Monday, 7 July 2014

Neil Young: The Best Unreleased Recordings (News, Views and Music 252 Top 33 1/3)



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




Dear all, here we are back again with another 33 and a third unreleased tracks by one of our AAA stars, which we're writing here and now to give us something extra to add at the end of the series of AAA books we're planning very very soon now....in about 2017. This week it's Neil Young's turn in the spotlight and this article gave us quite a different problem compared to most weeks: there must be as much unreleased Neil Young as there is released, spread out across various bootlegs down the years, and he's released about 35 albums' worth of material already. As a result, we've tried to concentrate on purely unreleased songs, although there are some very different versions of songs known and loved we just had to include too. You might note that there's quite a gap in our list with very little from Neil's 'key' years between 1966 and 1975. Normally when in doubt we'd plump for a song from an artist's earlier, often more groundbreaking years but in Neil's case there isn't much that hasn't been covered on volume one of his 'Archives' set. Archives II is due any month now, apparently, and may well contain many of the songs listed here from 1973-83, but don't hold your breath; we were first promised 'Archives One' about 20 years before it finally came out...

CD One:

1) When It Falls, It Falls On You (Demo 1965)

Surprisingly missing from the Buffalo Springfield box set and 'Archives' despite dating from the same period as that set's other Neil Young demos ('The Rent Is Always Due' 'There Goes My Babe' One More Sign'), this is the Young Stephen Stills and Richie Furay must have experienced: a tense, earnest folk singer who made a far better halfway house between the Beatles and Dylan than the Byrds ever had (despite that being their stated aim). This track is clearly an 'early' song - you'd never catch the Neil Young of a decade or so later mixing so many metaphors and leaving so much unspoken and indirect. The melody also, probably unconsciously, rips off the Lennon-McCartney songbook, specifically 'I want To Hold Your Hold' ('You think you saw your love...') - which could well be why this song still hasn't had an official release yet. It's a very good song, though, with Neil already quite a poet with his lined about how, when things go wrong, it's often not the person who causes them to go wrong who get it in the neck.

2) Masquerade (The Mynah Birds 1966)

Sadly Neil's brief spell in the Mynah Birds wasn't documented on 'Archives' either. Invited to join the band by Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, Neil never quite fitted into the soul-come-pop surroundings of the band that first made Ricky James a star (although it took going Awol from the army and breaking up the band to achieve it). The Mynah Birds seemed to have even less chance of lasting than the Springfield even without the law getting involved though - the personnel changes and different influences were always going to pull the band apart. Few people remember that the Mynah Birds actually signed a seven album deal with no less an establishment than Motown Revords, however; Neil's career might have been very different had they stuck together. A whole seven song acetate exists,varying between James-led rockers and moody instrumentals that are kind of a cross between 50s Shadows and 70s prog rock, with an earnest organ part and some typically Neil ringing guitar. 'Masquerade' is arguably the best track of the bunch, with some typical Neil Young tricks (a sudden stop-start melody, a ringing guitar sound, an organ 'sweep' holding the track together).

3) Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere/Wonderin'/Sugar Mountain (Radio Broadcast 1970)

In 1970 Californian radio station KQED invited Neil along for a brief chat to plug his latest album 'After The Goldrush'. What they got was typically Neil: a rambling performance with songs started but rarely finished, rambling anecdotes dropped into the middle and absolutely no reference to the new LP. Instead Neil's head is on the past, with a rare period airing for 'Sugar Mountain', an acoustic reading of the title track of second album 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' and a preview of a folky 'Wonderin' some 12 years before it turns up as a rockabilly song! Neil even messes up the beginning to 'Wonderin' and concludes: 'man that was a funny chord - I've never hit that chord before and it made me laugh!' Along the way Neil busks an entirely new acoustic instrumental that sounds not unlike The Beatles' 'Sun King' (he really has a thing for plagiarising Lennon songs on these outtakes!), what sounds like the first few bars of 1975's 'Through My Sails', Springfield standard 'Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It?' and then starts singing Danny Whitten's song 'I Don't Want To Talk About It', noting how he'd 'always wanted to do that song' but feels he can't do it justice and stops; Danny's name isn't mentioned but Neil is clearly feeling his friend's descent into drug hell very painfully. The doom trilogy is right around the corner...

