News, Views and Music Issue 56 (Intro)

♫ Hello everybody, did you miss us while we’ve been away? Well, probably not given the amount of news items that have been happening lately. Who’d have thought that just an issue ago Abbey Road was still safe, Dennis Wilson was still largely forgotten and you could watch the Winter Olympics without seeing Neil Young’s face everywhere. Meanwhile, we’ve had 845 visitors to the site, a three star rating on fan pop (well, it’s better than one star I suppose) and a huge backlog of correspondence that equates to...one email. Please keep those suggestions and ideas coming and look out for our planned second April fool’s day edition in a couple of issues time after the huge success (well, two people liked it) of our first. Till then, happy reading!

                                                    

♫ Beach Boys News: Apologies for not telling you about the recent BBC4 Beach Boys night – it caught us all by surprise while we were away and we didn’t have time to add it to the last newsletter (which was, out of necessity, posted early). Anyway, the only ‘new’ item was a doc on Dennis Wilson entitled ‘Legends’ which is still being repeated regularly as we write and was well worth watching; Dennis’ sadly forgotten solo work was well overdue for an appraisal and its nice to see the amount of fuss generated by the first CD issue of ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’ and the first ever official issue of the unfinished ‘Bambu’ a couple of years back. Word has it that this documentary is far better than the ‘other’ official account – ‘Dennis Wilson Forever’ available in shops to coincide with the CDs – but for my money didn’t quite come up to the high standards of the Radio 4 Doc on the albums in 2008. Nice to see interviews with Dennis’ sons for the first time, though, and the second half of the programme, fully devoted to Dennis’ two albums, was excellent.

The other programme was a repeat of Brian’s you-had-to-be-there concert in 2004 premiering ‘Pet Sounds’ (The Wondermints are superb as ever and Brian’s on surprisingly enthusiastic form but this album is terribly over-rated in any form – see below). Most intriguingly of all, what happened to the plan repeat of ‘Beautiful Dreamer – The Making Of Smile’, which got pulled at the last minute and replaced by BBC4’s excellent ‘California Dreamin’ doc (which is on about its 12th repeat).  Did Mike Love get in a hoo-hah about people praising the project he hated once again? (this is, after all, the man who delayed the ‘Pet Sounds Sessions’ box set because it had too many mentions of composer, producer, singer and arranger Brian Wilson!) The documentary is out on the ‘Smile’ 2 DVD box set, by the way, and is a pretty good summary of one of the most confusing eras of any band, dissecting the myth and mystery without losing sight of the truly groundbreaking music.

♫ Beatles News: As you’ve probably read by now, EMI are in big financial trouble (despite our plugging of last year’s Beatles box sets!) and are planning to sell off the legendary Abbey Road recording studios! There has, of course, been a huge outcry with DJ Chris Evans being the unlikely saviour of the moment and at the time of writing it looks hopeful that the National Trust will step in and save the building from any unsavoury owners who want to demolish it or anything awful (with or without a top up from Paul McCartney). Another possible beneficiary, God help us, is Andrew Lloyd Webber: I can just imagine what fellow recording star Roger Waters makes of that if his Lloyd Weber diatribe on his ‘Amused To Death’ album is anything to go by...

Onto slightly less essential news, Ringo has a new album out entitled ‘Y Not?’ I used to stick up for Ringo’s solo albums, especially in the 1990s when both ‘Time Takes Time’ and ‘Vertical Man’ easily beat both Paul and George’s contemporary efforts. But the last three albums now have been horrible and the recent storm in a teacup with Ringo rubbishing his home birthplace and Liverpool responding in kind is getting out of hand (latest rant from Ringo, included on the new album, ‘Liverpool is dark and damp, the only escape – 2 guitars, bass and amp’). For someone due to turn 70 in a few month’s time, this all sounds terribly childish.  

♫ Belle and Sebastian News: More good news from the Belle and Sebastian camp – the band will be recording their new material for an album in LA next month, after the longest gap (nearly four years) in their career and the split from singer Isobel Campbell. They also announced their new touring plans this week, which mainly seem to be based in Scandinavia, but there are UK dates planned which should be announced in time for the next newsletter... 

♫ Johnny Cash News: Our occasional AAA member Johnny Cash is at it again, with the arrival of his third posthumous release ‘American VI: Ain’t No Grave’. And very good it is too, with covers of The Byrds’ ‘Satisifed Mind’ (alright, so it wasn’t theirs originally, but that’s how most AAA members probably know the song!) and a ‘goodbye’ in Hawaiian. Listen out for the title track, too, which is a Johnny Cash original and – like the others in The American series – is a surprisingly stark religious take on Johnny’s life.  

♫ CSN News: CSN are only playing two shows together this year but both will be at the Albert Hall! They must have got wind of my birthday as well because the shows are on July 4^th and 5^th. Thanks guys! In other news, Stephen Stills gets a mention in two consecutive articles in this month’s Mojo magazine: an interview with girlfriend Judy Collins (whose book ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ is due for release soon and is likely to have lots of Stills-heavy reminisces, from the title on down) and, less likely, a rambling interview with Hole singer and Curt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love who, when asked which singer she felt most ‘connection’ with, tells of how she ticked Kurt Cobain off for being rude to Stills once with the immortal lines ‘dude, you have to respect the Stills! The Buffalo Sprtingfield were the greatest live act of all time’ (even though she was all of three when the band broke up and no recordings exist!)

♫ Otis Redding News: Following hot on the heels of the Jefferson Airplane and Starship 5 CD sets, Rhino have just re-released five classic Otis Redding albums at the surprisingly reasonable price of £15. Called ‘The Original Album Series’ the five albums include Otis’ Dictionary Of Soul, Otis Blue (see AAA review no 4), Pain In My Heart, Otis Sings Soul Ballads and The Soul Album. 

♫ Neil Young News: I’ve given up being surprised by the things Neil Young does. Every so often, there he is in the most incongruous context possible and there he was again, performing at the closing ceremony of the Canadian Winter Olympics. In one sense it was terrific: after the huge mega epic goings on (including 30 foot beavers this year for some reason) the Olympic torch was snuffed out while...Neil shambled on stage alone with a guitar and yet I swear the crowd was more spellbound by him than any of the mega goings on of the past hour (except, possibly, the beavers). Alas his song choice, ‘Long May You Run’, was poor – see news and views no 33 for why I hate this song so much and he didn’t even have the grace to cut out the anti-beach boys verse! To be fair, though, how many other ‘famous’ songs could Neil sing in this slot? ‘Southern Man’ would have angered the Americans, ‘Let’s Impeach The president’ would have angered the Republicans, ‘Cortez The Killer’ would have angered the Spanish, etc. Oh and nice to see Neil in the crowd at the ice hockey semi-finals with a big grin plastered all over his face.     Well, strange as non-fans may have seen it, at least his appearance made more sense than Yoko Ono appearing at the Turin Winter Olympics four years ago!

          

♫ ANNIVERSARIES: Lighting candles on cakes this week are (March 14^th-20^th): Phil Lesh bassist with The Grateful Dead 1965-95) turns the big 70 on March 15^th; Mike Love (singer with The Beach Boys 1961-present) turns 69 on the same day and Paul Kantner (guitarist with Jefferson Airplane 1965-circa 73 and Jefferson Starship 1974-83) turns 66 on March 17^th. Anniversaries of events include: A feat never likely to be surpassed – despite the millions of classy groups around in 1964, The Beatles still account for a record 60% of record sales in America for the week starting March 14^th 1964; The Rolling Stones bid a temporary farewell to Britain with a gig at London’s Roundhouse Theatre before becoming French tax exiles for the next two years (March 14^th 1971); Otis Redding comes to Britain as part of a ‘Stax Package’ (March 17^th 1967); Ringo Starr films his bizarre T Rex concert film ‘Born To Boogie’ (March 18^th 1972); The Beatles release the only single not to be recorded in part at least at Abbey Road Studios ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ (March 20^th 1964), Janis Joplin scores her only #1 posthumously with a cover of Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Me And Bobby McGee’ (March 20^th 1971) and finally, John and Yoko become johnandyoko after tying the knot in Gibraltar on  March 20^th 1969, hot on the heels of paulandlinda. Oh and a very happy 28^th birthday to AAA reader Lizzie who celebrates on March 15^th. Hope you get the rest of those Beatles CDs!!

