Peace Trail

Certain Songs #1296: Neil Young – “My Pledge”

August 18, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Peace Trail
Year: 2016

Recorded at Shangri-La Studios, Malibu on September 10, 2016

So, after nearly 50 years and over 60 posts, we come to the end of Neil Young. Well, not really the end of Neil Young, per se — he put out The Visitor in 2017 and a film directed by Daryl Hannah called Paradox just a few months ago — but the end of the Neil Young songs I’m writing about.

So why not end it with a weird, surrealistic confessional from a man who his still burning brightly well into his eighth decade?

Certain Songs #1295: Neil Young – “Peace Trail”

August 17, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Peace Trail
Year: 2016

Recorded at Shangri-La Studios on September 11, 2016

After putting out two Crazy Horse albums in 2012, Neil Young didn’t release any new music in 2013, but put out two albums in 2014.

The first was A Letter Home, and it was recorded with Jack White, which on paper seems great until you read the fine print: it was a bunch of covers recorded on something called the Voice-o-Graph, which was basically a phone booth sized chamber with a mic that allowed you to record directly to vinyl. The result was fun, but non-essential.