4) White Line (aka 'River Of Pride' Outtake 'Homegrown' 1974)

However in 1974 Neil was coming out of a painful period. Indeed the end came so suddenly that he nixed most of the songs he'd been working on across 1974 and abandoned pretty much an entire LP that legend has it was even given a 'proper' cover all ready to go at the printers. Neil returned to most of the song, eventually - 'White Line' for instance was re-recorded quite significantly for 1990's 'Ragged Glory'. One of many sad songs about Neil's fragile relationship with Carrie Snodgrass, it's actually one of the more hopeful songs on the album, declaring 'I've been down the road, but I'm coming up again!' The 'white line' is surely a play on words: far from burying his head in the sand with drugs, Neil's narrator feels like a 'railroad', trying to cling to the white lines in the middle of his path in order to find a way out of his unhappy life. The song sounds like an angry sea shanty, fierce and typically shambolic, although compared to any of the 'Tonight's The Night' sessions from the year before the biggest surprise is how 'together' Neil sounds.

5) Homefires (Outtake 'Homegrown' 1974)

Another 'Homegrown' outtake, this is a poetic acoustic song not that far removed musically from 'Wonderin' but the lyrics this time are almost painfully naked and vulnerable. 'I'm not the same man I was a while ago' the song starts before debating whether to stay or whether to go. 'Late at night, when I've been drinking' Neil hears a 'different song' - one that doesn't sound like the one he sings at home and as every Neil Young fan knows when Neil gets something in his head it's hard to shift it until the next thing comes along. That said, Neil is still torn, keen to 'keep the homefires burning' with someone and isn't cut out for the cold dark world outside just yet. Quite possibly the single best Neil Young song still unreleased.

7) Separate Ways (Outtake 'Homegrown' 1974)

Neil suddenly started performing this 'Homegrown' track in the 1990s, re-creating it as a bluesy song well suited to the Bluenotes, but the original is as sad and stark a song as any in his acoustic canon. Another painful song about the breakup with Carrie and son Zeke, it recounts the tale of two halves of a couple who seem doomed to go their 'separate ways' even though neither of them really wants to. The song starts with an angry 'I won't apologise' for the relationship because, back then, 'the light shone in your eyes', but kindly adds that it hasn't gone out forever - it's just he's not the right person to reignite it anymore. One of Neil's more thoughtful 'doom trilogy' songs, it's a great shame that this fine song still isn't available anywhere officially.

8) Give Me Strength (Outtake 'Homegrown' 1974)

Our final 'Homegrown' song is another fine song about heartbreak, sadly reflecting 'the happier you fly, the sadder you fall' when love comes to an end. The song then pleads to some greater deity not to put things right, as most narrators would, but to 'give me strength to move along' and onto adventures new. Some particularly lovely harmonica playing makes this simple song another lost classic.
 
9) Love Art Blues (CSNY Live 1974)

Hopefully you'll be able to hear this one for yourselves soon - the much promised CSNY at Wembley CD/DVD package (when they played to the then-record crowd for a rock and roll gig, finally beating the Beatles Shea Stadium record from nine years earlier) is allegedly ready and raring to go; in other words exactly the state it was in two years ago! Neil has never returned to the song, which is of one with his 'Homegrown' material andrarely performed it again once the tour ended. Forced to choose between 'the best things I've ever had', the narrator jokes at himself at how recently 'all my words are so long and my songs are all so sad...' Neil may well have been joking though: the 'art' in the song is actually a reference not to the act of creating but to Neil's dog Art!

10) Pushed It Over The End (CSNY Live 1974)

The tour de force of the CSNY 1974 reunion tour for many was this nine minute epic on feminism, which only received one very brief semi-legal release in Spain. A fine turbulent riff makes the song unsettled throughout, calming down onto keap to its feet once more as Neil first sides with and then chides the feminist movement around him. 'Good looking Millie's got a gun in her hand, but she doesn't know how to use it!' is the oft-quoted first line, but most of the song has the 'men' as the victims, unsure where they stand in a new and shaky world where old values have been thrown away. 'Though no one hears the sound, there's another poor man falling down' goes the chorus, awkwardly falling ever downwards with every flick of the central riff until the narrator finally falls slat on the floor. Only a genius or a madman would throw a song this good away.

