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Neil Young "Storytone" (2014)
Plastic Flowers/Whose Gonna Stand Up?/I Want To Drive My
Car/Glimmer/Say Hello To Chicago/Tumbleweed/Like You Used to Do/I'm Glad I
Found You/When I Watch You Sleeping/All Those Dreams
"I'm
bearing my soul to you"
Back in July this year, CSNY were the most popular
they'd been for a quarter century or so. As someone who loves this band with
every fibre of my being, perhaps even more than all the other great AAA bands
we cover on this list, it was a joy to see as reviewers and non-fans fell over
themselves to declare how wonderful their box set 'CSNY '74' was (even though
CSNY's perfectionism meant they'd sat on it for years, it was only so-so by
their highest standards and better recordings still lurk in the archives).
Anyway, all four had input into the box set - the first time since the 'Freedom
Of Speech' tour of 2006 - and all seemed to be getting along famously. The band
themselves may have denied it, but a reunion was surely on the cards, one day,
perhaps after whatever the next trio of albums Neil Young had bursting through
him. But true CSNY watchers, who've followed this band for some forty-five
years now, also knew that this new-found brotherhood could only mean one thing:
a bust-up was on the cards. And after getting on better than they had in years,
it was certain to be a big one. As every fan of soap operas know (and CSNY is
the world's greatest soap opera, if only for having the world's greatest soap
opera soundtrack), when things seem to be going perfectly and fans have got
used to the idea there's nothing like a nice juicy scandal in the ranks to keep
fans on their toes.
With CSNY, scandals and band arguments are usually
down to drugs, money, time-keeping, show-boating on stage and/or to Bob Dylan
in the dressing room after the gig and
women. This time it's the latter, again. Neil recently split with Pegi,
his wife of 37 years, and while the couple aren't 'official' yet it's been generally
accepted that the guitarist has been dating actress Daryl Hannah (most famously
a mermaid in 'Splash', although some fans have been picking up on her role as
Morticia Addams in the third Addams Family film as evidence of her ghoulish
intentions) for a while now. Probably decades. Had the pair been unattached it
would have been a good fit; indeed is a good fit: Hannah does a similar amount
of campaigning, is both musically and environmentally aware and has spent most
of her adulthood battling with autism and not being afraid to make it public
(like Neil with his polio). You sense from interviews in the past that she's as
shy as Neil is underneath it all and unlike most of Neil's girlfriends down the
years she knows how to handle fame (and as an extra bonus doesn't seem to like
the spotlight much except the extra clout it gives her voice during campaigns).
You hope that Daryl likes model trains as well because then the pair could have
been made for each other.
However, Neil isn't free and single. He's a married
man, with responsibilities to three grown up children, dozens of business
foundations that would suffer if he was to move/pay a ridiculous amount of
alimony and the pair's co-foundation The Bridge Street School (with concerts
featuring many musicians raising money for children with learning disabilities)
makes this story a much bigger tragedy than a merely personal one (what will
happen to the school? Will the pair be able to work together to run it or will
one back out? And if so which one - both are so integral to the framework of
one of America's greatest modern charities. Editor’s note: Pegi’s sad death
rather put an end to that question, but the Bridge School shows have been on
hold since 2016 now). David Crosby for one is furious with Neil and spoke out
in a typically no-holds-barred way in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine,
claiming that while he has done 'many stupid things' in his own life (you're
not kidding!) he never walked out on a wife after decades of marriage. He and
Jan Crosby, amazingly, now have the longest lasting marriage in the quartet,
this after a 1960s when Crosby wrote about free love and ménage a trois. He has
a point, though not in the way he made it: he was close to Pegi, probably saw
Daryl as an interloper trying to get her hands on the Young fortunes and if I
know Neil he’s kept his cards close to his chest for all this time and not even
told his close friends about his lovelife. However Daryl is not what people
might think she is: she is, it’s true, been hanging around a married man. But
it’s one she’s patiently waited for across decades, for the moment when Neil
realised that his future lay with her not Pegi. She also has a fortune of their
own. Theirs is clearly love – regardless of whether it is a ‘right’ or ‘responsible’
love or not. Neil, in a rather dark place right now, uncharacteristically
lashed out and claimed he would never ever work with his CSN colleagues ever
again. Crosby, a friend of Pegi's as much as Neil's, is obviously baffled and
thinks he's trying to help by snapping Neil out of some mad move: as CSNY fans
know, it won't work (Neil takes a long time to make his mind up and if he has
then that's it for good). Cue what normally happens when CSN have a row: Nash
has stepped in trying to smooth the whole thing down while taking sides with
neither (we weren’t to know that he had his own marital problems and would
leave wife Susan, whose marriage lasted a year more than the Youngs, for a
younger girlfriend in Amy Grantham in 2015 and has his own problems with Crosby
via his autobiography ‘Wild Tales’, while Stills has stayed stubbornly silent,
no doubt raising his eyebrows over what his colleagues have done now and
pleased at not being the cause of all the drama this time around). The CSNY
story now looks very gloomy - which as all long-term fans know means there'll
probably be another album out next year! (It's happened before, folks!)