Getting out the fire extinguishers for candles on cakes the following week (March 21^st-27^th) are: Susanne Sulley (vocalist with The Human League 1981-present) who turns 47 on March 26^th. Anniversaries of events include: Pete Best’s mum phones up Cavern Club DJ Bob Wooler and manages to get a slot for The Beatles to play at the venue that will forever be linked with their name (March 21^st 1961); John and Yoko celebrate their honeymoon in true johnandyoko style, with a bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton hotel promoting world peace (March 21^st 1969); final Beatles single ‘Let It Be’ is released, a full year after it’s recording (March 21^st 1970); the first batch of Beatles CDs are released and – unlike last year – hold down the first four spots on the US top 100 (‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is #1 by the way, March 21^st 1987); The Rutles’ documentary ‘All You Need Is Cash’ is shown on television for the first time (March 22^nd 1978); The Beatles are persuaded by Brian Epstein to drop their leather outfits for a gig at the Barnston’s Women’s Institute on March 23^rd 1962 – they rarely use their old suits again; John Lennon’s first book ‘In His Own Write’ is published at the height of Beatlemania – Bless you, Lennon, you’ve got a lucky face (March 23^rd 1964); Simon and Garfunkel release their latest single ‘Homeward Bound’, some three years after Paul Simon first composed it (March 24^th 1966); The Who’s film version of ‘Tommy’ premieres 35 years ago (March 26^th 1975) and finally, Ronnie Lane releases to the press the sad news that he is suffering with multiple sclerosis after checking into a Florida hospital for treatment (March 27^th 1982).     uman HH      

News, Views and Music Issue 56 (Top Five): Most Over-Rated AAA albums

♫ At the risk of losing all our readers, here’s a rather controversial top five for you this week – the five most highly rated, million selling AAA albums that, erm, actually aren’t that good. Or aren’t compared to their lesser known but more entertaining cousins anyway. Of course it goes without saying that all music taste is a matter of opinion – it pains me to have to put that comment given that 99.9% of you must have worked that out already so that message is for the other 0.1%, but equally don’t take the path of the easy complacent listener who only ever checks out the so-called classic albums and ignores the rest! And I’m hardly alone in this – even Brian Wilson and Paul Simon have been known to question the sheer greatness of our Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel choices here.  So, in reverse order, here are the most-disappointing-albums-in-ratio-to-their-supposed-greatness: 

5)  Neil Young “Harvest” (1972). Three of its songs are classics – the anti-drug ‘Needle And The Damage Done’, the glorious blend of hope and melancholy and young wonder that is ‘Old Man’ and – unlike the vast amount of critics who really don’t get the song and label it sexist - ‘A Man Needs A Maid’ are all among the best in Neil’s varied and lengthy canon, even after all these years. But considering its all-encompassing, record beating, superstar making status as an album, is 3/10 classic tracks enough? No unsurprisingly, not when your supposedly best record contains such clunkers as the unlistenable one-riff ‘Words’, the melodramatic ‘There’s A World’ and the teeth-cringing ‘Are You Ready For The Country?’ which is so heart-stoppingly slow and ragged the answer is a resounding ‘No!’ Add in Neil’s biggest but least worthy hit single ‘Heart Of Gold’ and you have a record just made to put wannabe fans off, the ones who can’t afford the double CD price of ‘Decade’ or are put off by the weird packaging on ‘Greatest Hits’. For the first, last and only time in his career, this is Neil playing it safe and more people than ever before lapped it up (although, to be fair, critics at the time hated it with a passion – if you think I’m being harsh that’s nothing on the Rolling Stone review of 1972!)

4) The Byrds “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” (1968): It invented country-rock and gave us – God help us! – The Eagles and The Flying Burrito Brothers (a quick yeah for the under-rated Poco though!)  As if that wasn’t enough to hate this album for, it also introduced the world to the off key whining of Gram Parsons and – even worse – had Roger McGuinn mimicking the same off key whining throughout the album. Only Chris Hillman sounds at home, but even he seems to have given up adding to his fine storage of songs and can only offer us half-baked retreads of just dubious traditional songs as ‘I Am A Pilgrim’. The only track worth owning this sorry album for is Gram’s ‘100 Years From Now’ and even that sounds better in the outtake! The Byrds really struggled when they tried to branch out and be just one thing – had they kept to their usual eclectic grab-bag of styles this album’s tracks might well have sounded better. But as a half hour set of boring and samey songs go, this one takes some beating. How on earth did the promising follow up ‘Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde’ get so overlooked after this mess?!  

3) Simon and Garfunkel “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (1970): Alright, so the title track isn’t my favourite song but its not that bad and the well known ‘The Boxer’ and the lesser known ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’ are out and out classics. But where did Simon and Garfunkel’s legendary quality control go to on the rest of the album? ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ must be the worst white cod reggae song ever made by anybody (though Paul made up for it on his solo records), ‘Keep The Customer Satisfied’ is an out of tune self indulgent brassy mess, ‘Cecilia’ and ‘El Condor Pasa’ are so needlessly banal and simple they macke a mockery of Paul Simon’s early multi-layered masterpieces and Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most boring AAA songs of all. If this album was a neglected one or even a bunch of outtakes I’d try and defend it, for the above three great songs at least, but when you consider this album is still in the top 10 best selling albums of all time and its easily the worst of Simon and Garfunkel’s five then my head wants to explode. 

2) The Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” (1966): Let’s put this album back into context. It’s the worst selling Beach Boys album since the first one worldwide and – barring a flurry of interest from Britain – not many people thought it was up to much when it came out. Most fans and critics argue that that’s because it was so ‘different’ and ahead of its time, but my problem with Pet Sounds is that it all sounds the same. There’s just no dynamic range between the sad and the happy, the angry and the puzzled, the loud and the quiet. And the story – for it feels as if there is one about falling into, and then out of love – is told in such a mixed up order your head can’t work it out. Sure, schizophrenic and messed up albums do work – just check out Smile which manages to be 10000 things at once – but Pet Sounds does everything it can to make us believe its your typical, orchestra-accompanied rock album and as such fails at every turn. For me the only cornerstone on the album is ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’, a glorious hymn to leaving everything and everyone around you behind and wondering if the loneliness is worth the price; everything else Brian had written better earlier, mainly on the ‘Beach Boys Today’ album. And what the heck are the two instrumentals doing on there: even when heard in the context of the album sessions, with every song reduced to an instrumental backing track, they’re easily the two most boring melody lines of the lot. Thank God for Smile for restoring my faith in Brian Wilson after getting hold of this disappointing album.

1) The Beatles “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967): For an album that’s meant to have revolutionised the way we looked at music, this album seems terribly ordinary. Compare it to other Beatles albums – Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, even Please Please Me and there doesn’t seem to be much ambition here at all, just an attempt to fill up an album of ordinary songs with an ‘in concert’ atmosphere that gets dropped by track three and a load of sound effects that don’t always fit. Again ‘A Day In The Life’ is the album’s saving grace, closely followed by George’s most spiritual and deep song ‘Within You, Without You’, but everything else sounds tired – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is amateurish in a way that most similar English psychedelia isn’t (check out the Hollies’ two 1967 albukms for instance), Lovely Rita and When I’m 64 are inane and pointless ditties about nothing very much at all and Lennon is even reduced to writing about his inertia and lack of enthusiasm in ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’. There are plenty of worse albums around than this one, but not many Beatles ones – that magical group spark, one that broke new ground without putting everybody’s backs up all the time, is missing for this album which seemed to do both. As we’ve said elsewhere many times on this website, the reputation of ‘Sgt Peppers’ seems to rest on whether you were there or not at the time of release. Loved in 1967 but largely hated now, this album really hasn’t dated well and perhaps that’s the main problem – all the other Beatles’ albums are timeless but this one just sounds wrong now in 2010.   

Well, that’s it for another week. Just time to leave you with our election campaign message (the Conservatives aren’t the only ones out to brainwash you!) See you next time!