11) Hawaiian Sunrise (CSNY Live 1974)

The lightest of Neil's four 'new' songs on the CSNY tour - none of which he returned to again afterwards - is a tribute to where CSNY met, by chance, in Hawaii. Graham Nash started the song in concert by encouraging the audience to imagine they were on a beach and even got them to make the noise of waves (it all went wrong on a few gigs on the tour - by far the quietest song at this point in the set, it was often used as an excuse for party goers to throw firecrackers, usually leading to a quip from Neil about how there aren't normally fireworks when he goes to the beach!) A bit inconsequential, but an intriguing pointer to the intended album of 'beach' songs Neil was meant to be working on in 1976, a handful of which ended up on the 'Stills-Young Band' album of 1976.

12) Traces (CSNY Live 1974)

Neil recorded this one solo in 1973 but for my money CSNY always gave the best performances of it - perhaps because this song's quiet optimism is more up their street than 'solo' Neil's. 'Believe me when I tell you, a true love isn't hard to find', adding that she's 'a lifeline across the sea'. By rights Neil ought to be singing this sweet love song for Carrie deeply bitterly after their split, but that isn't his style - instead Neil sings it straight, as if reminding himself of his own earlier positivity. 

13) Greensleeves (Live 1975)

There's usually a joker in the pack on Neil Young albums somewhere, the song that just doesn't quite fit (think 'Motorcycle Mama' on 'Comes A Time' or 'Piece Of Crap' on 'Sleeps With Angels'). This is ours: a keening, wailing acoustic guitar performance of Medieval England's 'Greensleeves', allegedly written by King Henry VIII although we're willing to be he simply stole it from someone more talented (the English Royal Family are like that). Neil does a good job at finding his inner minstrel and his Canadian pronouncement of 'discourteously'  as a ten syllable word might well be the best single moment of this unreleased album. But is this song heartfelt? Or a joke? We sense even Neil's not too sure...

14) Evening Coconut  (live 1976)

Another slow breezy folk-rocker, details about this song appear to be sketchy but sounds to me like a Stills-Young Band performance of another song that's decidedly aqua in nature. Neil is back to writing his fantasy lyrics again, imagining the Statue of Liberty overlooking Atlantis but what's odd about the situation is that everyone accepts it naturally: 'it's no secret, it's what everybody knows' and has been waiting for. The curious title, by the way, seems to refer to the name of a boat. Stills and Young are typically great foils for each other in the guitar solos, Stills' bursts of passion hitting Neil's nonchalance head on and all in all this is rather a pretty song, musically distantly related to the far inferior 'Thrasher' from 1979.

15) Stringman (Studio Outtake 1976)

Talking of Stills, he's long been held to be the inspiration for this song of empathy with a struggling, fallen individual led too easily by his emotions (he'd just split up with Veronique Sanson, the one Stills partnership of the pre-1990s that seemed to be stable). Neil returned to this great song in 1993 where it was one of the highlights of his 'MTV Unplugged' set, but the original from 1976 sounds even better, with a haunting choir of Neil Youngs all singing in quiet solidarity with his fragile lead vocal. Neil's voice even cracks on the line 'there is no dearer friend of mine that I know in this life' - a rare case of emotion getting the better of him.

16) Last Trip To Tulsa (Live 1976)

We've tried to steer clear of songs already released on this list unless they're really really good or really really different. This song is both: I'm not a big fan of the 'finished' version, the rambling ten minute faux-Dylan epic that takes up ten precious minutes on the otherwise superb debut album 'Neil Young'. This electric version from 1976 - taken at such a fast lick it's completed in less than half the time - is quite something else, however. The song's riff sounds much better when heard electric and unhinged and the song even ends up making a kind of sense, the images passing by you so fast that you don't have time to think about how daft a lot of them are. The song comes to a better full stop too, with Neil tailing off into a superb peal of ringing chords that sound like pent up frustration finally finding release.

17) Too Far Gone (Studio Outtake 1976)

Fans will know this charming country-rock song from the re-recorded version on 'Freedom' in 1988. I much prefer the original, though, which sounds a lot more carefully planned and played. 'We had drugs and we had booze - but we both had something to lose' sings Neil, with the painful deterioration of his relationship with Carrie still very much recent memory rather than something he can laugh at, as in 1988. The 'too far gone' cleverly refers to both the narrator's inebriated state as he drinks to forget his troubles and the fact that the couple at the heart of this song couldn't be further apart.


