Archives for August 2018

Certain Songs #1289: Neil Young – “Music Arcade”

August 11, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Broken Arrow
Year: 1996

Recorded at Plywood Digital, Woodside, CA on March 29, 1996

But the best song on Broken Arrow wasn’t one of the long Crazy Horse jams, but rather just Neil alone with an acoustic guitar singing in an incredibly hushed manner, like he really didn’t want to sing the song, but also felt obligated to, as well.

Mood-wise, it’s almost a companion piece to “Borrowed Tune,” and while utter despair conveyed by that tune has been replaced with acceptance, the tone is still sad:

Certain Songs #1288: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Big Time”

August 10, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Broken Arrow
Year: 1996

Recorded at Plywood Digital on March 25, 1996

Since 1989, Neil Young had been on a roll: five studio albums and two live albums, not to mention TV appearances, sold-out tours, and an overall acknowledgement that he deserved the lifetime pass he’d already earned by the time the 1980s rolled around.

And while it’s not surprising that all of that critical and commercial goodwill would eventually dry up, what’s weird is that it dried up on the occasion of the occasion of his third Crazy Horse album of the decade; an album that was made up of many of the same ingredients — especially the long, loose jams — that people loved about Ragged Glory & Sleeps With Angels.

Certain Songs #1287: Neil Young – “Throw Your Hatred Down”

August 9, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Mirror Ball
Year: 1995

Recorded at Bad Animals on February 10, 1995

For some reason, Mirror Ball has kind of a bad rap, but I prefer it to the two Crazy Horse albums that sandwiched it — Sleeps With Angels and Broken Arrow, as the former is too dark conceptually and the latter is too muddy sonically.

Not to mention that none of the best songs on those records rose to the level of the best songs on Mirror Ball: “Act of Love,” “Scenery,” the titanic “I’m The Ocean,” and the utterly thrashing “Throw Your Hatred Down,” which was as typical of a great Neil Young song as “I’m The Ocean” was atypical.

Certain Songs #1286: Neil Young – “I’m The Ocean”

August 8, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Mirror Ball
Year: 1995

Recorded at Bad Animals on February 7, 1995

My favorite Neil Young song of the 1990s doesn’t have guitar solo, or even a chorus, really. And in fact, it might be an initial runthrough that ended up becoming the main take.

What it does have, however, is an absolutely unstoppable momentum, as well as maybe my all time favorite Neil Young lyric. And, yeah, it also has Pearl Jam, too.

Certain Songs #1285: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Change Your Mind”

August 7, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sleeps With Angels
Year: 1994

Recorded at the Complex, Los Angeles on December 6, 1993

Lets talk a bit about David Briggs, who was Neil Young’s go-to producer for the first 25 years of his solo career, including nearly all of the records I’ve covered in depth here: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After The Gold Rush, On The Beach, Tonight’s The Night, Rust Never Sleeps & Ragged Glory, to name just a few.

If you check his wikipedia, he’s credited with a total of 18 producer or co-producer credits on Neil’s records before he died in 1995 (and one posthumous, Hitchhiker, which was one all-night session in 1976), and the remarkable thing is that — if you take the live albums out of the equation — no two of those records sounded alike.

Certain Songs #1284: Neil Young – “Natural Beauty”

August 6, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Harvest Moon
Year: 1992

Recorded at Portland Auditorium / Broken Arrow Ranch on January 23, 1992

With the basic track recorded live in Portland during the early 1992 tour where Neil previewed the Harvest Moon songs, and overdubs — backing vocals, keyboards, marimbas, rainforest — done at his ranch, “Natural Beauty” stands at the very top of the list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Neil Young Division.

While I loved nearly all of Harvest Moon, I kept playing it to get to this last song, a long mysterious meditation on the intersection of technology, nature and Neil Young.

Certain Songs #1283: Neil Young – “Dreamin’ Man”

August 5, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Harvest Moon
Year: 1992

Recorded at Redwood Digital on September 21, 1991

I know that the title track to Harvest Moon seems to have been the one that has stuck around the most in the last quarter-century, and while it’s a perfectly lovely song — and had the really cool idea of using a broom as a percussion instrument — it just never became one of my favorites.

I preferred the slightly dramatic “War of Man;” the ode to a great dog, “Old King,” (and dig how Neil makes the banjo bark throughout); and today’s subject, “Dreamin’ Man.”

Certain Songs #1282: Neil Young – “From Hank to Hendrix”

August 2, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Harvest Moon
Year: 1992

Recorded at Redwood Digital on September 20, 1991

As the first song cut for Harvest Moon, “From Hank To Hendrix” definitely set the tone for the sessions: laid-back and mellow, just a bunch of friends playing and singing songs together. Not so far off from Ragged Glory, absent the waves of distorted guitars.

Which I think gets at the reason I love both of these albums so much: they feel loose, unforced, with the quality of the playing, singing and (especially) the songwriting so top-notch you hardly even notice how casual it all sounds.

Certain Songs #1281: Neil Young – “Unknown Legend”

August 1, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Harvest Moon
Year: 1992

Recorded at Redwood Digital on January 30, 1992

The formal sequel to Harvest — one might argue that Comes a Time was an informal sequel, at least — 1992’s exquisite Harvest Moon was a bit of a fluke: because he had developed a raging case of tinnitus while mixing Arc-Weld, he had no choice but to do quiet music for awhile.

I mean, I guess he could have chosen to do no music for awhile, but c’mon, this is Neil Young! So he reconvened the Stray Gators: Tim Drummond on bass, Spooner Oldham on keyboards, the always reliable Ben Keith on pedal steel and — in a surprise — Kenny Buttrey, last seen being fired during the Time Fades Away tour two decades prior.