Anyway, the news has explained a lot about Neil's releases
across the past thirty years or so. We commented in our review of 2012's
'Psychedelic Pill' that Neil was 'finally back' after a Geffen-era like period
where Neil seemed to be releasing covers album (like the most peculiar 'A
Letter Home' from earlier this year), sub-standard albums largely improvised on
the spot or dedicated to outside themes like cars and the fictional town of
Greendale (sadly without Postman Pat, but with a bandit, a grandpa and an annoying
teenage hippie protestor). 'He's hiding something' we claimed, recalling those
years in the 1980s when Neil recorded in every genre under the sun because
music was secondary to his responsibilities looking after son Ben. What could
it be? I mean, surely after ‘Greendale’, that amount of guilt and delaying
tactics meant at least murder, surely? Suddenly 'Fork In The Road' in
particular takes on a new meaning: we didn't know what the 'forks' were then
(except something vague about mankind choosing electric cars over petrol
fumes), but this is a kind of 'Chosen Fork In The Road' album, with Neil now
very much heading in one particular direction. Going back through these other
albums, dating right back to ‘Life’, possibly ‘Landing On Water’, suggests that
Daryl has been lurking in the wings as an alternative. Neil has got used by now
to hiding his love life in plain sight. We’re so used to hearing ‘breakup’
songs on Neil Young albums (notably ‘Ragged Glory’ and ‘Are You Passionate?’)
that in many ways ‘Storytone’ seems old hat. The difference, though, is that
Neil is now out in the open about his feelings, he doesn’t have to hide behind
a smokescreen and he knows that in the wake of news about his split with Pegi
everybody will be going through his albums for clues.
As a result it’s good to hear Neil so thankful,
rather than angry. We’ve had the ‘Gee, I wonder how that could have been in a
parallel life?’ record (‘Life’). We’ve had the ‘treat the whole thing as a joke
and pass it off as a piece of escapism’ record (‘This Note’s For You’). We’ve
had the tug-of-war records where Neil has to balance one sweetheart with another
(‘Freedom’). We’ve had the ‘where did it
go wrong?’ record (‘Ragged Glory). We’ve had the ‘I never meant it and I’m
going back to my wife’ record (‘Harvest Moon’). We’ve had the ‘mysterious
forces are dragging me back’ album (‘Sleeps With Angels’). We’ve had the ‘am I
really strong enough to do this for real?’ records (‘Mirrorball’ ‘Broken Arrow’
and ‘Silver and Gold’). We’ve had the ‘temptation was too strong I couldn’t
stop myself’ record (‘Passionate’). We’ve had the procrastination record
(‘Greendale’), the interrupted-by-life-events records (‘Prairie Wind’ and
‘Living With War’) and ultimately the ‘ask for spiritual guidance’ record that
will I think come to be seen as the real turning point of Neil’s fortunes
(‘Chrome Dreams II’). Usually when songwriters make a big life decision they
have to discuss it out loud (as Graham Nash will two years later on his return
to form ‘This Path Tonight’). But Neil
has already said just about everything regarding his new relationship he
possibly can do – and so he looks back to the old one. Neil could have been
mean to his ex. He could have compared his loves alongside each other and found
Pegi wanting. He could have given endless discussions to his fans about the
life decision he made. And instead Neil is just thankful: his parting messages
to his ex is that she was wonderful, that he misses her deeply and that his
current love reminds him of the ‘glimmer’ he once felt from her. It doesn’t
change, of course, the fact that Neil ultimately chose his young lover over his
wife and kids, even if it took him thirty years to make his mind up about it.
But at least he’s kind. For all its inner sadness ‘Storytone’ is a sweet album,
a domesticated set that recalls the Pegi-praising of ‘Harvest Moon’ and ‘Comes
A Time’ rather than the agonised rants of [243] ‘Love To Burn’ and [247] ‘Love
and Only Love’.
To be honest, 'Storytone' wasn't quite the album I
was expecting, with or without orchestra. usually when Neil has made a decision
to move on with his life he tends to be happy - especially with a new woman by
his side. I was expecting 'Storytone' to be a whole album of happy sappy love
songs in the vein of 'Comes A Time'. Instead it's a dark, guilt-ridden message
to Pegi, her face popping up everywhere as Neil tries to forget what a mess
he's making of his life. Throughout this album Neil addresses his ex-wife while
she sleeps, afraid of the bad news he has for her; he sees a 'glimmer' of their
early life together every time he finds himself laughing and falling in love with
his new partner, he even sees her ghost in the car seat next to him, where
she's sat for over half his life, disappearing into the rear-view mirror (Neil
keeps his cars a long, long time - that's a Neil Young watercolour painting of
one of them on the front, but sadly sans ghost). Finally he addresses both of
the loves in his life in the song 'I'm Glad I Found You', thanking his past
soul mate for keeping him good and honest and sane for all those years and to
his new partner for making him feel happy again. The result is a record with
several quotable, poignant lyrics: Neil apologising to 'Mother Earth' for
accidentally picking 'plastic flowers' from her bounty of love because he so
badly wanted things to work out but realised that he just wasn’t in love anymore.
Neil reflecting of his new love that 'your inner spirit is a peace sign to me',
as Daryl raises hell on the activism scene. Neil reflecting on all the dreams
he once had of growing old and happy in the same relationship that 'will never
be now'. Neil is often described by critics as sounding like a lost and
vulnerable little boy - even the rocking epics (which sound like a vulnerable
little boy plugged into the mains and resurrected with rock and roll). That
description has never been more true than on ‘Storytone’, especially the 'solo'
half of the record where the naked backing makes it sound like Neil is singing
to you, right there, face to face, no hiding this time, the first for a long
while (even his last 'solo' LP 'Le Noise' surrounded Neil's voice and guitar in
floating feedback).