CD Two:

18) No One Seems To Know aka Annie Oakley (Live 1976)

One of those earnest piano ballads Neil does every so often, usually reflecting on heartbreak and loss. This is Neil discussing how he was 'once in love' but is no more and can't seem to get it out of his mind. He vows, instead, to keep quite the next time he's in love - that way he won't feel such a 'loser' when it goes wrong. The tune might not be one of Neil's best (caught somewhere between 'Love In Mind' and 'Philadelphia' without the distinction of either song), but the lyrics are classic Neil: 'Now it seems that time is better spent in searching than in finding'  and 'When you're down you have to gather strength to leave the ground'

19)  Little Wing (Live with The Ducks 1977)

We know 'Little Wing' of course - it's that sweet little acoustic song that begins the 'Hawks and Doves' LP and where Neil sounds as if he's swallowing a mouthorgan. We've never heard it in its original state though, as a slower electric harmony-drenched song performed by ad hoc superstars 'The Ducks' in an unadvertised pub performance (that thankfully an enterprising fan happened to tape). If the 'finished' Little Wing is a hummingbird, all fleet of foot, small and pretty to look at, then this 'Wing' is a great big fat clod-hopping eagle! Still, it's nice to hear this song the way it was first meant to be heard and Neil turns in a typically great guitar solo, drenched with regret and pain.

20) Sedan Delivery (Outtake 'Chrome Dreams' 1977)

We know this one too, as the nicely punkish nonsense rocker that's one of the highlights of 'Rust Never Sleeps'. This first version is quite different though: it's a chugging blues that sounds less intense but a touch scarier, the nonsense lyrics about 'sleeping in every hallway' and beating a pool player with 'Varicose Veins' sounding all the more claustrophobic and threatening here. This recording was intended for the second in our series of abandoned Neil Young LPs. This one was recorded in 1977 and titled 'Chrome Dreams', although unlike 'Homegrown' pretty much all the songs have found a new home in the years since then: most notably on 'Decade' 'American Stars 'n' Bars' Comes A Time' and 'Rust Never Sleeps'. Containing such strong songs as 'Campaigner' 'Like A Hurricane' 'Will To Love' 'Star Of Bethlehem'  'Comes A Time' itself and this track, it may well have been the best Neil Young LP of the lot had it been released at the time...

21) Like A Hurricane (Live 1977)

Talking of which, 'Hurricane' is many a fan's highlight of Neil's catalogue. Personally I never felt the studio version took off as well as it might, despite impressive intensity and easily the single best Neil Young vocal of his discography. There are many superior live versions out there, including a spectacular crunching song from Neil's Japanese tour (specifically Budokan) back in 1977 when the song was still brand new. Al the subtleties and haze of the studio version have gone for this performance, which squeals out of the box with Neil's guitar dripping with feedback while Crazy Horse struggle to keep up. Given the song is now twice as fast as the band usually play it the Horse drop all their sweet noodlings for even0-more-basic-than-normal four-in-the-bar rhythms while Neil simply sails over the top. The solo might be full of fluffed notes, one-off improvisations and might be more poorly recorded than the studio version but it's still a great solo, right up there in Neil's top five, howling with emotion throughout. Never have individual notes from Neil's guitar sounded this, well, HUGE!

22) Interstate (aka 'Bring My Guitar Home' outtake 1979)

A sweet acoustic ballad presumably taped as part of 'Rust Never Sleeps', this is an intriguing song quite unlike anything else in Neil's canon despite using the time-honoured trick of Neil being like a 'train'. The melody will be recycled later for 'A Funny Thing Happened Yesterday' and 'Peace and Love' from 1995's 'Mirrorball' but this song is on a par with either. Neil is lost: he's singing but 'in the crowd', surrounded by laughing children whose fun he can't join in, just a giant train constantly travelling down a set path. The only companion he finds is a stray fox who think his headlights signifying comfort in the pitch blackness, but he can't really get close to them either - a metaphor for us fans perhaps? Neil has always been particularly good at melancholy and this sad, stately song is one of his finest songs about loneliness.

