Archives for July 2018

Certain Songs #1280: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Love and Only Love (Pittsburgh 02-17-1991)”

July 31, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arc-Weld
Year: 1991

Recorded at the Civic Auditorium, Pittsburgh on February 17, 1991

The first time I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse was on the Smell The Horse Tour. It was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on Saturday April 6, 1991. Jay drove Manny, Byron & I in his van, listening to the initial dubs of the Miss Alans Discordia shows the previous weekend on the way up.

At that time, I wasn’t in a great headspace: the second version of Sedan Delivery had just fallen apart, I was going back to CSUF to finally finish my degree, and I was also dealing with a lingering breakup, as well. And in fact, I was originally going to go the next night in Sacramento w/ John, Sherilyn & Doc — a show with way better tickets — but ditched them because I didn’t want any kind of responsibility at all, not even driving, which I was going to do, cos I had the best car. It was also a Sunday night show, and I had to be in class at 9:00AM on Monday.

Certain Songs #1279: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Welfare Mothers (Landover, MD 02-27-1991)”

July 30, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arc-Weld
Year: 1991

Recorded at the Capitol Center, Landover, on February 27, 1991

Sure, the version of “Welfare Mothers” that was on Rust Never Sleeps was great — and its placement on side two between “Powderfinger” and “Sedan Delivery” was a great way to lighten the otherwise heavy mood created by the former and set up the noisy surrealism of the latter — but it wasn’t quite deranged enough.

I mean, sure, screaming “welfare mothers make better lovers” over and over again is already setting a high bar of derangement from the get-go, which is why it’s impressive they were able to go right over the top on the Smell The Horse tour.

Certain Songs #1278: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Crime in the City (Pittsburgh 02-17-1991)”

July 29, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Arc-Weld
Year: 1991

Recorded at the Civic Auditorium, Pittsburgh, on February 17, 1991

I don’t know if it’s still available this way, but when Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s second live album, Weld, came out during the insanely overstuffed with great music autumn of 1991, there was an extra disc attached to it called Arc.

And one of the coolest things about the packaging of Arc-Weld all of the pictures accompanying the CD, Neil Young looks totally possessed. Check the cover and he’s out of his head playing his guitar while the rest of Crazy Horse are deep into a groove. On the back cover, Neil is kissing his guitar, thanking it for all of the insane noises that he was able to coax out of it that evening.

Certain Songs #1277: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Over and Over”

July 28, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ragged Glory
Year: 1990

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on April 27, 1990

But the best track on Ragged Glory kinda slipped in under the radar.

Unlike “Love To Burn” and “Love and Only Love,” “Over and Over” was under 10 minutes long; unlike “Fuckin’ Up” and “Mansion on the Hill” it didn’t have an instantly-memorable chorus; and unlike all of the above (plus “Country Home” & “Days That Used To Be”) it wasn’t played on the Ragged Glory tour, and apparently not played live ever until 2012.

Certain Songs #1276: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “F*!#in’ Up”

July 27, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ragged Glory
Year: 1990

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on April 27, 1990

First off, while I am going to respect the original spelling of the song in the title, please let the affiliates know that, for the rest of the post, I am going to refer to this song as “Fuckin’ Up,” and not “F*!#in’ Up.”

Obviously, “Fuckin’ Up” wasn’t the single from Ragged Glory — that would be “Mansion on the Hill,” — but there was no question that it was the key track on the album, and we almost instantly learned it in the reconstituted Sedan Delivery, as the central question was one that we all could relate to.

Certain Songs #1275: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Country Home”

July 26, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ragged Glory
Year: 1990

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on April 27, 1990

According to Jimmy McDonough’s invaluable Shakey biography, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot were so pissed at Neil Young after being replaced for the Bluenotes in early 1988 that they weren’t even sure that they wanted to play with him again. So when Neil decided he wanted to do another Crazy Horse album in early 1990, they all met at the Harris Ranch Restaurant on the I-5 to discuss the possibility of recording together again.

Which, of course, they did. I mean, if your choice is recording with Neil Young or not recording with Neil Young, it really isn’t much of a choice, tbh.

Certain Songs #1274: Neil Young – “Rockin’ in the Free World”

July 25, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Freedom
Year: 1989

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on March 10, 1989

There were a lot of warning signs that Freedom was going to be a major album for Neil Young: not only was it was his first album with his hand-scrawled title since Rust Never Sleeps, it was only the third (and final, as of this writing) of his albums with different versions of the same song opening and closing the album.

But for those of us who wanted, needed, craved a great new Neil Young album in our lives, what really clinched it was his performance on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the album came out. While I’m sure that there was early buzz on the album, and the song called “Rockin’ in the Free World” that bookended it, there was no way we could have been prepared for what the song actually was.

Certain Songs #1273: Neil Young – “Too Far Gone”

July 24, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Freedom
Year: 1989

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on March 19, 1989

From my standpoint as a lifelong Neil Young fan who discovered him at the very end of his amazing 1970s run, Freedom was probably the most important album he ever made. After a decade of wandering in the wilderness of his own muse, it was reasonable to assume that his best days were behind him.

And maybe they were, but I personally think that Neil Young was as much of a force to be reckoned with in the 1990s as he was in the 1970s, as Freedom kicked off a streak of good-to-great albums that in toto comprised a completely unexpected and utterly unprecedented second act.

Certain Songs #1272: Neil Young – “Someday”

July 23, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Freedom
Year: 1989

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Broken Arrow Ranch on July 25, 1988

The earliest recording that made it to Freedom was recorded with the same group of palookas that made up the Bluenotes, though they aren’t credited as such on the album.

That’s because Freedom is a Neil Young album, not a “Neil Young & the” album: fusing together all of his disparate styles into a single coherent album almost effortlessly, regardless of who was actually playing on the song. You had to go back to Harvest or After The Gold Rush to find another Neil Young album like this.

Certain Songs #1271: Neil Young – “Don’t Cry”

July 22, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Freedom
Year: 1989

Recorded at The Hit Factory, NY & Broken Arrow Ranch on December 14, 1988

Neil Young found his way home, of course, but he took the scenic route. As you do.

In Neil’s case, after going back to Reprise Records following his unsuccessful stint at Geffen, he had his first minor hit single in quite some time. Well, not so much a hit single as a hit video. And really not so much a hit video as a banned video that won MTV’s Video of The Year back when that still meant whatever it had ever meant.