Time to open the alternative album section here at One Buck Records, and what better way to do it than taking a good but flawed album and make it better (?!) or at least more coherent. And for that kind of exercise, who better to turn to than uncle Neil. Mr. Young, the most mercurial and unpredictable of musicians, whose work is - quite by design - one of the least coherent. From album to album, and sometimes from song to song within an album. Neil Young's principle for what to include or not in an album has always seemed relatively arbitrary. A performance is technically flawed, but he liked the spontaneity of it? Put it on the album! There's a bunch of live performances lying around that he likes? Put 'em on the album! There's a couple of old outtakes that sound nothing like the songs he's working on now? Put 'em on the album!
Harvest is Neil's most popular and succesful album, but it isn't a particularly great album. Part of it is uncle Neil's above-described M.O. The acoustic material is of one piece, but there's also a couple of electric performance, one live aoustic track dropped right in the middle, and the album's two huge missteps: the orchestral rock of "A Man Needs A Maid" and "There Is A World". The decision to let Jack Nitzsche add his orchestral bombast to these songs were, respectively, ill-advised and disastrous. "A Man Needs A Maid" is a sturdy enough song to survive the orchestration, despite it clearly being counter-productive to the song's sentiments of confusion and loneliness. But "There Is A World" is barely a song to begin with and completely buckles under the strain of Nitzsche's additions. Uncle Neil's decision to include these in that shape and form is dubious at best. Especially since the sessions for Harvest yielded a number of other songs, predominantly in the acoustic vein of the rest of the material, that could've and would've been a better fit than "There Is A World".
So, time to harvest a better album. "World" is gone, while "Maid" stays, in a stripped-down acoustic live version. Harvest Time also reinstates the outtakes "Bad Fog Of Loneliness", "Journey Through The Past" and "Dance Dance Dance". The latter exists as a studio outtake, but I preferred a more spontanous sounding live acoustic take. And that's it. I sequenced "Old Man" in the midst of the songs similar in sound and sentiment, but otherwise kept the general structure of the album intact.
"Out On The Weekend" is still one of my favorite album openers of all time, with maybe my favorite opening stanza: "Think I'll pack it in and buy a pick up/ take it down to L.A./Find a place to call my own and try to fix up/ Start a brand new day" which introduces the album's loose theme of wanderlust and new beginnings, while the very next lines "The woman I'm thinking of she loved me all up/ But I'm so down today" hints at the album's undercurrent of quiet world-weariness bubbling under the gentle acoustic surface. It sets the mood perfectly, for the original Harvest and for Harvest Time. A lot of the album might be overly familiar, but hopefully this gives you a fresh way to listen to Uncle Neil's classic.
Time to go harvesting again...
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Neil Young - Harvest Time
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/NxNU9QhTM2u
Well, I didn't want to do the whole "ask a question before the goods" deal, that's for other blogs, but a little conversation between me and my three readers would be nice.
ReplyDeleteSo, what is your favorite album by Uncle Neil, and why?
Thanks for this, One Buck (hopefully I can get by with the informality of skipping your last name at this point). I actually love the two 'Harvest' songs you don't, but I'm always open to listening with someone else's ears.
ReplyDeleteMy fave NY album is one not often cited, if ever. I love 'Life'. It seemed to come and go pretty quickly, so I'm glad I scooped it up when it was released. I can't blame favoring it on it being my intro to NY, because I was already a fan and had most of his output up to the release of 'Life'.
I don't know why that album hit as well as it did. Two of my all-time favorite albums were released in the two years before 'Life' (Saints' 'All Fools Day' and Richard Thompson's 'Across A Crowded Room'), so maybe I was enjoying artists well into their performing years sounding alive, mature, confident. Apropos for today, when I made a CD commemorating 9-11 in the aftermath of that awful day, it was bookended by the crackling version of 'Mideast Vacation' off 'Life' and a forlorn, poorly recorded acoustic version of the same song to close the CD.
Keep plugging away, regardless of your readership size (which certainly bests a mere three!).
C in California
C, One Buck or just OBG is totally fine.
DeleteInteresting choice of album, though I understand how coming to an artist at a specific time or under speficic circumstances will alter how you feel about their output. I came to The Byrds 'backwards', meaning I started with their later and last (and tomany, least) albums, so I love them probably more than the average Byrds fan.
I am fond of the album's opening trio of tracks (I have an unreasonable fondness for the weird synth-raga of "Around the World") but the album fades a bit, with some duffers in the middle.
My favorite of his... well, I'm not sure. The one I remember buying new was "On The Beach," and I really love the songs I love on it. "I have an unreasonable fondness" for lines like "'You're all just pissin' in the wind.'" [In "Ambulance Blues'" allegedly quoting a manager about CSNY.]
DeleteI'm also enjoying the idea that Life is an introduction to NY, as in the State of New York ;) What you wrote was quite clear, but I amuse myself with misreadings sometimes.
Thanks to OBG for taking this on! Here's hoping it builds slowly into something we value and nurture. For now, I'll stay anon as
D in California
So, D, are you a cousin of C? When is E joining the party?