23) You Got Love (Outtake 'Island In The Sun' 1982)
Abandoned Neil Young album number three is 'Island In The Sun', about half of which went on to become 'Trans'. Unusually Neil seems to have left his outtakes alone after recording them this time, although this track sounds very much like the first draft of 'Like An Inca' with the same nagging riff and percussion-heavy backing track. The lyrics are more like the poppier songs on 'Trans' however and is at one with the healing properties of both 'Little Thing Like Love' and 'Hold On To Your Love'. This, surely, is another love song for Wife Pegi (the pair married in 1977) and the things she can do that Neil can't: walk into a room with 'head held high' 'talk to people eye to eye' and 'knowing that your spirit can't be torn staring into a face of scorn'. Nils Lofgren turns in another delightful guitar solo while Neil sticks to riff, just like most of Trans (one of my favourite Neil Young LPs, which desperately needs a re-issue - perhaps with this and the next song added as bonus tracks?!)

24) Raining In Paradise (Outtake 'Island In The Sun' 1982)

This second 'Island In The Sun' refugee has even more of a sunshiney glow despite the troubled lyrics about a seemingly perfect life gone sour. The narrator has chased the sun 'halfway around the world' but still can't escape the storm clouds overhead. There's an intriguing middle section that's the closest Neil has ever come to Ska, another classy bit of guitar work from Nils and some gorgeous angelic harmonies that put even CSNY to shame. The song desperately needs another verse (the second is merely a repeat of the first), but this has at least the basis for another great lost Neil Young song.

25) Berlin (Live 1982)

The Trans tour was a lot more troubled than making the record, what with musicians demanding more money and a past-his-best Springfielder Bruce Palmer taking up extra time and effort in rehearsals. By the last night in Berlin Neil has had enough, announcing that he'll probably never play a lot of the electronic songs from the album again and adding 'this is the last night of the tour - if it ever ends'. The encore is unexpected, a song written the night before that's never performed again: the subtitle 'Help Me Help Me' shows how desperate Neil is that his fortunes will change 'after Berlin'. Given the circumstances you can see why Neil never returned to it, but it's far too good a song to 'lose' to juts this one hard-to-find show. Understandably Neil sounds less than thrilled at how his electronic songs have gone down with his audience and resigns himself to trotting out some oldies for the rest of his life: 'Just like a little boy running down the road, I'm singing out the same old song and I can't go back the way I started from...'  Neil being Neil, he recorded this unhappy show and released it as the rare but fabulous video and then DVD 'Live In Berlin'.

26) Get Gone (Live 1983)

This one is 'Kind of the story of the Shocking Pinks', Neil's imaginary rockabilly band from the 1983 tour who had a whole back story, related by a whole series of guest MCs on video screens - one of the first tours to use them in this way. A lesser frenetic version of 'Get Gone' made it onto the Geffen compilation 'Lucky Thirteen' but other performances from period shows of the tour are far better. Arguably the strongest of Neil's 1983 batch of material anyway, this turbulent 1950s pastiche about a band who 'didn't have a lot of money but got a lot of kicks' captured farm more of a feeling for rock and roll than anything on the album.

27) Leavin' The Top 40 Behind (Studio Outtake 'Old Ways' 1984)

This and the next three songs are from the original 'Old Ways', submitted to Geffen as a 'pure' country album before the record company got cold feet and asked Neil to change it. I much prefer the intended 'Old Ways' to the one that came out: it's less polished and features more Neil and less country guest stars. This song, especially, is better than most that made the finished album even if continues the dubious but key album theme of leaving rock music behind for good ol' honest country. There's also a clever metaphor for Neil hitting the age of 40 and realising there's more to life than being in the top 40, talking about his 'ills and pills'. However much he tells himself that age is a good thing, however, Neil sounds less than convinced: the man he sees on the corner with lines n his face has 'clearly been smiling too much - or feeling too much pain'. Neil clearly doesn't consider that his elderly neighbour might have experienced a mixture of both!

28) Hillbilly Band (Studio Outtake 'Old Ways' 1984)

More pure country, with lyrics suspiciously similar to the title track of  2006's 'Prairie Wind'. A wind is blowing, Neil can even feel it 'through mah jeans' and feels he has to tell the story of the truth while avoiding the 'Devil's stagecoach' while thanking all his country idols for being brave enough to tell the story with him. This lost song isn't quite as strong, but it's still slightly less patronising than 'Are There Any More Real Cowboys?'