Is it the right decision in Neil’s love life, the
fork in the road he was meant to take? Well, Neil himself doesn't know yet and
his umming and aahing even now clearly shaped a lot of this album. The bad news
is that Neil seems inevitably to be entering another dark period because of it,
forced to confront one of the most difficult decisions of his life and
everything a break-up usually entails. The good news is that Neil's darkest
times tend to be the best times for his art and so it proves here. 'Storytone'
isn't the greatest of Neil Young albums but - along perhaps with 'Psychedelic
Pill' - it is easily his best in a decade (since the similarly dark 'Prairie
Wind', written on the back of a brush with death and the loss of Neil's dad).
For a start it sounds like Neil has spent some time on this record - the words
are carefully composed, the music is subtle and inventive (except the bits that
sounds like something else...) and the performances sound more heartfelt than usual,
with and without an orchestra. This is the 'real' deal Neil at last, or at
least as close as we've been allowed to be for some time and you can almost
hear the relief in Young’s voice as he can tell us directly about his true
feelings at last. In the unusually open sleevenotes Neil even said ‘the
resulting music is from my heart, directly to you’. In all the pages in this
book I don’t think I ever remember him saying that before; ‘Goodbye Waterface’
and the serenity prayer in Latin yes, but fuzzy emotional statements, no.
Interestingly ‘Storytone’ ‘sounds’ the way you’d
expect a ‘romantic’ album to sound, which given the circumstances is what many
fans assumed they were getting. The songs are almost all slow ballads, played
solo and intimate (at least on the first ‘better’ pass on this album, taped by
Neil in Capitol Studios). Neil then decided to have another go, figuring that
these songs sounded as if they needed an orchestra – again something usually
reserved for romantic albums which is why so many of us heard the news that
Neil was working with a string quartet on the MGM sound stage and assumed it
would be full of lovey-dovey songs after Neil’s feelings were so long in
hiding. But no: it’s a collection of last love songs to Pegi because Neil knows
he will never get another chance to sing them, all of them dipped on this
second disc (or only disc if you own just the ‘plain’ version of this album) in
the same bowl of saccharine as [258] ‘Such A Woman’. Neil was clearly excited
to be back working with a huge orchestra again and using one for a whole album
this time unlike the part-measures of his Buffalo Springfield days, first solo
album, ‘Harvest’ and ‘Harvest Moon’. Heard on their own these arrangements are
rather interesting: they have a lot more counterpoint than most rock and roll
arrangements which tend to think ‘hey, dumb rock fans wouldn’t be able to cope
with more than a single line!’ (something that happens more often than you may
think) and if anyone involved in this album deserves a pat on the back it’s
arrangers Christ Walden and Michael Bearden. Unfortunately, Neil’s voice isn’t
one made for bells and whistles and the problems Jack Nitzsche had in thinking
‘big’ when it came to Neil’s songs happens here – everything sinks under the weight
of the strings, the horns, the timpani, the extra sodding choirs (again –
hadn’t Neil learnt from ‘Living With War’?!?) It’s just too much and sounds
alien in Young’s world, where everything is heartfelt and most everything good
comes from a first or second take. You can’t make something raw and honest
better with an orchestra, only something epic. And these songs aren’t epic.
They’re simple. One wonders why Neil bothers with the expensive orchestra other
than using it as a ‘gimmick’ or his genuine excitement at being in Hollywood
and using a microphone last held by Barbara Streisand: we fans and the critics
seem to be united for once in thinking that they're just not needed; that Neil
has already loaded the songs with such passion and emotion that adding a
schmaltzy orchestral effect sounds 'wrong'. That's not true of the entire CD -
'Who's Gonna Stand Up?', the one 'outward' rather than 'inward' song here
sounds nothing on the 'demo' but quite convincing with an orchestra. ‘I Want To
Drive My car’ is a dumb blues song without the orchestra and a big band minor
classic with it. The opening to ‘Glimmer’ is suitably haunting and poignant. However the rest of the record is tough going:
Neil only needs to sing in that voice and we’re feeling out heartstrings being
tugged already; adding an orchestra just makes this feel like a bad film score
telling us what to think rather than showing us.
For the first time in ages I'm pleased to report
that a good half of this album is terrific and part of the rest merely very
good. What's more the best half of this album feels like a 'unit' - something
we haven't had for a while, unless you count songs about motor oil - and
unusually the songs seemed to be linked three ways: the Earth Mother, the
plagiarists' son and the Holy Ghost. The word for most of these songs is
'haunted': Neil is seeing ghosts everywhere he looks and, like 'Tonight's The
Night' he feels personally responsible for not doing something about it all
sooner. Alongside this - and two albums on from telling us proudly that he's a
'pagan' ([381] 'Driftin' Back) - Neil
also adds a few earthier references that keep turning up on this album (Neil
seems to be looking to nature for a sign this relationship is 'ok' and he's
doing the right thing). Thirdly, Neil does what he always does when stressed:
rips off earlier songs, some by him and some by other people ('I took this tune
from the Rolling Stones, too wasted to write my own' he sings on [79] 'Borrowed
Tune'). As ever that doesn't actually matter: this record is still one that
couldn't have been made by anyone but Neil. Opener 'Plastic Flowers' is one of
those powerful songs that stays in the mind long afterwards, even if its melody
steals from Neil's earlier [275] 'Philadelphia', Neil 'having no business' in a
relationship he always thought wouldn't
work, but as he puts it, despite all this, 'we lasted quite a while'. We've heard many a time from Neil that [96] 'love
is a rose' - this sequel to what must have been virtually the last song he
wrote before meeting Pegi admits that Neil went into it with the wrong
intentions, holding 'plastic flowers' that could never have bloomed. 'Glimmer'
is a similarly gorgeous song, even if this time the melody is stolen from [59] 'Journey
Through The Past'. Neil tries to escape into 'new love' but keeps finding 'my
feelings coming back to you'. This time love is a 'tree without leaves', a
relationship that only has a 'glimmer' of what it once had (although it's also
a 'glimmer' that's powerful to take on its own form, Neil thinking he sees it
in the windshield of his car). 'Tumbleweed' is another natural manifestation in
an otherwise ghostly song (which this time around steals from The Everly
Brothers' 'Walk Right Back'!) A second chance that never came to pass, Neil
considers 'picking up sticks' and reflecting on the 'strange delights' even a
fading relationship has. 'I'm Glad I Found You' rips off Elton John,
worryingly, but is sweet all the same, Neil bidding goodbye and saying hello in
the space of the same song and being thankful to both loves of his life. This
time the earthy reference is to a 'seed'. Finally, 'When I Watch You Sleep'
hovers between waking and dreaming, reflecting that when asleep his partner has
'nothing left to hide'. In one of Neil's career best lines he contrasts her
sleepy state with her daily state: 'Without thinking I'm going there too -
these are the promises you make when your eyes are blinded by love and the
history of fate'. This time the song doesn't steal from anything specifically,
although there's definitely an air of [45] 'Bad Fog Of Loneliness' and [67] 'Deep
Forbidden Lake' about this song, misery stretching out for eternities.