Neil Young and Crazy Horse "Life" (1987) (Revised Review 2016)

You can buy 'Here We Are In The Years - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of Neil Young' in e-book form by clicking here

Neil Young and Crazy Horse “Life” (1987)

Mideast Vacation/Long Walk Home/Around The World/Inca Queen//Too Lonely/Prisoners Of Rock ‘n’ Roll/Cryin’ Eyes/When Your Lonely Heart Breaks/We Never Danced

'You say your life's like riding on a fast train, it's easy to see far away, but right up close it's just a blurry haze, flyin' by from day to day'

The Geffen court case finally laid to rest, Neil decided to finally give in to the inevitable and make the Crazy Horse rock and roll album the record company had been waiting for impatiently for five years and…nothing. It’s one of the strangest quirks of the Neil Young catalogue that the album that seems to have been intended from the first as a big commercial return to form (Neil’s most famous style! Neil’s most famous band! Neil’s most commercial songs in a decade!) ended up selling less copies and charting lower than any album he’d released yet (even ‘Journey Through The Past’ charted thirty places higher). Forgotten, neglected, overlooked, overshadowed by others that are bigger, bolder, brighter and better. That’s “life” for you, in all meanings of the word. Even fans don’t really know about this album that much: recorded as the last of five in a really uncomfortable link up with record label Geffen it’s not as weird or wacky as ‘Trans’, as misguided as ‘Old Ways’ or as big a fuck you to record label and fans alike as ‘Everybody’s Rockin’ and ‘Landing On Water’. Yet neither is ‘Life’ heralded in the same back-to-career-best breath as ‘Freedom’, ‘Ragged Glory’ or ‘Harvest Moon’, even though it's probably better than the last two on that list at least. I’ve always been fond of this record – it didn’t change my life the way ‘Tonight’s The Night’ did or anything but what’s here is sharper and certainly one hell of a lot more consistent than anything Neil had done for a very long time. This is a record that burns with the passion missing from so many Young albums of the 1980s, along with melodies that soar, lyrics that sting and performances that...well, ok, actually the performances are clearly what lets this album down. 'Life' is one of those albums that sounded great on the road, not so hot in the studio and the quicker we get an 'archives' release of this period of stage shows the better. Even so, if you have the imagination to see what this album was reaching for (even though it reached so far it falls over a few times) then you'll find plenty to enjoy in an album that’s at least trying to knock our socks off, rather than bludgeon us with heavy metal, sing duets with Willie Nelson or tell us how [160] ‘Betty Lou Got A New Pair Of Shoes’. ‘Life’ is, amazingly, only the second album released on Geffen where the end result wasn’t at least secondarily designed to piss off the record company. So why isn’t it better known?


Well, ‘Life’ often feels as if Neil has been away from the commercial world for so long that he’s forgotten how to do it. To put his career back on track Neil effectively had two choices: record a glossy contemporary pop album or re-hire the Horse. Never one to do things by halves, Neil somehow ended up doing both. Crazy Horse, who had been in mothballs ever since 1981’s empty ‘Re*Ac*Tor’, were recalled and expected to perform at their peak though they'd barely seen each other or Neil in all that time. And this is not a natural environment for Crazy Horse, like taking a My Little Pony into a warzone or asking Mr Edd The Talking Horse to ski - it's mis-casting of the highest order. The front cover, with a raging Neil on stage with guitar in hand and wind blowing through his long hair, makes it look as if ‘Life’ is one of those rocky back-to-basic sets that Neil wheels out every so often. But the rock and roll on this album happens in tiny boxes, contained three minute nuggets in simple keys that have little ambition beyond the riffing. The rock and roll feels incidental to this album too somehow. Most of the time Neil is asking the Horse to make heavily stylised 1980s pop albums that should be anathema to them and even when he isn’t Neil is in poetical Dylan mould, pouring his heart out on lyrical epics that feel as if they should be being performed with his singer-songwriter\acoustic hat on. Crazy Horse, a band who are built around feelings and vibes rather than brains or precision, frequently collapsed under the strain as Neil picked their performances apart again and again. Nobody has any happy memories of making this album: Neil and Noko Bolas both tore their hair out as the Horse failed to play the four bars they'd just rehearsed, while the Horse reared at going over so much old ground when they just wanted to play. The Horse have recalled many times that they thought this album would be their last collaboration with Neil, with sessions hitting their lowest point when drummer Ralph Molina was told to stop using his traditional hi-hat playing (the backbone of the band's sound) and had the cymbals taken off his kit. While hiring the Horse was an obvious career move that must have pleased Geffen no end, this material (or at least two-thirds of it) patently wasn’t written with their rock stomp in mind. 


Neil surely meant to do this album on his own originally, perhaps in tandem with producer Jack Nitzsche who, after sixteen years missing from these pages, is back on the scene again, contributing the pretty ballad finale to the album. This is a major black mark against this album right there: asking the Horse to play technically and difficult drove them and Neil to distraction and is a little like asking Donald Trump to solve your maths homework or The Spice Girls to sing on key. This isn't the third best garage band in the world anymore - not because Crazy Horse have forgotten how to play but because their guitarist-singer insists on turning pro and hasn't told the rest of the band yet. Unlike every other Crazy Horse album, from ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ right on to 2003’s ‘Greendale’, this is an album that you can imagine being performed by one of Neil’s many other bands – the Stray Gators would have made a neat country rock version of most of the songs or perhaps the true basics of the Landing On Water session musos would have reduced it even further down to its basics. But no, Neil chose Crazy Horse to help him with this work, albeit moaning about their primitivism for possibly the only time in their forty year career together on an album that sounds primitive but thinks in a much wider scope than is generally acknowledged. That, generally, is where all criticisms begin and end: it sounds weak and so ‘Life’ must be all bad. The performances do, as so many critics have pointed out, speed up and slow down and sag in the middle. But that happens on a lot of Young albums ('Ragged Glory' springs to mind, 'Greendale' too) and at least this one has songs, a heart and a brain behind the monotonous drum tracks and riffing. Had Neil made this album with, say, a new band he'd nicknamed 'The Lifestyle Provocateur Harvesters' and included a mixture of people who actually understood the digital world (Niko Bolas, Rock Rosas and Chad Crowmwell perhaps?) 'Life' would surely be in people's top five. Maybe because I can hear what this album could have been it's still in my Neil top five - just. 


Then again, perhaps the poor-sales weren't all down to the clunky performances and Geffen's decision not to promote an artist they were suing but something a little more profound. Unlike Neil's other ‘single identity’ albums of the decade where you can pretty much guess the contents and today’s latest genre from the cover, “Life” is such a hard beast to pin down. One moment it’s the most autobiographical Neil’s been for five years and as many albums, analysing his latest broken heart or bemoaning the prison sentence Geffen have saddled him with. The next he’s angry for the American everyman, swooping down on the harsh way America treats its victims and its heroes alike, spitting venom not heard in a decade and never really heard again until 2005’s George Bush wake-up call ‘Living With War’. We also get a long awaited return to the land of the Aztecs and Incas and the setting of many of Neil’s best loved songs on perhaps the most epic re-telling of these lost civilisations. And then, filling in spaces in between, ‘Life’ is just gritty nonsense pop, inventing grunge a good four years too early (and with more panache than 'Ragged Glory'), but telling us nothing really innovative about the artist or his audience and the band simply there to have fun. A mis-mash of an album like that would be par for the course for most groups, but that’s not really Neil’s scene. This is, after all, the school-kid who by his own admission would change his complete looks, fashion, style and attitude every term so that his peers would never see enough of the real ‘him’ to label him or see more than a single side of him at a time. This record isn’t another ‘Freedom’, a record that actively tried to put the best of multiple different Neils together to entice collectors into biting – ‘Life’ feels as if it just tumbled out of Neil’s head this way, a confused and lost album from a lost and confused period when Neil didn’t have one muse he was chasing at a time but several.