29) Time Off For Good Behaviour (Studio Outtake 'Old Ways' 1984)

Our final old 'Old Ways' song is more uptempo and rockier, sounding more like period Johnny Cash than most of the record. Neil's been asked to go and get a 'big award', 'locking me up in the hall of fame and threw away the key'. he'd much rather be out on the road doing what he's meant to be doing - which nowadays is country, in case you hadn't noticed because rock and roll is too 'establishment'. Neil adds a few digs at law and order along the way too: bemoaning a jail sentence handed out to his 'brother' for a one-off misdemeanour caught smoking 'what I've been doing all my life'. This song would never have become a career highlight, but there's a better tune than most of the songs on 'Old Ways' and a conviction in the performance that few other period songs can match.

30) Doghouse (Live 1988)

The 'joker' in the pack of side two of our compilation, this song was only performed sporadically live and never appeared on album. Neil is often joined on tour by his dogs and sometimes on stage and seems to have added this song to his set to give his dogs something to 'dance' to. It's a fun song played with Bluenotes horns about always being in the 'dog house'. The song starts with his missus giving him one heck of a whallop where 'I was thrown right across the kitchen floor'. It turns out the narrator was having too good a time the night before at a female friend's house so he wants to recount the tasle to us to stay conscientious or we too might end up having an uncomfortable night's sleep in a kennel like he's doing at present. Neil turns in some great dog impressions across the song which made for a bit ofr light relief in between the heavier blues numbers. Actually, flimsy as it is, I prefer it to most of the 'Blue Notes' album!

31) Sixty To Zero (Crime In The City Original Version, Live 1988)

Many years ago now, we said in our review of 'Crime In The City' on 'Freedom' that Neil got full marks for one of his greatest songs - and minus several million for the appalling studio version that made the record. Six verses and eight minutes of contemporary city might sound like a lot on record but the original versions performed in concerts went on for 11 verses and 18 whole minutes! The missing verses mainly come at the beginning and involve, in order: 'champs and heroes' looking over their shoulder for some wrong doing that's going to drag them from '60' to 'zero'; a rich man who was always cold emotionally until suddenly one day he starts giving his money away to homeless shelters in anonymous donations; a judge whose 'a little heavy on fines' and has to deal with impossible situations every day and weigh up one set of human suffering balanced against another; an unfunny clown in a carnival who cares more of making money and taking the place over and making it a business than he does his crowds'; cops who are more dangerous than the criminals they accidentally let free, 'shooting' them because of their own incompetence because 'no one will ever know' and finally a basketball star who turns to politics for his career, doing well on the strength of his personality not his convictions (who said O J Simpson or Arnold Schwarzenegger?!) Throughout the song is played with acoustic guitar, drums and some delightful saxophone instead of the awful polished atrocity of the finished version. Alternatively, look out for some of the shorter acoustic performances from the time that lose a lot of verses but make up for it with a quick pace and almost unbearable emotion. One of the absolute gems of the Neil Young songbook, it's such a shame that the full version of this song isn't out anywhere officially yet.

32) Get Around (Live 2009)

How typical. By far the best 'car' song played live from the year Neil Young was touring his 2009 album 'Fork In The Road' never made it to the flipping album! 'Get Around' is a sweet, soulful acoustic guitar ballad where the metaphor about life as a car journey ends up with the delightful rejoinder 'you don't need a map to get around'. Along the way Neil 'loses track' of his loved one and finds himself passing down roads 'we've been down before'.

33) Mexico (Live 2008)

We end with a rare one-off revival of a mid-70s song that we at least have never heard before in any form. Neil is moving on and even has a destination in his head, ready to 'take my time and move slow'. However much Neil protests what a nice time he'll have, though, little pointers towards the truth shine through: 'Why is it so hard to hold on to your love?' he sighs, with yet another relationship heading for the rocks, which is more or less where we came in (this song could be subtitled 'When  It Falls, It Falls On You!')

Hidden Bonus Track:

We've been ending our last few compilations of AAA rarities with some spoken word piece as a 'hidden' bonus track: 'Dark Side Of The Moon' interviews, David Crosby channelling Robert Johnson, the usual sort of thing. For Neil Young we've decided to go with the spooky spoken word from the original 'Tonight's The Night' in 1973, sadly cut from the finished 1975 record. Even more intense than the original these include eerily unfinished sentences bouncing off into the ether, a lot of guilt, a lot of anger - and ultimately a lot of love. Hopefully Neil will put the full original record out in 'Archives II' one of these days!


Join us next week when we'll be discussing the best unreleased Simon and Garfunkel and solo recordings!


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


'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

'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


‘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


‘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


'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







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


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

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