continued from last post
9) Don't Be Denied
Off of the great lost LP, Time Fades Away. It might be Neil Young's best album, released in 1973 it was never transferred from record to cd. It's live recordings of what were at the time all new songs and of what to this day are the best rock songs he'd ever write. Don't Be Denied is the greatest song off it and, fittingly. it's his autobiography. He came down from Winnipeg to be a star; and don't be denied either if you've got distorted guitars and a voice like a high pitched whine. Either the place for you is on stage like a God, or strung up high in Ontario to warn the other kids in the cars passing by.
10) On The Beach
"The world is turning, I hope it don't turn away". Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen were the mid 70's coin's two sides. Magic in the night and visions of Phil Spector brought to stereo on E street, lighted from an Asbury circuit, and down the shore everything's allright. And in California an honest hippie, burned out, looks up and at a full moon from the burned out basement where he lies. Where the vision ends and ends darkly. "The world is turning, I hope it don't turn away". Bruce was driving out of Jersey to a west coast warm and bright, and Neil was waiting on the beach for him, turning 30 in the night.
Epilogue) It's My Time
Don't doubt the man's capacity to surprise. Neil Young was signed to Motown records in 1966. In 1966 Neil Young was signed to MOTOWN RECORDS. Those were heady, heady days man. Neil Young was signed to Motown records in 1966 in a band with Rick James. The Rick James who sang Super Freak, Dave Chapelle's Rick James, the Rick James we know and like. Also in the band was Jackie Robinson on drums and Mort Sahl on bass. (No, those two weren't in it. But maybe they sat in sometimes). The band was called The Mynah Byrds and they had a 7 year deal that went to pieces when Rick was arrested for going AWOL from the army. Their album wasn't released and what was to be their first single never saw the light of day until 2006 in a Motown box set. Here Rick sings lead on a song him and Neil wrote. And after all these years their message still hasn't changed; "to every kid who wants to start a rock band, make your line up fucking strange."
Showing posts with label 10 Greatest Neil Young Songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10 Greatest Neil Young Songs. Show all posts
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
10 Greatest Neil Young Songs (Part 4)
continued from last post
7) Ohio
Nixon's coming. And saying his name's like a hearse caught on fire in the year of 1970 when the kids at Kent State die. What were their names, what were their names did you have a friend on the good Rueben James. Just so it's clear, rock and roll's not on your side Dick; you've called forth their fury and now your name is in their files.
8) Helpless
A beautiful, haunting, song and a beautiful, haunting, doubt. What does helpless mean? What's the song about? Helpless isn't a word for Neil Young, it's a microcosm of the world; look at it from one side and it's the love you can't escape, the love you'll never leave or live without. Look at it from further down the line and "chains are locked and tied across the door", and in the blue Canadian sky there's something dark that's flying south. It's that tug that makes it strange and gives it it's strength; he takes his route from the faith that stays the same to a blue, blue endless doubt.
continued next post
7) Ohio
Nixon's coming. And saying his name's like a hearse caught on fire in the year of 1970 when the kids at Kent State die. What were their names, what were their names did you have a friend on the good Rueben James. Just so it's clear, rock and roll's not on your side Dick; you've called forth their fury and now your name is in their files.
8) Helpless
A beautiful, haunting, song and a beautiful, haunting, doubt. What does helpless mean? What's the song about? Helpless isn't a word for Neil Young, it's a microcosm of the world; look at it from one side and it's the love you can't escape, the love you'll never leave or live without. Look at it from further down the line and "chains are locked and tied across the door", and in the blue Canadian sky there's something dark that's flying south. It's that tug that makes it strange and gives it it's strength; he takes his route from the faith that stays the same to a blue, blue endless doubt.
continued next post
Friday, April 24, 2009
The 10 Greatest Neil Yong Songs (Part 3)
continued from the last post
5) Rockin' In The Free World
Like Springsteen's "Born in the USA" there's more going on here than at first glance it seems. It's ironic but it's also not. It's a territory that keeps you on your feet. Get drunk in the chorus and feel bad in the verses; there's nowhere Neil loves being more than that space in between. The kinder, gentler, machine gun hand when he wants to fucking pack arenas.
6) Mellow My Mind
From one of Neil's best albums and one of the greatest albums ever, "Tonight's The Night". The original versions not on youtube but find it and listen to it if you can. He can't hit the notes, his friends are dead, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and all he's got left is the song. "I've been down the road and I've come back. Lonesome whistle on the railroad track. Ain't got nothing on those feelings that I had." It's all bullshit but this.
continued next post
5) Rockin' In The Free World
Like Springsteen's "Born in the USA" there's more going on here than at first glance it seems. It's ironic but it's also not. It's a territory that keeps you on your feet. Get drunk in the chorus and feel bad in the verses; there's nowhere Neil loves being more than that space in between. The kinder, gentler, machine gun hand when he wants to fucking pack arenas.
6) Mellow My Mind
From one of Neil's best albums and one of the greatest albums ever, "Tonight's The Night". The original versions not on youtube but find it and listen to it if you can. He can't hit the notes, his friends are dead, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and all he's got left is the song. "I've been down the road and I've come back. Lonesome whistle on the railroad track. Ain't got nothing on those feelings that I had." It's all bullshit but this.
continued next post
Thursday, April 23, 2009
10 Greatest Neil Young Songs (Part 2)
continued from last post
3)Down By The River
I heard this song when I was just a kid and I remember being shocked when the chorus came. It's a big moment, everything's flipped upside down, the whole world's not what you think it was. Like cold water in the sunshine, you expect it's just another day and there's bodies in the woods. It wakes you up, he draws you in. A hippie starts with a guitar and ends up burning Vietnam; a stranger turns and he's Neil Young.
