Love” or a voice on the radio, when the universe sends a message, it’s good to tune in and remember not what was lost, but what was … and how lucky we were to find each other.

“All I’ve got for you is a razor love, cuts clean through.”