However, as always it seems, there's a few flies in
the ointment. 'Say Hello To Chicago' is an awful song, the [123] 'Motorcyle
Mama' of this LP that just doesn't fit, especially when dressed up to the nines
with a godawful big band orchestra but in the solo recording too that sounds
like every bad song you’ve ever heard played by every rotten jazz band. How
very Neil, to waste his biggest production for years (1983's 'Old Ways'?!) on a
song so flimsy. Mournful blues song 'I Want To Drive My Car' works better than
it did as a solo piece but even then sounds like an outtake not good enough to
feature on 'Fork In The Road' (and did you hear what some of those songs were
like?!?), Neil banging on about his bleeding car again (he's even got a book of
watercolour drawings of them all out now, like the one on the cover: the result
is *read out in a Jeremy Clarkson voice* 'like an episode of top gear drawn by
a four-year-old with Parkinson's Disease along with the animators of Roobarb
and Custard'. Incidentally, it's still way better than anything I can draw).
'Whose Gonna Stand Up?' - the one track where the orchestra embellishes rather
than distracts from the song - similarly sounds like an outtake from 'Living
With War' that got laughed out the room when CSN and/over the choir got in on
the act ([363] 'just singing a song won't change the world' he sings in a direct
steal from 'Fork', but again Neil offers no solutions or hope; of course music
can change the world - hasn't everyone noticed how much better it's been since
The Beatles came to power and how rotten life has been since The Spice Girls
first arrived? - it's just that progress
is slow).
One thing that 'bothers' me about this album is that
title; 'Storytone'. What does it mean? Like many fans I assumed at first Neil
meant that they have the ‘tone’ of a fairytale? Except they don’t – this is a
scary world full of heroes making mistakes, lost lovers fading into the
distance and of all the Young albums out there only ‘Time Fades Away’ and ‘On
The Beach’ sound as if they had less love in their lives than this one. Is it a
red herring to detract us from the fact that the last few albums have indeed
been 'stories' full of fictional characters while this is the 'real deal Neil'?
Is the saccharine orchestral backing intended to give a 'storybook' tone to the
album? (It sounds like a Disney film where Bambi's mother dies every bleeding
five minutes!) Is it a reference to how any reality looks like a 'story' when
turned into 'art' (just look at the big rusty car on the cover - clearly a
'real' car and clearly well loved and worn but drawn with such dainty squiggles
it might not be?) Ignore the title though: this really 'is' Neil (or as close
as any artist's work can be to describing their ongoing life story accurately)
and it should be filed away alongside similar autobiographical albums like
'Tonight's The Night' 'On The Beach' 'Comes A Time' parts of 'Rust Never
Sleeps' 'Harvest Moon' and 'Sleeps With Angel' which, not coincidentally, are
generally regarded as being Neil at somewhere near his best. This album may
lack the drama of all of these - and in many ways is the 'farewell' yin to
family life that was 'Comes A Time's 'yang', with a 'middle aged crisis' to run
alongside the 'middle aged contentment' of 'Moon' - but it remains as integral
to Neil's career as any of these earlier classics, a cornerstone when art
mirrored life and Neil has far too much to say for one LP. Hold on your seats -
Neil was never going to head into old age gracefully and after a bit of a bump
in the journey it looks like an interesting ride is coming our way once again.
At one stage Neil sings 'tonight I paint my
masterpiece'. 'Storytone' is hardly that: not with such familiar-sounding
tunes, variable lyrics and an orchestra that's the worst bit of mis-casting
since posh unfeeling millionaire Ian Duncan Smith got put in charge of welfare
reform. ‘Storytone’ is in many ways Neil’s most inconsistent album since
‘Passionate’ (at least ‘Greendale’ was all bad!) But it is very much a step in
the right direction, Neil going back to being honest with himself and exploring
his troubled psyche, instead of rattling on about cars and politics and
activists with funny names (welcome as they are in brief). Ignoring the
orchestral version for the moment (which is in danger of turning this rather
deep and thoughtful record into just another 'what the?' Neil Young experiment album of the 21st century), this
is the best solo acoustic Neil Young album for ever such a long time: 'Harvest
Moon' (1992) perhaps. It's the record 'Silver and Gold' nearly was before it
started singing nursery rhymes and what 'Le Noise' could have been without the
songs getting lost in the feedback. After finding his way back to full rock and
roll health on 'Psychedelic Pill', this is the other half of what Neil does so
well: simple-yet-complex songs full of moving imagery and sung as if we're the
only person in the room during a musical confessional. Neil isn't quite back to
full musical health yet, but the signs are good with half an album of some
quite extraordinary songwriting. It's just a shame that once again it took a
sad, unfortunate, painful turn of events to get Neil back in touch with his
muse. Let's hope all three members of this love triangle (six if you count
CSNY...no hang on, knowing what Crosby used to be like let's not go there!)