Even Neil’s acoustic side one/electric side two hybrids have some sort of unifying theme going on, or even whole concepts such as the ‘vocoder’ Trans, the ‘country’ Old Ways or the retro ‘Everybody’s Rockin’. Only this album and the better known ‘Freedom’ are similarly schizophrenic in their range of styles. Perhaps that’s why this album is called ‘Life’, not because its more autobiographical than normal (as many critics have assumed, the small handful of which have actually paid any attention to this forgotten album at all – there is a little of Neil in all his LPs but rarely a lot), but because it's a bit of everything, Neil Young style 1987. This record can make you sob with pain, curse with anger, think deep intellectual thoughts and jump for joy - truly, what other Young album  did all four at the same time? (I'll tell you my theory, it's 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'). Certainly no other album went from the stupidity of 'Too Lonely' (with its cry of 'big tits!' - or at least that's what the backing Horse hear the lyrics as) to the sheer aching poetry of 'We Never Danced', a candidate for Neil's most moving song as lovers that could never be in life wait patiently to embrace in death. Or rocked harder than 'Mideast Vacation's sly political 'hawks' outrage before cooling down for the 'dove' of 'Long Walk Home' where liberty is still possible. 'When Your Lonely Heart Breaks' is the saddest Crazy Horse have ever been. 'Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll' the maddest. 'Around The World' even does all that in one song veering from angry rants about pressures of modern-day living to some dumb middle eight about fashion and Neil picking up a girl to a moving guitar solo that rocks harder than anything he’s played for years (even while being chased by dancing synths) before ending in squealing feedback, all artifice and pop-art gone. 'Life' may just be Neil's most schizophrenic album Neil ever made as he finds his old eclecticism is pulling him in so many ways at once (maybe that's why he wanted Crazy Horse so badly so he could feature his simplest band pulling off his trickiest songs?) It’s certainly the most ‘mainstream’ album Geffen ever got out of him, but don’t let that put you off either – a good half of this album is Neil branching out on a limb, trying new styles with a fairly high rate of success (the synths sound even more odd on the most 'real' album the most 'real' of artists had made in a long time).


Even in amongst the sometimes dodgy performances and a production sound clearly meant to scream ‘hip for 1987’ there is so much to enjoy in this record that always gets missed. Neil's voice has always been something of a mystery - nobody knows why such a non-voice works as well as it does - and for my money it's never been better than here in the whole of his catalogue across an entire record. Neil's single greatest performance might be on 'When Your Lonely Heart Breaks', a song that aches with such wistfulness and loss, whatever the Horse are failing to play behind him. 'We Never Danced' too is full of mystery and magic, perhaps because the Horse have been shoved out the room. Neil screams 'Around The World' as if his life depended on it, somehow making what should be one of his dodgiest sets of lyrics sounds as if it means something. He's gloriously demented on 'Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll', impressively tough and sarcastic on 'Mideast Vacation' and utterly sweet on 'Long Walk Home' (even if his glorious vocal keeps being interrupted by 1980s synth 'bombs'). And then there's 'Inca Queen' in which Neil sings without any emotion in his voice at all on a history travelogue that's amongst his trickiest and most refined, an swed tourist taking a walk through his imagination and unwilling to break the spell. There are some glorious guitar solos here too, from the charging take-no-prisoners of 'Mideast Vacation' to the slow vulnerable part on 'Lonely Heart' to the classic acoustic flamenco dance at the start of 'Inca Queen'. In Neil's corner this is a terrific album, the Bridge School meaning that caring for Ben is no longer the only thing he has time for and allowing him to fully engage with music again instead of simply doing it on the side. These songs clearly mean one hell of a lot to him (just compare the commitment  to the way his non-songs on 'Everybody's Rockin' 'Landing On Water' and 'Greendale' are thrown away) and he sounds impressively un-rusty considering that the last time Neil sang to us like he meant it he was playing the part of a robot; it's just a shame that Crazy Horse, who are all trying so very very very hard to keep up, aren't disciplined or rehearsed enough to match his performance. But hey that's not their fault - asking the Horse to fly in this setting is like asking a real horse to fly; they don't belong in this world.


Any performance is pointless if the songs aren't up to scratch and luckily this is an impressive selection with nine very different takes on roughly the same idea. The key theme of this album is, fittingly, confusion - that awful moment when you realise that every rule you've been living your life by is 'wrong' and life is a lot scarier, stranger and darker than you ever realised. Pretty much the whole of this album features the characters about to pick themselves up and carry on to who knows what, perhaps because Neil is regaining control of his career again and feels he could do anything. Neil doesn’t know where his best interests lie anymore, with his family or with his art and his adopted country, too, was in similarly puzzled state in 1987 nearing the end of the cold war. 'Life' is about society and family both scattering in different directions, either zooming in on individuals ('Mideast Vacation') or zooming out to reflect wider societies ('Inca Queen'), but with everything in a seemingly permanent state of decline. This album is the sound of Neil and characters trying to work out why and where to go from here and how to keep their head up as they risk drowning in treacherous waters over and over again. Firstly we have the political songs: 'Mideast' is a war veteran (The Gulf war?) told to 'go home now' after risking life and limb in service of his country but still desperate to believe that intervention was right and he did good and that one day he will get a pat on the back from the world as he's 'feeling like a fight' with America's enemies, not quite realising that their biggest enemies are the ones who sent them to war (Neil's famously see-sawing political stance might be evidence here again as he pulls back from the gung-ho approach of the Reagan 'Hawks and Doves' years violently, mid-song). 'Long Walk Home' counters this attack by suggesting that we've always been confused who the enemy is - that if 'liberty' as American founding fathers imagined it was a 'little girl' she'd feel sick to her stomach about what America had become by 1987. A very Republican song is followed by a very democrat one then and yet nobody knows the answers anymore. Such is ‘Life’. 'Inca Queen' too is kind of a political song, but it's not our era but an ancient one as Neil provides us with a prequel to [130] 'Powderfinger' [94] 'Cortez The Killer' and [159] ‘Like An Inca’ by suggesting the land was in a state of disrepair long before the European settlers landed there. The people believe in what their Inca Queen tells them but history will prove her wrong, just as the leaders who promised 'liberty' and a 'just war' were also wrong. Why is war and politics so flipping hard?



'Around The World' then pulls back to show that this isn't just America's problem but everybody's as leaders rise and fall and commit the same mistakes everywhere in every era, even while they distract us with changing fashions and other nonsense to stop us thinking. However it's also a song about love, the other theme of this LP, in which boys and girls fall in and out of love everywhere too because they can't get it together and find too many differences splitting them apart. Even Neil's corny chat-up line in the middle of the song can't make things right. This makes me worry whether ‘Life’ is an early sign of splits within Neil’s third marriage, if the chance meeting with Darryl Hannah that has been eating up Neil’s soul had already become something strong enough to spill over into his work. Notably this is the first album where the female characters aren’t obviously based on Pegi: the girl in ‘Too Lonely’ comes from a ‘good home’ but is ‘looking for a good thang’, ‘Lonely Heart Breaks’ is a song of loss that seems odd for someone celebrating his ninth wedding anniversary 9and unlike some other writers it would be unusual for Neil to be writing a song that was wholly imaginary), whilst ‘We Never Danced’ sounds in context like the perfect response from someone who knows that a love can never be equated in terms of the dances he went to in his youth. This isn’t an album of soulmates meeting but a connection splintered by obstacles. On 'Too Lonely'  she's too hurt, too emotional and too lonely to fall in love. 'Cryin' Eyes' tries the same trick with a similar noisy riff and joyous rock as Neil tries to cage a 'free bird' by promising to help - only she's not listening either. Then there's 'When Your Lonely Heart Breaks' in which Neil tries to keep 'moving, moving on' and celebrate the things he still has and all but orders himself to stay positive. But it's all a lie: we can hear in his voice just how utterly miserable he really is, a dream once again over. Similarly in 'We Never Danced' the couple can only get it together in death, not life, as in a prequel to [234] 'Wrecking Ball' they finally meet up for a promised dance in heaven. Why, this album questions, can these lovers not get it together on Earth when they're clearly meant for each other? Why is love so flipping hard?!?


And then there's the kiss-off to Geffen. After five years, five albums and a court case Neil finally delivers the eclectic thoughtful rock album the company always wanted. It’s his last album too, Geffen deciding against making Neil stick to his contract (in a first, Neil successfully bought out his contract by lowering the advance his boss gave him for each record on the condition he could do what he liked – the only time in rock and roll history a leading musician actually successfully negotiated his salary down across the course of a contract). Only Neil's left a sting in the tail as his leaving present (well, he is a Scorpio). 'Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll' imagines the ;last five years as some giant farce, with Crazy Horse a garage band who 'play too loud' but know what their music is 'about' and refuse to sell out and 'get watered down by record company clowns'. For all the cheerful banter and good humour, it's a song deliciously pointed, with Young admitting 'we don't want to be good' not out of childish glee but because if he was 'good' he'd break every ethical gene in his body. More humour can be found on the front cover, where Neil's picture (but only his 'image' in its true cliched hair-splintering rock-posed image, not his 'real' eclectic self) hangs on the wall of a prison with a five-bar gate (one for each album) crossed underneath. Neil's done his time on this album. But why does making art have to be so flipping hard?!?