Delete"On The Beach" is also one of my favorites. For favorite albums from Uncle Neil 'd say "On The Beach" for a sustained mood piece, "Rust Never Sleeps" for a sort of all-purpose Neil Young and finally, uh, the above "Harvest Time" to sing along to in the car.
It takes time to build up a following around a blog, so 3 members for now is quite acceptable.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to be painful to admit, but I have never bought any of his albums, although I do like his work in general. I remember my younger sister playing Harvest to death, but for whatever reason it didn't really resonate with me that much, probably was more into new wave & God knows what else...
At least now I have a good reason to listen more carefully to your version!
By the way, you are familiar with https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com ? Lots of good stuff there!
Yes, I do know Paul's site, have often visited and occasionally commented there. His work load and output are really impressive...
DeleteI'm here, but keeping my head down for a bit. Loved Pearls btw. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteI think it may be a 3-way tie between Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, On The Beach and Tonight's The Night. Hard to pick one -- it really depends on my mood but On The Beach probably gets the most airplay due to that great upbeat title track
ReplyDeleteDoh! I mean the opening track obviously, "Walk On"! Maybe my favorite Neil song, at least the easiest to put on without being in a "mood"
DeleteHi, OBG! Found your blog today and have been happily reading all the posts. Favorite NY album? After The Gold Rush. Why? It's a record that my wife and I bonded over early in our relationship (another was -- coincidentally -- All Fools Day by The Saints). It's also a fascinating set of lyrics that (to me) feels like a window into Neil's mind. Strange how it ends with "Cripple Creek Ferry", which seems cut short, like a snapshot instead of a story.
ReplyDeleteAnd what an incredibly productive 18 months of recording: "Everybody Knows" with Crazy Horse (Jan-March 69), "Deja Vu" with CSNY (July 69-Jan 70) and "Gold Rush" (Aug 69-June 70).
DeleteHey Jonder, good to see you here! I wanted to stop by your place and, you know, cordially invite you and all but then was too lazy to sign in and said "I'll do it when I'm on the other computer", then promptly forgot!
DeleteI really like the little groove of "Cripple Creek Ferry", but it is barely a song. Then again, Uncle Neil never was afraid of, uhm, being short on storytelling sometimes. "Got mashed potatoes/Ain't got no T-bone" (repeat/repeat/repaet/...)
Also, great story on the records for your budding relationship with your future wife. So, The Saints for dancing and Neil for cuddling, maybe.
I feel I should like After The Goldrush more than I do. It's a really good albums, one of his best, yet for some reason I rarely put it on...
I went down an internet rabbit hole and learned that "After The Gold Rush" was a screenplay for a film that didn't get made. Neil had agreed to do the soundtrack. Somewhere out there is a 10-15 minute "Cripple Creek Ferry" that presumably had more to say about the lonely captain, his missing deck hands, and the gambler who hates to lose.
DeleteWhile "doing my own research," I was happy to find a performance that I saw once on TV in the 80's. It's a CSNY version of "Down By The River" from the concert film "Celebration at Big Sur". Lots of hippies dancing around a pool at the Esalen compound, while Neil sings his murder ballad. https://youtu.be/FDFjYnGWXeI
Also found a Stephen Stills quote (paraphrasing here) saying that Neil's problem was wanting to be a folk singer in a rock band. In hindsight, it looks less like a problem and more like a successful and interesting career path. As the younger folks say, "It's a feature, not a bug."
Best wishes on your blog! I added a link to it on my blog.
Hi, I'm a bit late to the party. But I'm into Neil, really a bit too OCD in some ways! Favourite album, phew depends on the mood. Broken Arrow. Said it, erm, no, Ragged Glory, no perhaps On The Beach...heck it's impossible. Funny I found this blog and was going to try an alternative Harvest. But you've done it. Although I was thinking of having a long jam session taking the barn bit from the Gators in the film and the hidden bonus track 'Gator Stomp'. I've created an ai album replacing Neil with Kurt Cobain. It's all a bit too weird. Eerie and haunting,
ReplyDelete1972, the Harvest year, also birthed Carl & The Passions, another similarly unbalanced album (which you've also had a shot at). They both have a couple of orchestrated numbers, some country rock tunes, and don't present a cohesive listening experience. That said, I was knocked out by each of them at the time, had no problem with the moodswings, and love them both dearly, as they are.
ReplyDeleteHarvest was a huge success, CTP tanked, yet they're of similar quality, and had the Beach Boys not been terminally unhip, maybe their later errors of judgement would be as forgiven as Uncle Neil's.
The difference between CATP and Harvest is that the former was scraped together from different places (the two orchestrated Dennis tracks) to make up an album, whereas Neil had enough songs around to bypass the orchestrated bombast road but chose, as ever, not to. He is probably the artist who least gives a fuck about mood swings or coherence. (So I did it for them).
DeleteAs for the later errors in judgment, well, to be fair, the Beach Boys started to lapse much earlier, much more often and much worse. They simply don't have a "Freedom " to their name, a latter album that restored them in the eyes of public and critics.
As for Neil's quality control, well...