find happiness in the end: they all 'deserve' it (although as this album is
clear to point out there are no angels or devils and there is usually right and
wrong on every side). So 'Storytone', what's the story? To be judged by judge
and jury. Here's our verdict...
The
Songs:
[389] 'Plastic Flowers' starts off with the same
hammered blows of a tack piano-style piano riff last heard on the creepy
'Sleeps With Angels' album. The resulting song is much more personal and blunt,
though, less surreal and ethereal, Neil surrounded not by angels or with
visions of a pretty afterlife but his own guilt here in the present. It is, I
think, the tale of Neil first meeting Daryl. The pair 'came together' because
of a 'a threat' that ‘came to harm something we loved’ (they shared several
political activist aims and met at a protest against oil corporations putting
pipelines through Native American owned land – see much of the ‘Peace Trail’
album to come). Neil reflects sadly 'I thought she liked my style’ and figured
that would be it, flattered at the
attention, admitting ‘I had no business thinking that, but it lasted quite a
while'. However he came on as if he was more available than he was: he kicks
himself in the present day for the hurt he’s caused by holding out a vase for
‘plastic flowers’, because he couldn’t take real ones – they belonged on wife
Pegi’s table. What was he thinking? One of the two was always going to get hurt
eventually, but somehow he couldn’t help himself as the affair unfolded
naturally. The next verse gives us a snapshot of their first ‘date’, holding
hands along a riverbank, nothing too serious, just oh so glad to be alive as
Daryl unknowingly turns Neil on with her deep connection to the Earth,
‘scooping some river sand she held it in her hand and sang a little song’. It
wouldn’t be my perfect date, but for Neil it was exactly what he was looking
for – indeed it recalls the description of Pegi on her Harley Davidson in [252]
‘Unknown Legend’. Still, Neil can’t quite bring himself to fall in love –
because he’s already in love at home. Or is he? The doubts keep creeping
towards him – how can his heart possibly have room to love another if his wife
was the one he was meant to be with for the rest of his life? ‘I was doing
well’ Neil tells himself repeatedly, but it’s a mantra he doesn’t quite believe:
yes he’s won this new love over, but his heart is not his to give. He isn’t
doing well at all but doing wrong and deep down, however ‘right’ this feels, he
knows it. The result is a pretty song, at least in the 'solo' version, where
Neil's keening voice is just the right side of shrill, innocent despite the
lyrics and bewildered by the strength of stumbling across an attraction this
strong without expecting it. Like [275] 'Philadelphia', the song this piano
ballad most musically resembles, this is a sweet piece about an usually
unspeakable subject, relayed in such open vulnerable and honest terms that you
can’t help but see things from Neil’s point of view, however crooked it may be.
Alas the 'orchestral' version tries to turn this into a sickly sentimental
piece, an impact doubly unfortunate given that Neil has to shift his vocal down
a tone to better fit with the orchestra – even if the fact this makes him sound
less sure of himself fits the sentiments of the song, it’s a struggle to listen
to.
[390] 'Who's Gonna Stand Up?' is a return to the
more socially aware Neil of the past few albums, harking on yet again about a
need for solutions to petrol-driven cars and fracking. As a result is sounds
more like ‘Neil’; than anything else on this album but really doesn’t feel as
if it belongs here. Sounding like a 'Greendale' leftover, Neil tries to urge
the public to stand up with him, taunting 'this all starts with you and me' and
that in the album’s clumsiest couplet that we all have a responsibility to
‘stand up to oil, protect the plants and renew the soil’. The trouble is that,
by Neil's standards of ecological songs, this one isn't all that great. 'Whose
gonna stand up and save the Earth, say that she's had enough?' sounds more like
something a weak Jefferson Starship effort would sing than the man who wrote,
say, [256] 'War Of Man' or even right back to [20] ‘Here We Are In The Years’ and
there's nothing here that hasn't been said before. There’s not much else in the
lyrics: hopefully by now the only people who don’t think the Earth worth saving
are the sort of people who won’t be persuaded by a song but by big hard cash.
Neil’s attempts to ‘save the world’ are, alas, fifty years too late to do much
good and had CSNY performed a song this trite and simple they’d have been
routinely pounded and laughed off the stage (Neil’s past courage seems to give
him an extra suit of armour that avoids such critical backlashes even though
his songs can, on occasion, be just as woolly-headed and empty as any of his
peers). Neil's 'solo' version doesn't give the tune much room either, being
banged out throughout with a bit of simple banjo strumming, but for once on
this album the orchestral version is rather lovely. The riff is one much more
suited to strings than a banjo and the grandiose gesture (there's even a harp
in there for goodness sakes...) fits the epic scope of this song more than the
smaller, humbler songs of the rest of this album. Or at least it does till the
yukky choir start up, instantly turning this track into bad charity song
fodder, although thankfully they don't turn up till near the end. It would have
been nice to have heard something earthy here too - that banjo would have done
fine - but even so this is the track on the album where the orchestra makes the
most sense, moving this similar song as far away from the grungy 'Fork In The
Road' feel as it's possible to get. Not one of the better album moments though,
in either version.