'Life' is hard. It's hard work for the band that made it, the songwriter who had to live it and the audience who have to sit through it, knowing how great it could have been had the performances come anywhere near to the songs. However I like 'Life' a lot - some Young albums are so simple they're handed to you on a plate and thus spoil all the fun of really getting to know them (even 'Harvest Moon' with all its acoustic loveliness), others are simple because there's nothing in them at all ('Greendale') but 'Life' might well be Neil's most intelligent, adult, consistent, responsible album. Typically, though, it's played by what sounds like a bunch of four-year-olds learning to play ('Crazy Horse, what did you do to my 'life' is what Neil should have said on playback - I reiterate, though, they were never going to thrive in these surroundings – it’s like calling on the Nashville guys of ‘Old Ways’ and asking them to jam for ten minutes at a time like the Horse) and all that intelligence gets lost in there somewhere. Don't listen to the other fans who take one quick listen to this album and hate it too - 'Life' has something for everybody, even if all of its confused, most of it is miserable and a lot of it is a struggle to sit through. But 'Life' is full of such magical, wonderful, humanitarian moments if only you know where to look for them, beyond the despair, the noise of modern day living and the confusion. And that alone makes 'Life' the best half-concept album of Neil's career (perhaps alongside the spooky mourning of 'Sleeps With Angels'), full of some of Young's loveliest vocal and guitar performances on some of his greatest songs that just happen to also come in the most rigid 1980s setting of his career. Well, that's life I guess - it's always flawed in some way. The result is still a return to form that only an even greater return to form at the end of the decade will eclipse.

The way this album starts is particularly interesting as it deals with perhaps the biggest one-two political punch of Neil’s career (after which, politics are never even referenced again on the rest of the album). Watching Neil as special guest celebrity at last month’s Canadian Winter Olympics came as a shock to many of us; not just because we’ve never heard Neil as much as mention sport in all the decades of interviews he’s done down the years (despite his dad being a leading sports journalist) or the fact that he usually snubs big events like this that treat him as some kind of Godlike figure, but because we’ve all, at least partly, forgotten that Neil was Canadian. After all, it doesn’t crop up in his work very often: in fact apart from the longing nostalgia of ‘Helpless’ and the awkward autobiography of [63] ‘Don’t Be Denied’ (Neil hadn’t yet written [383] ‘I Was Born In Ontario’ when the first draft of this review was written!) , I don’t think Canada has ever been mentioned in any of Neil’s songs. Neil has, of course, been an American citizen both illegal and legal since Buffalo Springfield first got together circa 1965 and although the outside world doesn’t have the same impact on Neil’s songs as it does on a few other AAA members (Paul Simon, Lindisfarne’s Alan Hull, Roger Waters, etc) when it does figure in Neil’s works its nearly always about Neil’s adopted homeland of America. Neil’s anti-Bush rants of a few years ago are legendary, but they were only the latest in a series of political songs and themes down the years that have taken in everything from being pro Ronald Reagan’s military spending budget to damning Nixon’s nonchalance at gunning down anti-Vietnam protestors in an Ohio university. 


[200] ‘Mideast Vacation’ is surely Neil’s best ‘America’ song since ‘Ohio’ and a song that looks in close detail at American foreign policy. At first Neil is as swept up as anyone else in all the jingoistic nonsense of the early mutterings behind the Gulf War: he sees these foreign upstarts on the news ‘chanting death to America and I was feeling like a fight!’ By the end of the song, though, he’s the victim as much as the locals, an invader who is a long way from the ‘law and order’ he was raised on, ordered to go home but treating war like a ‘vacation’. This is a character who never stops to think of the consequences of his actions and as such Neil gets to have his cake and eats it, re-asking the question of ‘Hawks and Doves’ by showing an America that can stick up for itself but is also too often the aggressor. Neil is always at his best when the characters in his songs learn something and here especially a character we think we know well gets turned around in the spotlight until the angry young punk desperate to fight for his country comes back, weakened, from the war only to find that his country have turned on him and even go so far as to replace him with youngsters, denying him the chance to go back into battle again (‘It’s time for you to go home now, stop sniffing that smoking gun!’). Equally those he meets in the East are confused as to whether he is saviour or criminal, part of their solution or part of their problem, as ‘someone kicked me in my belly while someone else kicked my feet’. The song’s startling opening lines (‘I used to watch ‘Highway Patrol’ whittling with my knife, but the thought never struck me I’d be black and white for life’) are particularly fascinating in this regard. This is an American who was brought up never doubting for an instant that the values he was taught, even on TV (‘Highway Patrol’ was a show that ran from 1955 to 1959 and is the American equivalent of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’, a programme designed to engender faith in authority figures) and had a clear sense of right and wrong. But human beings are too complicated for right and wrong: there are many reasons the East hates Americans and a soldier looking to shoot somebody up because of his own miserable life is not going to ease diplomacy any. You can read those lines on so many levels: the young bored kid signs up to fight because he doesn’t know what else to do and despite his inexperience finds himself fighting alongside the ‘hero’ soldiers he sees on the television and in the news; the kid who dreams of better things and yet never quite gets finds himself or understands that life is all one big grey mess and he’ll never find the black and white answers he desires. And the tragedy of all this is that the young fighter is still just as confused when he gets home from his army – even after all those years serving, he still feels lost and dazed when he comes home and he doesn’t even know if he’s achieved anything worthwhile. Neil positively becomes a soothsayer here, reporting on the growing tensions in the far East a full three years before the Gulf War finally explodes in everyone’s faces (and like the American soldier people are still confused over what for and why – though disabling corrupt regimes with nuclear arsenals is surely part and parcel of it, it is worth remembering that all the arms were sold to the East by America and her allies cheaply and the fact that a new stream of oil was discovered in the Gulf is only a coincidence to those of you who insist on learning your ‘truth’ from Fox News).


Neil, who had already got a lot of attention for his pro-Reagan comments, stirred up a hornet’s nest again with this song. This isn’t a pro-war song as so many think, but its not an anti-war song either: like most of “Life” everything is confusing in this world and Neil’s narrator doesn’t have a clue what to make of it. An angry, snarling song, this under-rated composition really benefits from an arrangement that strips the song right down to its basics, slowing down the tempo to both mimic the sheer hard work of the song’s narrator and the growing resentment he feels as his anger grows throughout the song. Goodness knows why Neil was getting so mad at Crazy Horse during these sessions – this track is perhaps the best of all the horse’s post-Danny Whitten recordings. Billy Talbot’s bass, usually erratic and out of controlled, simply swells with anger as it repeats itself again and again, trying to stay calm against the machine gun noises and stinging Young guitar that keeps trying to trip it up. Molina’s drumming sounds on the edge of falling over throughout, the perfect halfway house between calm and angry. Sampedro’s synth tries to offer a cooling healing hand that only whips the narrator up into a greater frenzy. The production of this song comes together better than anything else on this album – the cruise missile that suddenly takes off in the middle of the solo around the two minute mark, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, is one of the cleverest production tricks in this book. And Neil’s performance is awe-inspiring. He truly lives his latest character who is the best messed up, confused kid caught in things out of his depth since Jimmy the Mod in Quadrophenia and his guitar solo, simple as it is, is so great at channelling all that frustration and confusion into music, sometimes playing along in tandem with the song’s chunky riff before exploding in a mess of worried feedback and pain. ‘MidEast Vacation’ was deservedly included as part of the Geffen ‘Lucky Thirteen’ compilation, and probably made a lot of people think ‘Life’ is better than it actually is. It certainly stands as one of Neil’s better, more rounded songs of the period and one that sadly has more resonance with every passing year of America’s foreign policy. It remains one of the greatest Neil Young rock songs that only true fans know.


