Crazy Horse

Certain Songs #1294: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Ramada Inn”

August 16, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Psychedelic Pill
Year: 2012

Recorded at Redwood Digital on February 26, 2012

So naturally, after perhaps the most experimental album of his entire career, Neil Young returned to the basics, and after the longest non-Crazy Horse drought of his career, released not one, but two NYCH albums in 2012.

The first one, Americana, is a bit of a controversial entry in the canon: it’s all covers, and covers of traditional songs — and, er, “Get a Job” — to boot. Oh, and they fucked with the melodies of the more well-known songs as well.

Certain Songs #1291: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Slip Away (Los Angeles 09-11-1996)”

August 13, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Year of the Horse
Year: 1997

Recorded at the The Forum, Inglewood on September 11, 1996

Along with “Big Time” and “Music Arcade,” “Slip Away” was a definite highlight of Broken Arrow, but where it truly shone was on Year of The Horse, where it had time to slowly unfold.

I mean, sure, it slowly unfolded on Broken Arrow, too, but it kinda got lost a bit, being the third long slow song in a row to start off on that record, whereas on Year of the Horse, it was the first song on the second disc, following a pair of shorter songs that ended the first disc.

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 #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 #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 #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 #1263: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)”

July 14, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Rust Never Sleeps
Year: 1979

Recorded at the Cow Palace, San Francisco on October 22, 1978

Believe it or not, when Live Rust came out, there was actually some debate as to whether or not it even needed to exist.

After all, Neil had recently put out the career-spanning retrospective, Decade, on which you could find near-definitive versions of many of the songs, and even more scandalous, Live Rust repeated four tracks from Rust Never Sleeps, including the exact same recording of “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black),” making it the only song that used the exact same performance on all three documents that came from that tour: Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust and the film Rust Never Sleeps, though this version has some overdubs.

Certain Songs #1261: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – “Powderfinger”

July 12, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Rust Never Sleeps
Year: 1979

Recorded at McNichols Arena, Denver on October 19, 1978

It says here that “Powderfinger” is Neil Young’s greatest song, and one of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. That is, of course, a highly personal opinion, and Neil has loads of songs that are “one of the greatest songs of the 20th Century,” but to me, “Powderfinger” is both endlessly fascinating and the older I get, the sadder it seems.

As the song which starts the electric half of Rust Never Sleeps it’s a perfect transition from the all-acoustic side one, as “Powderfinger” feels like an ancient folksong, sporting both a melody and a story as old as America herself.