[391] 'I Want To Drive
My Car' is so 'Fork In The Road' you wonder why Neil felt the need
to write an 11th song on the same theme (no one was exactly clamouring for a
sequel, although I'm one of the few fans whose actually quite fond of that
album). Like that record, the 'car' is merely a metaphor for Neil feeling
rather 'lost' - he's looking for 'my way' and searching 'further and further on
down the road'. This is the first ‘blues’ song we’ve had since the ‘This Note’s
For You’ album of 1988 (which is more or less where the cover-up about Daryl
started, interestingly) and while this song suggests Stephen Stills won’t have
too many sleepless nights over the competition as CSNY’s bluesiest member, the
style does at least suit Neil’s deeper, huskier voice. Lyrically too this is
deeper than it perhaps needed to be: yes Neil repeats himself over a simple
riff the way all blues songs seem to, but he fits a full story in there too.
He’s out of control, he’s lost and alone, he no longer has anywhere he can call
home and the best he can hope for is to ‘carry on further and further on down
the road’. By the end of the song he’s given up looking for love and is merely
out for survival, looking for ‘fuel’ that will help get him down other nicer
better life roads in the future. This nicely bluesy song would never win any
awards for lyrics (there aren't many, with the same words repeated over and
over) but there's a nicely authentic feeling to the solo version (mainly
'bounced' between two notes on 'Old Black'), which is slow and earthy. The Dixie
land jazz version has really come to grow on me too, sounding like an entirely
different song with its oompah celebratory horns and Neil aping Slade in his
guitar work rather than BB King. The backing band turn in some manic energy and
given that they’re the same nameless ‘film score’ orchestra used to doing work
with MGM rather than playing jazz clubs they sound rather good, especially the
blaring horns which out-sock the Bluenotes. Neil puts in a fine fiery guitar
solo which isn't on the 'solo' version. To be honest, though, this whole motor
metaphor thing was running on fumes by the end of the 'Fork In The Road'
record, never mind now...
Thankfully [392] 'Glimmer' is one of
the album highlights, a lovely ballad where Neil turns hopeless bar-room
confessional. Neil's now travelling alone in his car, after so many years of
having a 'passenger' in the seat beside him, and for a second there thinks he
sees Pegi's reflection in the windshield, 're-awakening' lots of old feelings
and memories just when he thought he was over her. A poignant ballad with shades
of [59] 'Journey Through The Past' about it, this is a clever song where the
'glimmer' Neil sees of his old love matches the 'glimmer' he feels with his new
love of what their love was once like ('New love brings everything back to
you'). ‘Tough love can leave you almost alone’ sighs Neil, ‘but old love can
bring the feelings back to you’ as he knows Pegi and what she can give to him,
even if they have hit a rough patch. Neil throws in a few poignant reminders
about how you can never truly break free from any important person in your life
no matter how much you try not to think of them ('like the light that still
leaks through whenever you close the door') and interestingly chooses the line
'like the day I couldn't find you' to vocally break down, suggesting this was a
real occurrence (was Pegi having affairs too? Or was Neil simply afraid that
she was? Or was it Daryl getting tired of waiting for him and refusing to
answer her phone?) Funnily enough - and whether on purpose or co-incidentally -
this song uses near enough the same chords as [116] 'Comes A Time', the 'hello'
song for Pegi to this track's 'goodbye', with two moods that couldn't be more
different. This time around the orchestral version isn't so bad: this is after
all a very emotional song anyway and the increased running time of five minutes
gives Neil's sentiments more space to mingle in the brain. However the solo
version is still the one to have, with some more of Neil's ever-lovely piano
playing and a much more powerful vocal that, well, ‘glimmers’ with an emotion
Neil has been waiting oh so long to release.
[393] 'Say Hello To Chicago' is the album's big
mis-fire. Neil sounds as if he's just remembered to book the jazz band and
thinks he'd better give them something to do so he offers up this cod 'This
Note's For You' blues song which is overblown even in the solo version. This is
another 'memory' song, about walking through rainy American streets waiting for
a jazz band to come on, although if I've got my 'clues' right this is a more
recent song than it sounds. Did Neil meet Daryl a second time at a jazz night?
The narrator's promises to meet up 'near an old theatre where soon I will be
playing' and lines about how 'friendship is everything if love is to last'
suggests they did sometime early in their sort-of courting. The lines about
'being here once before' when I was 'younger and stronger' also suggest this
recent visit was, well, more recent. Neil might also be couching his guilt in
terms of blues songs and jazz, genres which were hardly strangers to songs
about divorce and mistresses, taking comfort from the idea that in Chicago's
long history plenty of people have been through similar and lived to tell the
tale. Neil chats up a ‘stylish girl’ but ‘doesn’t know what would be coming my
way’. For now, though, he plays things ‘cool’, asking for them not to be
‘strangers’ and that to have any chance at romance they first have to be
‘friends’. Without the context this is a very dumb song that says nothing; in
context it’s still Neil only hinting at this big change in his life rather than
truly coming out and saying it. Alas what could have been a decent song is
ruined by the rather bland melody and the rather lacklustre way with which it's
performed in either version. Once again the arrangements mean these two songs
couldn’t be less like each other. The full jazz band version is upbeat and loud
and just silly: the horns don't go well with Neil's fiery guitar and even
compared to 'This Note's For You' Neil is well out of his comfort zone as a
blues singer, though the horn arrangement itself is rather a neat one. The solo
version on piano is far worse, downbeat discordant and rambling way too much as
Neil vamps on the piano, all too obviously a demo this time instead of a
performance of equal merit.