[201] ‘Long Walk Home’ is a slightly less personal, more abstract view of the same confusion and dilemmas but every bit as good. Liberty, a young American girl, peers at the wondrous flags at some war veteran homecoming, unsure what’s going on and whether to be happy at the scene in front of her as a dead soldier is laid to rest or not. Liberty is of course a metaphor – this is the American Dream right here, the thought of freedom and justice for all, and Neil is again completely unsure as to what his stance is. American intervention saves a lot of lives and a lot of problems, but then again invading countries to remould them in your shape isn’t what is written in the American constitution. It’s a dilemma America, more than any other country in history, has always struggled with – where is the thin line between liberating others and invading them to use them for your own ends? The question inspires a rather unusual slow piano ballad from Neil, one that sounds far more traditional and universal than his usual ‘piano’ songs (nobody else could have written [34] ‘After The Goldrush’ or [59] ‘Journey Through The Past’ but you could imagine another singer-songwriter having a crack at writing this one). To some, the song is just too darn slow – the tension is lost by the time the second verse comes along and we know in advance what we’re going to get in the next minute or so and the booming very 1980s sound effects that explode in a barrage of gunfire predictably don’t always help. Neither does Neil’s worst harmonica playing, his big return to the instrument after nearly a decade’s absence suggesting he hasn’t practised it once in all that time (and that he’s stuffing a cat for taxidermy while he’s playing it). However, for all the faults of the recording, I love this song. The melody is gorgeous, a free-flowing white-flag-waving gesture that’s hauntingly beautiful and amongst Neil’s best, especially when the Horse’s beautiful; shimmery harmonies creep in like subdued angels. Also, having a tempo so slow that it puts emphasis on the words is no bad thing when they’re as fine as the ones in this song. Just take a look at the last verse, referencing Vietnam and Beirut and everything in between with American citizens searching in vain for ‘the truth’ that is never found before the country moves on to the next crisis which is Neil’s political writing at its best. This is before Neil ends the song with that confusion and dilemma over invasion and support again: ‘why do we feel that double edged blade cutting through out hands?’ The title, by the way, refers to the long walk home both in real terms for the Americans coming back from the lands overseas and the long abstract walk back to the path of right as written in the American Declaration of Independence. After a career of turning his life into a journey (one usually travelled by car) it is strangely moving to hear Neil doing the same thing to his adopted homeland, on a song that bravely recognizes the long term problems instead of shrieking about the short term ones. Another classic song and one well overdue for a re-appearance in Neil’s set lists (CSNY would have done those harmonies proud on their ‘Freedom Of Speech’ tour!), this is even more than the other songs on ‘Life’ an example of the masterpiece that got away thanks to an indifferent performance and an insipid production when as a song it deserves oh so much more.     


[202] ‘Around The World’ finally moves away from America and onto Neil, but it’s a true patchwork quilt of a song this one that takes in pretty much everything. In many ways this is the epitome of the album: one minute we’re getting personal, the next we’re looking at universal truths, the next its talking gibberish and tying the whole thing up with the same crashing immobile guitar riff. Many fans hate this song and compare it, badly, to AC/DC but that’s kinda the point (it’s also the reason why Neil, probably laughing his head off, chose it to represent the album on the ‘Lucky 13’ comp). Everything’s become the same, Neil seems to be saying, and we’ve lost our dynamic range to the extent that major and minor things all seem to have the same kind of emotional tug on us. This may be, in fact, Neil’s wake up call from the years he took out to look after his son where all too often he made up songs that masked his real feelings and made big dilemmas out of the smallest of subjects so that Neil didn’t have to focus on the bigger, scarier picture (cue the seven minute angry snarling epic [145] ‘got mash potato, ain’t got no t-bone’ on Re*Ac*Tor). ‘Around The World’ starts off as a ‘universal’ ditty about boy means girl until the two fall out and, dismissing this huge subject in a single couplet, moves on to discuss world leaders falling out the same way (‘not much room for compromise!’) Verse three is an alliterary nonsense list of words beginning with ‘s’. The middle eight then tips the whole thing on its head, wailing ‘fashion change, style change’ over and over again. And then we go round the houses again until the vocals get drowned by a scary half synth/half guitar solo that sounds like its tuned in from another universe, until Neil finally gives away to his emotions and truly hammers his guitar into a mess of scrawling feedback, fighting with Ralph Molina over who can make the most noise. There are I think three points to this song – one is that, around the world, we keep looking for quick fixes and become fixated on small things like fashion that only matter because we say enough times as a species that they do (who actually cares if what you’re wearing is in fashion? Only the people who want to be in the same ‘in’ crowd as you). The second is that Neil knows that, no matter how many times he changes the style of his music, the results are still going to be the same confusion and puzzlement he’s suffering now, half torn between his earlier ‘hidden’ Geffen tracks and half wanted to talk about his ‘real’ self in music again. A third, linking it to the next track and the last two, is that every civilisation is fated to rise and fall – people become too complacent when things are going well, obsessed with fashion over politics until it is too late and their way of life crumbles to dust. This song isn’t perfect: the production is far too 1980s for modern ears all twinkly synths and echo, some of the garbled lyrics are a mess (‘why don’t we illuminate?’ might well be the worst line Neil wrote the whole decade) and the repetitive tune is truly a drag until you see through the song and realise what it’s doing there, an immoveable object faced by every country in every era (‘Around The World’ surely travels in time as well as space). I really really really could have done without Neil’s excruciating chat-up lines in the middle eight (‘Hey, what’s that you’ve got on? You’re sure looking good tonight! Where’d you pick that up anyway? Wow, you’re looking beautiful! Hey!’) But this song is not the clunker many fans would tell you it is – it’s a well though out at stab at trying to get the confusion Neil feels about his music into a single song and I challenge any Neil Young fan not to get goose-pimples when they feel that guitar/synth solo finally talking off slowly from the bass riff that’s been nailing it to the floor for most of the song. The riff, too, is a great one, a humungous behemoth that’s tougher than the better known ones on ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ and which cuts through the dated production like a knife through a tepee, exploding into gutsy violent feedback at the end just like the olden days, the Horse finally kicking against the pop trappings.  


[203] ‘Inca Queen’ is the one oasis on this torrential storm of an island, returning Neil to the scene of earlier triumphs. This time the song is a slow ballad, highlighted by some neat Spanish flamenco guitar playing from Neil for the first of only two times in his career to date (see [230] ‘Eldorado’), that’s more of a pictorial imaginative account than the character writing going on in Neil’s other Aztec songs. This time we get a prequel to ‘[94] ‘Cortez’, as Neil imagines a civilisation he once read about in school and how beautiful it must have been. Slow and stately, grand but beautiful, the haunting melody is one of Neil’s most complex, snaking into lots of interesting cul-de-sacs across the song’s epic eight minute running time and yet this change of styles and lack of repetition is mesmerising rather than confusing. Not a lot happens in this song, perhaps, and it’s probably the only song here that overstays its welcome (it’s the longest piece Neil had released so far – in fact its basically a third of the entire ‘Everybody’s Rockin’ LP!) But we need a calm, scenic, thoughtful song at this point in the album and the view we get to admire is truly lovely. Out of context this is a poetic history tale, a land where an Inca Queen walks across her mighty kingdom watching it serenely work like clockwork. In context with the album’s opening three tracks, however, it feels like a warning: this is a civilisation that too felt all-powerful and that it would last forever (it even starts with the Inca Queen checking her sun-dial like a wristwatch). The people here think they have thought of everything – they have ‘safety boats’ dangling from the air, time to dream which is surely significant (few civilisations ever get past the hunting-cooking-sleeping stage) and tamed animal life ‘from the biggest elephant to the smallest bird’ (though weirdly we only get parrots and monkeys on the soundtrack, which sounds like a dry run for the forthcoming ‘Earth’ live LP). It all sounds quite beautiful and as if the inhabitants haven’t a care in the world, immune to danger or suffering – which is probably an exaggeration on Neil’s part but only a little one (it wasn’t all human sacrifice and war – our current civilisation is still behind the Inca one in so many ways, in fact arguably every way except technologically and then not by as much as you’d think). This is especially true of the second half of the song when the Horse (who are completely the wrong band for a graceful slow burn like this song) stop coasting and add in some tension, with another of Neil’s ecological lyrics setting the scene (animals suffering as ‘Inca Queena Calls!’) But it’s only a small portion of the song adding this tension – what surprises most is how content Neil is to stay still in this land, rolling around the same chords for much longer than we usually get to hear, a tourist caught up in all the land’s splendour, a tourist content to gape. The only negative part of this song is Ralph Molina’s peculiar over-fussy drumming which, to be fair to him, sounds more like something Neil ordered him to play than something that came naturally. Otherwise, though, this is music surely fit for a Queen and surely the most overlooked of all the career-high South American works in Neil’s back catalogue. Maybe one day we will get a whole album of these songs? 


