Archives for June 2018

Certain Songs #1254: Neil Young – “Tonight’s The Night Part II”

June 30, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tonight’s The Night
Year: 1975

Recorded at S.I.R., Hollywood, on September 13, 1973

So while the spring and summer of 1988 was one of the worst stretches of my life, a couple of good things did happen to me during that time. The first thing was that I started living on my own for the first time in my life, in an apartment at the corner of Wishon & McKinley in the Tower District. It was a bit expensive: $375 a month plus utilities, but my landlord often forgot to charge me for the utilities.

The living room of that apartment was just big enough for a TV, a couch, and — oh yeah — my drum kit in the back corner, which was good, because of the other good thing that happened: one night, right around the time my band Blackbird Stories disintegrated for good, Ron “Doc” Morse walked up to me outside of the Olympic Tavern and told me he wanted to play music with me.

Certain Songs #1253: Neil Young – “Tired Eyes”

June 29, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tonight’s The Night
Year: 1970

Recorded at S.I.R., Hollywood, on August 26, 1973

The heart of Tonight’s The Night, both figuratively and literally, was recorded in a single overnight session in Hollywood: “Tonight’s The Night,” “Mellow My Mind,” “World on a String” “Speakin’ Out” and “Tired Eyes” were all put away that night, along with massive quantities of weed and booze.

The first of those songs to be recorded was “Tired Eyes,” and you can just feel the wasted tone in nearly every single note, every single beat, every single vocal of Neil’s harrowing lyric about a drug deal gone wrong.

Certain Songs #1252: Neil Young with Crazy Horse – “C’mon Baby Let’s Go Downtown”

June 28, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tonight’s The Night
Year: 1970

Recorded at the Fillmore East, New York on March 7, 1970

I almost didn’t write about this song. After all, as you know, I usually like to go chronologically, and not only was this song recorded five years before it was released on Tonight’s The Night, it has since been released in the proper context: the amazing Live at The Fillmore 1970; one of the very first of the Archives-oriented reissues.

Not to mention, Neil doesn’t even really sing lead on this, and even his co-write status is a bit dodgy.

Certain Songs #1251: Neil Young – “Borrowed Tune”

June 27, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Tonight’s The Night
Year: 1975

Recorded at the Broken Arrow Ranch on December 5, 1973

One of the most storied albums in Neil Young’s entire career, Tonight’s the Night famously sported an almost two-year gap between the time the bulk of it was recorded in late August and early September and the time it was released on June 20, 1975.

Fueled by equal parts of guilt, grief and tequila, the songs on Tonight’s The Night were frank and fucked-up on multiple levels as Neil — with the help of Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Ben Keith & Nils Lofgren — confronted the overdose deaths of roadie Bruce Berry and guitarist Danny Whitten.

Certain Songs #1250: Neil Young – “Ambulance Blues”

June 26, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: On The Beach
Year: 1974

Recorded at Sunset Sound, Hollywood on March 25, 1974

It’s of course, so obvious that Bob Dylan was one of Neil Young’s influences that I haven’t even bothered to mention it until now. Mostly because I hadn’t really loved Neil’s longer, impressionistic folk songs. Until now.

“Ambulance Blues” is eight minutes of quiet surrealism which somehow always surprises, despite the only instruments being Neil’s acoustic & harmonica, Ben Keith’s bass and, of course, Rusty Kershaw’s fiddle. I say, of course, because the fiddle is doing the heavy musical lifting here, weaving in and out of the song, which starts autobiographical, and then goes in a completely different direction.

Certain Songs #1249: Neil Young – “Revolution Blues”

June 25, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: On The Beach
Year: 1974

Recorded at Sunset Sound, Hollywood on April 6, 1974

There’s a reason that “Revolution Blues” sounds different from most other Neil Young songs: rather than the more straightforward rhythm sections he normally worked with he got Rick Danko and Levon Helm from The Band to play on it, as well as David Crosby on rhythm guitar.

The result is a song that is nervous and jumpy and jittery, Helm hitting his snare drum at seemingly random moments throughout, while Danko & Crosby are continually riding along with him. It all sets up a song where Neil is singing in character as one of the most notorious figures in American history: Charles Manson.

Certain Songs #1248: Neil Young – “Walk On”

June 24, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: On The Beach
Year: 1974

Recorded at the Broken Arrow Ranch on November 30, 1973

A few months after the original Tonight’s The Night sessions in Hollywood, Neil Young summoned Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina & Ben Keith to his ranch to record a few more songs. Whether or not they were meant for Tonight’s the Night is unclear, as the songs recorded in this period — “Winterlong,” “Borrowed Tune,” “For The Turnstiles” and “Walk On” — ended up in different places: “For The Turnstiles” & “Walk On” ended up on On The Beach, “Borrowed Tune” is a highlight of Tonight’s The Night and “Winterlong” surfaced on Decade.

Certain Songs #1247: Neil Young – “Tonight’s The Night (Roxy 09-28-1973)”

June 23, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Roxy – Tonight’s The Night Live
Year: 1973

Recorded at The Roxy, West Hollywood on September 28, 1973

This is where things get complicated. A couple of months after the ending of Time Fades Away tour ended, roadie — and brother of Jan from Jan and Dean — Bruce Berry overdosed, bookending that tour with a death that complimented the OD of Danny Whitten just before the tour started.

This sent Neil Young into a tailspin, and in August of 1973, he assembled a band consisting of bassist Billy Talbot, drummer Ralph Molina, pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith and Nils Lofgren to record a series of songs confronting the pain he was feeling. He dubbed them the Santa Monica Flyers, but they were also essentially Crazy Horse, too.

Certain Songs #1246: Neil Young – “Last Dance”

June 22, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Time Fades Away
Year: 1973

Recorded at the Sports Arena, San Diego, March 29, 1973

I often wonder about the dude giving the peace sign on the cover of Time Fades Away. There’s no question in my mind that it was taken prior to the show actually starting. I’m just guessing that after the show, he’d only be showing half of those fingers: after all, dude made it all the way to the front of a Neil Young show, and instead of playing “Down By The River” or “Helpless,” Neil is playing the long, weird, difficult “Last Dance.”

And yet, that dude seems to be whom Neil wrote “Last Dance” for.

Certain Songs #1245: Neil Young – “Don’t Be Denied”

June 21, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Time Fades Away
Year: 1973

Recorded at The Coliseum, Phoenix, on March 28, 1973

While it has a checkered history, Time Fades Away is actually a pretty important album within the context of Neil Young’s career.

First off, it truly marks the first time he defied expectations, in this case, the willful withholding of what the audience wanted, which was a follow-up to Harvest.