[394] 'Tumbleweed' is another special song though,
though the 'premise' of it is one of the daftest since Neil was a salmon
([111]); basically Neil has burnt all his bridges and found himself so alone
that the only thing that will listen to his problems is a passing tumbleweed. Which is odd because, when it starts going,
this song is about as close as Neil comes on this album to giving Daryl a true
bona fide love song. ‘Life is full of strange delights’ he sighs as ‘in the
darkness we find lights’, hinting that he hadn’t really considered his new beau
a realistic proposal until things truly went wrong with his wife (though all
Neil’s records since ‘Life’ in 1987 suggest otherwise). Neil even gives his new
girlfriend a nickname, ‘Flower Moon’, tying together two of his favourite stock
images. Delighting in his new partner's 'inner peace' (signs of Neil's book
'Waging Heavy Peace' there), this is Neil's tribute to the ever changing world
of nature, where nothing is forever but where we can always 'pick up sticks'
and try again no matter how bad things get. A pretty, carefree song quite
unlike the rest of this rather tormented album, this song acknowledges the fact
that such a move is 'going to hurt' but is having such fun that Neil tells fate
to bring it on, to 'bite me now'. The best melody on the album is nicely
handled on the solo version, with the first ever appearance of a ukulele on a
Neil Young album. He's rather a good player for someone so new to the
instrument and the sound really suits the sing-songy nursery rhyme flow and the
feeling in the lyrics that such a meeting was destined in the stars and goes
back through the ages. Of course, the orchestral version has to go too far and
the melody doesn't sound anything like as good slowed down and played by
violins and harp. If Disney ever need a writer of incidental music for their
next film, though, they know where to look...
[395] 'Like You Used To Do' is another blues song,
played as a low-key two-fingered twelve-bar-blues on the solo recording and as
full band extravaganza blues on the 'orchestral' version. Neither version quite
comes off, with this rather ungenerous kiss-off to an old lover again sounding
like a weak-kneed 'This Notes For You' 'outtake'. Neil is at his most honest
here, admitting that 'I couldn't satisfy you - couldn't show you my love' and
that even though he kept on trying to do what wasn't easy for him 'as time went
by you just didn't want it no more'. He’s also at his harshest, complaining
that ‘I got my problems, but they mostly show up with you’. It is the one song
here that’s a little like what fans would have expected, the painful goodbye
that paves the way for the ‘hello’ of someone else. Interestingly Neil isn't
ready to throw in the towel yet though, zealously stating that despite the very
definite end to the relationship 'some day you'll want me...some day you'll see
me like you used to do'. A few more lyrics would have gone down well (this song
is just three short verses long and none of them say very much), but the solo
version is pleasant enough if you like blues pared down to the bare bones, Neil's
vocal and harmonica puffing getting the down-yet-defiant mood just right. Alas
the orchestral version is just overblown rubbish and the worst perhaps of all
the arrangements on the ‘orchestral’ side: Neil tries to be a blues singer but
is badly mis-cast, while the blaring horns don't quite know what to do behind
him, over-written for a song this simple. Everything is just too smart and
tidy, inevitably given that everything is being performed by an orchestra who
are used to taking emotions and sticking them into colourful boxes.
[396] 'I'm Glad I Found You' is though the clear
album highlight, another beautiful song of goodbyes that points towards the
inner turmoil in Neil's mind. You might have been thinking, on Neil’s last
twenty odd records in general and this one in particular, that the whole Daryl
relationship was just too much trouble, that Neil should have cut his cards and
run. But that would have been to miss out on one of the great flings of his
life and in this one track Neil takes his lover aside and tells her that
despite the chaos, the broken hearts, the brickbats in the press, ‘I’m glad I
found you’. In this song Neil says that he knows how rare and special a connection
like this one is, ‘in a sad world where so many things go wrong’. It’s a sweet
gesture from a man not known for his romantic songs, easily the equal of [49]
‘Heart Of Gold’ [89] ‘Pardon My Heart’ and [62] ‘Love In Mind’, the quiet still
beating heart of this album where Neil sounds at last as if he has found peace.
Perhaps pre-empting the field day the press and more especially his band-mates
have been having with his divorce, Neil informs us 'so many people don't
understand what it's like to be me' before adding that just like everyone else
he wants to be loved. While the rest of the song descends quickly into sickly
romantic love song area, some of the lyrics are quite clever: referring to Daryl's
shared loved of protesting and activism, Neil promises to 'shield you from the
things we both see', while referring to press and David Crosby-like outrage
with the line 'I'll protect you from the things that come'. Universal in appeal
and swarm of heart, it’s a rare Neil song you could imagine someone else doing
– but unlike when that sometimes happens ([118] ‘Lotta Love’) it feels right as
part of Neil’s catalogue as well, as the guitarist finally comes out and gives
a love song to the person whose been on the periphery of his writing for nearly
three decades. The moment when Neil pushes up a key unexpectedly on the line
‘you’re like a lifeline to me’, raising the emotional stakes as his voice
strains under the effort, is particularly affecting: this isn’t some cosy cute
romance that’s going to last a day like [24] ‘Cinnamon Girl’ but a hard-fought
for love he’s already been through hell to win but which was so utterly worth
it. The result is a rare Neil Young song that will break your heart and make
you cry. The solo version is nicely done, Neil's vocal fragile but in no way
sentimental and his block chord piano playing has come on leaps and bounds
since the last time we heard it circa ‘Silver and Gold’. If only we could say
the same about the orchestral version, which sounds like Mantovani doing lift
music while Neil seems to be getting a cold and gets the mood hopelessly wrong.