Side one of ‘Life’ has been one of the most complex and thought-provoking of them all. [204] ‘Too Lonely’ kicks off the second side with the first in a string of primitive rock and roll songs. It’s a one, maybe two riff song if you’re feeling generous about how the narrator – sounding rather like the depressed loner of much of ‘Landing On Water’ – is, err, too lonely to fall in love (I’m not really sure how that works, but then I have been too tired to sleep quite often which is much the same thing). Most of the rest of this song is nonsense: Neil has a ‘key chain, a good luck charm, got a fast car, got a strong arm’ and describes the girl he wants to date in the dumbest way possible, ‘big lips and tight dress’. Cue much play on the grungy guitar riff, Ralph’s primitive drumming and some chaotic backing vocals that don’t necessarily echo what Neil is singing (Neil gets by, when listing what he’s looking for in a lover, on dropping the close rhyme ‘looking for a big tip’ only for guitarist Frank Sampedro to undermine with the chorus line ‘big tits!’ in what must surely be the most Crazy Horse moment ever). The classiest bit of this simple song is Neil’s half guitar solo, when he launches himself off the riff platform into some excellent free-wheeling only to come back down to earth all too soon (it's a little like his solo in the sublime [24] ‘Cinnamon Girl’, but that’s as far as the comparison between songs go) and the brief moment when the band drop out to just leave Neil’s vocal and Ralph’s drumming playing steadily. Clearly it’s a far dumber song than anything else on the album and would even give the ones on ‘Re-Ac-Tor’ a run for their money. However there’s a place in rock and roll for primitive, dumb songs and this cheeky pop number has some great moments, from the windmilling riff to the funky drumming to the cheery vocals that are just the right side of messy. Only a slightly anodyne production that  makes everyone sound as if they are playing in different rooms makes it fall a little flat.  


[205] ‘Prisoners Of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ is, depending on who you ask, either one of Neil’s funniest or one of his most self-indulgent songs. I have a sneaking feeling that its both – all at once. This track was born from the Geffen record company shenanigans and celebrates the end of the binding recording contract that left Neil recording songs he hated just to annoy his bosses. This is, you see, the sort of song Geffen have been clamouring to have: it sounds like a pure Crazy Horse track, dumb and fiery, with a great guitar sound and a hummable melody. However the lyrics are a killer blow to Geffen and everyone who wants to pigeon-hole the band like this: you can’t hire bad boys of rock and roll and then tell them to do something – to be true to themselves they have to rebel, that’s what they were hired for. It’s like getting the class clown to be school prefect: you don’t hire him to be the brainiest most responsible person on campus, you hire him to turn a blind eye to the rules. This is Neil as the media always picture him and much as he is on the album cover: long hair flying, guitar wailing, in his dirtiest jeans. This is the Neil Geffen thought they were getting – and why neil felt imprisoned by their preconceptions. Ironic then (or perhaps not?) that ‘Prisoners’ is the song on this album most likely to represent that cover image: basic but developed, snarling but tuneful, this is FM rock radio friendly Neil and friends doing what they do best. But oh those lyrics aren’t playful at all but openly scathing: “We never listen to the record company man, he’ll try to change us and ruin our band...We don’t want to get watered down, taking orders from record company clowns!’ Ouch. This is war and Neil means it – the rest of Crazy Horse seem to be treating the song as a joke but he’s deadly serious, you can hear it in his defiant vocal and his snarling, bitter guitar parts. Most of the song, it’s true, tries to take the theme of a new young hungry garage band starting out, interrupted by their unhip and square family just when they get their groove going and trying to pull girls. In other circumstances it’s the perfect new song to be introduced in Crazy Horse’s period ‘rusted out garage’ tour complete with over-sixed props and interruptions from ‘mom’, the neighbours and the police. But Neil’s mask lets slip too many times here for this to be the hilarious spoof song fans usually take it to be – this is Neil getting his own back at Geffen the betrayer and killing himself with laughter over the fact that the closest the label ever got in its six painful years with the guitarist to getting what they wanted is a song that tells the whole world how bad they are at their job. I would hate to play chess with Neil. I bet he wins every time.  


[206] ‘Cryin’ Eyes’ is a third simple one-riff song in a row, very much like ‘Too Lonely’ but slightly more restrained and far less clumsy. I like it actually, in a way that I don’t often like Neil’s simpler songs, mainly thanks to the fascinating verse lyrics which sit in complete contrast to one of the most boring choruses of all time (‘whose gonna dry your cryin’ eyes?’) in a neat summation of this autobiographical/obscure hybrid of an album. I love those two verses so much because they sum up Neil’s situation so well: in the first he’s a free bird (perhaps a sequel to [88] ‘Dangerbird’) whose always flown above the heads of everyone whose tried to pin him down; in the second he’s ‘like riding on a fast train’ – he can see the bigger picture of what he wants and what’s best for his art (has there ever been a singer whose been more ready to sacrifice things to get what’s best for his art?) but the short term idea of how to get it is more difficult to pinpoint, more blurred and fuzzy. These two short simple lines really transform this song from the generic 1950s doo wop of crying eyeses and big surprises, this becomes a song about Neil, whose drying his eyes now that his record company hate him and his son is poorly and, ooh, thousands of things are flying all round his head. Mostly, though, it’s the riff, which in a running gag that dates back to [79] ‘Borrowed Tune’ is clearly nicked from The Rolling Stones but this time a generic Stonesy song rather than anything specific (it’s kind of a faster ‘The Last Time’ played with the energy of ‘Brown Sugar’ over a guitar riff that’s like ‘When The Whip Comes Down’). Crazy Horse sound great at last captured on a song they finally know how to play, with Billy’s bass throb central to the mix at last and Ralph and Frank’s cheery ragged harmonies the perfect counterpart to Neil’s gutsy lead. You’d never pick this song for a career best-of but ‘Cryin’ Eyes’ is one of those songs that gets overlooked far too often and is perhaps the best of Life’s simplistic trilogy.


[207] ‘When Your Lonely Heart Breaks’ is, perhaps, the best known track from this album and has become something of a concert standard over the last thirty years (not that Neil has ever played any of his songs that consistently, but this is perhaps his most heard song of the 1980s). It’s odd that it wasn’t on ‘Lucky 13’ because this moving song is far more mainstream than most of his Geffen works (or maybe that’s why?...) but still very much heartfelt. The title hints at [34] ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ and the chords even feel similar, as if Neil was writing a slower version of that song. However this is much more heartfelt and closer in feel to pure heartbreak and grieving. Billy’s bass acts like a heartbeat, slowly counting out the beats of the song, while the rest of Crazy Horse slow to a crawl to match the heartbreak in Neil’s head and Neil turns in one of his slowest yet most passionate guitar lines. The rest of the song doesn’t quite match up to the title phrase and its magical riff (which turns from the major to the minor key on the word ‘breaks’, as close in sound as we can get to that feeling), but its still pretty special, with Neil asking himself out loud ‘what’s your problem? She’s gone, you’ve got your memories, she got strong, there’s a lot of things that aren’t gone.’ But however good his arguments, its all a brave face – you can hear heartbreak in every note of this finely wrought song, from Neil’s fragile solo to Sampedro’s sensitive keyboard part. My guess is that this song was written for Darryl, perhaps after both parties agreed that they couldn’t hurt their spouses. Neil has given his rational argument and he knows it to be right – but still a part of him is waiting ‘for love to come back’, hanging on and dawdling even while he chastises himself for ‘wasting time’. Many of Neil’s best songs have him doing the opposite of what he tells us he’s doing: this one more than most works because we know the narrator is in denial, ignoring all the actually rather good advice he gives about distracting yourself from love. The only downside is the band haven’t quite got the hang of this song yet and for once Neil’s ‘first take, best take’ strategy doesn’t quite come off (a slow ballad is not the same as recording a fast, ferocious rocker that’s meant to be raw). The Horse have to play this slow and sensitive song with extra care and that means they lose the essence of what makes them so special – the danger that it could all go wrong at any minute. Only Neil sounds at home here, ‘borrowing’ his old Buffalo Springfield trick of playing his guitar loud but mixing it in the distance to sound angry.  If only the band had worked a little harder at getting it together this song might be one of the best in Neil’s catalogue; as it is, this is still one of the songs with the best potential.