4) After The Gold Rush
When Rolling Stone reviewed After The Gold Rush they said it was horrible. I disagree with almost everything they wrote about it but it's a great album review and really well written. Here's a link to it). My favorite part is where the writer, Langdon Winner, talks about the title track. He writes,
"...on this album [Neil Young's] intonation often sounds like pre-adolescent whining. The song 'After The Gold Rush,' for instance, reminds one of nothing so much as Mrs. Miller moaning and wheezing her way through "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch." Apparently no one bothered to tell Neil Young that he was singing a half octave above his highest acceptable range."
I love reading bad reviews of things now generally held as sacred. They remind you that nothing ever is and that nothing should ever be. I once saw a Rolling Stone article where Jon Landau, before he became Bruce Springsteen's manager, wrote a scathing review of the The Godfather. Telling it like it is. Things that are great should stand on their own; like the first two Godfather's and After The Gold Rush did. Is Neil singing in too high a key? I don't know, but I can hear what Winner was reacting to. The song puts you on edge, it's not relaxing, it's cold, it's bare, it's a pale white horse in a freezing mountain stream. Beautiful and deformed; like it shouldn't be there but it is. It sticks out like a sore thumb or like a diamond; (depending on your point of view) and I've got mine and Langdon's got his.
continued next post
3)Down By The River
I heard this song when I was just a kid and I remember being shocked when the chorus came. It's a big moment, everything's flipped upside down, the whole world's not what you think it was. Like cold water in the sunshine, you expect it's just another day and there's bodies in the woods. It wakes you up, he draws you in. A hippie starts with a guitar and ends up burning Vietnam; a stranger turns and he's Neil Young.
4) After The Gold Rush
When Rolling Stone reviewed After The Gold Rush they said it was horrible. I disagree with almost everything they wrote about it but it's a great album review and really well written. Here's a link to it). My favorite part is where the writer, Langdon Winner, talks about the title track. He writes,
"...on this album [Neil Young's] intonation often sounds like pre-adolescent whining. The song 'After The Gold Rush,' for instance, reminds one of nothing so much as Mrs. Miller moaning and wheezing her way through "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch." Apparently no one bothered to tell Neil Young that he was singing a half octave above his highest acceptable range."
I love reading bad reviews of things now generally held as sacred. They remind you that nothing ever is and that nothing should ever be. I once saw a Rolling Stone article where Jon Landau, before he became Bruce Springsteen's manager, wrote a scathing review of the The Godfather. Telling it like it is. Things that are great should stand on their own; like the first two Godfather's and After The Gold Rush did. Is Neil singing in too high a key? I don't know, but I can hear what Winner was reacting to. The song puts you on edge, it's not relaxing, it's cold, it's bare, it's a pale white horse in a freezing mountain stream. Beautiful and deformed; like it shouldn't be there but it is. It sticks out like a sore thumb or like a diamond; (depending on your point of view) and I've got mine and Langdon's got his.
continued next post
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
10 Greatest Neil Young Songs (Part 1)
1) Harvest
A guy named Jimmy McDonough wrote a biography of Neil Young called "Shakey" that I read a couple years ago. It's a great book, and the thing I remember most from it is what he says about Neil's song "Harvest", the title song from his best selling album "Harvest". The song is pretty and I always liked it, but I'd never really thought about what it was about.
Some of the lyrics are,
"Did I see you down in a young girls town
With your mother
in so much pain?
I was almost there at the top of the stairs
With her screamin in the rain.
Did she wake you up to tell you that
It was only a change of plan?"
Neil Young was married to an actress named Carrie Snodgress who had grown up with a mentally ill mother. As a child Carrie would frequently be awakened by her mother trying to kill herself. And so the chorus and the verses of a pretty song have a dark, dark core. "Did she wake you up to tell you that it was only a change of plan?". What a way to put it; soft chords and someone's screaming in the rain.
2) I've Been Waiting For You
The one great song off his first, and not very good, album. I couldn't find the original on youtube so here's a live version of it. This isn't close to the original, but here's how he sounded singing it in 2001, for everyone who's ever wondered what that sounded like. I put a David Bowie cover of it up here too because that's how I first heard the song. It's not great but it's closer to what the original version's like. Find it if you can and listen to it, it's a weird record, with a chorus that jumps out and looks you in the eyes. Neil's intense when he's coming at you; and here's the first time there was nowhere to run to baby, the first time there was nowhere to hide.
A guy named Jimmy McDonough wrote a biography of Neil Young called "Shakey" that I read a couple years ago. It's a great book, and the thing I remember most from it is what he says about Neil's song "Harvest", the title song from his best selling album "Harvest". The song is pretty and I always liked it, but I'd never really thought about what it was about.
Some of the lyrics are,
"Did I see you down in a young girls town
With your mother
in so much pain?
I was almost there at the top of the stairs
With her screamin in the rain.
Did she wake you up to tell you that
It was only a change of plan?"
Neil Young was married to an actress named Carrie Snodgress who had grown up with a mentally ill mother. As a child Carrie would frequently be awakened by her mother trying to kill herself. And so the chorus and the verses of a pretty song have a dark, dark core. "Did she wake you up to tell you that it was only a change of plan?". What a way to put it; soft chords and someone's screaming in the rain.
2) I've Been Waiting For You
The one great song off his first, and not very good, album. I couldn't find the original on youtube so here's a live version of it. This isn't close to the original, but here's how he sounded singing it in 2001, for everyone who's ever wondered what that sounded like. I put a David Bowie cover of it up here too because that's how I first heard the song. It's not great but it's closer to what the original version's like. Find it if you can and listen to it, it's a weird record, with a chorus that jumps out and looks you in the eyes. Neil's intense when he's coming at you; and here's the first time there was nowhere to run to baby, the first time there was nowhere to hide.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