[208] ‘We Never Danced’ ends the album on a suitably wistful, confused note. Though its themes reflect much of Neil’s outlook on ‘Life’ this haunted other-worldly song (with more effects than any Young song not on ‘Trans’) feels as if it sits outside the album completely – surprisingly for Neil, it’s a second straight ballad about heartbreak and loss. This is a super-polished recording of a more lyrical, detailed song that relies less on mood than before and Neil sings it in a detached way, surrounded by the dancing strings of co-writer Jack Nitzsche clearly going for another ‘Expecting To Fly’ in this song’s ethereal tone and fragility. As a result, it doesn’t tear at the heart strings quite as well but ‘We Never Danced’ is not without its strengths. Dancing is a theme in many a Neil Young song, inspired perhaps by his earliest romantic days when the only way to get close to a girl without marrying them was to dance with them. [39] ‘When You Dance I Can Really Love’ makes it clear that dancing is really a euphemism for sex (or at any rate that ‘lust never sleeps’) – here Neil regrets that he never got the chance to have that time of intimacy with someone he knows is special due to circumstances beyond their control (but who is almost certainly Darryl Hannah). After telling himself that ‘we were hardly friends’ Neil longs for them to ‘meet again’ and acknowledges that it won’t be until they die. He imagines a limbo world ‘between heaven and hell’ that’s like a ballroom, where finally their wishes can be granted and they can ‘dance the night away’. What sounds like a cute idea clearly means a lot to Neil, making it a rare setting he’ll return to for a sequel on [234] ‘Wrecking Ball’ that makes this illicit dance sound like an obsession. This time, the dance is passed up but it won’t be long before its accepted –you can tell that once again this narrator is lying to himself when he tells us that he’s going to steer clear and he would never dare have this dance for real. Fittingly the song takes place like an old-fashioned garrotte, but one that thanks to Nitzsche’s sterling production work sounds completely as if it is taking part in some new dimension. The only emotion we have all song is Neil’s quivering voice and once again even that is doing its best to sound impassioned. This is, in fact, the happiest song on the album by far – but it doesn’t sound like it, so eerie is the atmosphere of this track. It’s as if Neil’s forgotten what it’s like being happy and is trying to remind himself, hence the really detached feeling of this song. A remarkable end to a remarkable album, this song is quite unlike anything Neil has ever attempted before or since, the much more straightforward ‘Wrecking Ball’ aside, which is a great shame.


So, far from being the ‘worst Crazy Horse album’, ‘Life’ is surely one of the greatest dark horses in the Neil Young catalogue. It’s certainly one of Neil’s most consistent albums, with nine excellent songs, even if the four genres they come in (political yelling, dumb rock, Inca epic and haunting detached ballad) feel as if they belong on four different albums rather than the same one. This does however make for a more rounded LP that comes as a huge relief after the genre-hopping of the past few years and as both a songwriter and singer Neil is pushed to somewhere towards his best here. Certainly I would take this album over the next much better received but rather one-note Horse album ‘Ragged Glory’ any day, even if that is a much more ‘natural’ stable to put the band in this time. ‘Life’ was unlucky – it got left behind by the record label who failed to promote it, fell between too many stools for the public of 1987 and with Neil keeping quiet over many of the events that inspired it for years or sometimes decades its been a little too much of a mystery for fans to truly understand or take to. ‘Life’ is perhaps a little too confusing and erratic for most people after a simple listen (just take the ‘complete guide to the music’ review of this album, which says ‘the fact that it was hailed as a return to form at the time shows just how low Neil’s stock had fallen). But that’s where Neil was at the time: confused in both his personal and his professional life and this album is a pretty good summation at what Neil was thinking and feeling, speaking to us with far more emotion and power than anything on ‘Everybody’s Rockin’ ‘Old Ways’ and ‘Landing On Water’. As Neil himself tells us with the album’s penultimate line: ‘if you don’t know where to go it hardly matters which road to take”. This is a whole album’s worth of musing on that dilemma before finally working out the answer at the last minute – and it’s a philosophy that will be worth its weight in gold once Neil gets back to the cosy arms of Reprise. ‘Life’ is an eclectic, confusing, bizarre but ultimately satisfying record that will reward the patient fan tenfold, difficult to track down but unlike most of the other Geffen records so very much worth it when you finally do.

A now complete list of Neil Young and related articles at Alan’s Album Archives:

'Neil Young' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/neil-young-1968-album-review.html

'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' (1969) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-everybody.html

‘After The Goldrush’ (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/neil-young-after-goldrush-1970.html?utm_source=BP_recent

'Crazy Horse' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-48-crazy.html

'Harvest' (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/neil-young-harvest-1972.html

'Time Fades Away' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/neil-young-time-fades-away-1973.html

'On The Beach' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/neil-young-on-beach-1974.html

'Tonight's The Night' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-66-neil-young-tonights-night.html

'Zuma' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-zuma-1975.html

'American Stars 'n' Bars' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-70-neil.html

'Comes A Time' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-29-neil.html

'Rust Never Sleeps' (1979) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/neil-young-rust-never-sleeps-1979-album.html

'Hawks and Doves' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-26-neil.html

'RelAclTor' (1981) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-re-ac-tor.html

'Trans' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-84-neil-young-trans-1982.html

'Everybody's Rockin' (1983) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/neil-young-everybodys-rockin-1983.html

'Old Ways' (1985) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/neil-young-old-ways-1985.html

‘Landing On Water’ (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/neil-young-landing-on-water-1986.html

'Life' (1987) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/news-views-and-music-issue-56-neil.html

‘This Note’s For You’ (1988) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/neil-young-this-notes-for-you-1988.html

'Freedom' (1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-92-neil-young-freedom-1988.html

'Ragged Glory' (1990) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-ragged-glory.html

'Weld' (1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-95-neil-young-weld-1991.html

'Harvest Moon' (1992) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/neil-young-harvest-moon-1992.html

'Sleeps With Angels' (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-121-neil.html

'Mirror Ball' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/news-views-and-music-issue-103-neil.html

'Broken Arrow' (1997) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-broken-arrow.html

‘Silver and Gold’ (2000) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/neil-young-silver-and-gold-2000.html

‘Are You Passionate?’ (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/neil-young-and-mgs-are-you-passionate.html

'Greendale' (2003) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-greendale.html

‘Prairie Wind’(2005)  http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/neil-young-prairie-wind-2005.html

‘Living With War’ (2006) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/neil-young-living-with-war-2006.html

‘Chrome Dreams II’ (2007) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/neil-young-chrome-dreams-two-2007.html

'Fork In The Road' (2009) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/neil-young-fork-in-road-2009.html

'Le Noise' (2011) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-94-neil.html

'A Treasure' (1986/2012) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-147-neil.html

‘Psychedelic Pill’ (2012) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-psychedelic.html

'Storytone' (2014) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/neil-young-storytone-2014.html

'The Monsanto Years' (2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/neil-young-and-promise-of-real-monsanto.html

'Peace Trail' (2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/neil-young-peace-trail-2016.html

‘The Visitor’ (2017) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-and-promise-of-real-visitor.html

The Best Unreleased Neil Young recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/neil-young-best-unreleased-recordings.html

Five Unreleased Albums https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-guide-to-five-unreleased.html

Non-Album Recordings Part One 1963-1974 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-non-album-recordings-part.html

Non-Album Recordings Part Two 1977-2016 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-non-album-recordings-part_27.html

Live/Compilation/Crazy Horse Albums Part One 1968-1972 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-livecompilationarchivecrazy.html

Live/Compilation/Crazy Horse Albums Part Two 1977-2016 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-livecompilationarchivecrazy_18.html

Surviving TV Clips 1970-2016

https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-surviving-tv-clips-1970-2016.html

Landmark Concerts and Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/neil-young-five-landmark-concerts-and.html

Neil Essay: Will To Love – Spiritualism and The Unseen In Neil’s Music https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/neil-young-essay-will-to-love.html