Just like his 'Harvest' days, Neil Young and orchestras do not go well
together.
‘Storytone’ makes it clear though that this decision
wasn’t as clear-cut as leaving one love for another and Neil still finds it
hard to let go. [397] 'When I Watch You Sleeping' is one of the most remarkable
Neil Young songs in years, with an honesty we haven't heard for a long long
time. Which is apt for a song that's all about the fact that two lovers can only
be 'honest' with each other when they're 'asleep' as ‘there’s nothing that you
hide’ when you sleep, no mind games, no insults. The pair have been fighting
all day and will no doubt fight again all day tomorrow, which is their last day
together as man and wife, but for now there's a calm before the storm as Neil watches
his love in their familiar bed and remembers the good and the bad of their time
together, remembering her as a ‘kitten and a lion’ at different times in their
lives together. Neil's wordplay as his ex wakes up is exquisite, punning on the
'breaking of the day' when she wakes up and they begin their rows all over
again and he feels her ‘stirring’, a pun on the word for causing trouble. Neil
sings later that the crows have joined the blackbirds in a dawn chorus, a
symbol of death to most poets (Ted Hughes never wrote about anything else!),
wondering where they came from. Neil remembers the promise he once made at a
wedding ceremony to keep his loved one safe and still feels the pull of it on a
wedding day ‘when your eyes are blinded by love and the history of fate’, a
‘dream’ that ‘rumbles’ on beyond them even though both partners have stopped
believing in it long ago. Neil vows to ‘never hold you down’ as he remembers
the ‘long road’ that took him to this person in his life and on to the next
one. Strangely, though, Neil's most honest song in years ends with him hiding
away yet again, quickly hiding the smile he wears on his face at how silent and
gentle his partner suddenly is in what's quite a cruel and uncharacteristic
final verse ('You will never see that! They are inside with my fears, in a
place that's fading away and taking on the years'). Instead Neil battens down
the hatches, getting ready to fight again, but remembering anew what made him
fall in love with his ex in the first place. The result is a stately last long
glimpse goodbye from Neil to his partner of nearly four decades and a last
lingering lookback before the final shift that's eerily realised, especially in
the stark solo version. It just feels so alive and real this song, after so
many songs of Neil trying to pretend that all is ‘normal’. The solo version is
perhaps the greatest triumph of the album from a songwriting and performance
point of view, an impressively courageous and believable song. Alas the treacly
orchestral version just makes the whole idea seem yukky and tacky, being about
as 'honest' as a David Cameron election manifesto. The result is still a
staggering song, though, with an excellent vocal from Neil on what must have
been a difficult song to sing once, never mind twice.
The album ends on a third strong song in a row with [398]
'All Those
Dreams', as Neil waves goodbye not just to the life that was but the
possible futures that might have been. Picking up from the last song, he creeps
off into the night while his ex lies asleep in bed, haunted by memories of what
they had planned to do together at this stage of their lives. In a sense he’s
also waving goodbye to his old home, realising that this is the last time he is
going to see all sorts of milestones in nature that he’s got to know
instinctively from his ranch. Alas, though, while the last two songs were timed
to perfection, Neil goes a bit too far with his imagery at times here. Neil
gets rather fixated with stopped clocks and spends a whole verse painfully
exploring the metaphor of a melted snowman which seems to have wondered in from
a children's book ('His smile is a twig, his nose a cucumber' - trust Neil not
to go the traditional route and use a carrot!) ‘Nothing can bring him back now’
sighs Neil, a punchline you saw coming as long ago as Spring. At least the
verses about how he'll miss seeing the usual geese (‘honkers’) travelling back
home that Winter (as heard on ‘Helpless’ flying the other way) is poignant
stuff, Neil knowing that he won’t get to see them fly in the other direction
because in six months’ time he’ll be gone. In many ways this and the last song
sounds like an extension of [35] 'Till The Morning Comes' from 'After The
Goldrush', with Neil even using the phrase 'when the morning comes' in this
song, although the mood is far less happy: the next morning arrives with dread,
not with anticipation and excitement. This might be a more deliberate
juxtaposition than you might think: my guess is that song was all about getting
first wife Susan to move out of Topanga Canyon and move to the ‘Broken Arrow’
ranch, an ultimatum that he was moving and she could come too but if not then
they had to part as he wasn’t staying. This time, though, the ultimatum is Pegi’s
not Neil’s and Young knows that his time on the place he’s called home for some
forty-five years is coming to an end, that morning coming at last. By now the
solo performances are beginning to get a bit on the nerves and actually the
orchestral version of this song doesn't sound too bad by comparison, perhaps
because the orchestra is there for colour rather than as the whole track. This is,
at least, a powerful song to end on even if it lacks the oomph of many a Young
finale.
The end result is an album that I think will come to
be seen in future decades as something of a milestone: the moment Neil regained
his muse by being able to sing directly about what was on his mind. The fact
that this album’s twin sequels have shunned this approach reveals, perhaps,
just how hard it still is for Neil to confront the life changes he’s made in
recent years. That makes ‘Storytone’ a largely unique album, as ‘real’ as it
gets from an artist who specialised in authenticity but who has nevertheless
been juggling his lovelife somewhat out of sight for a long time till now. So
far the poor re-action to this album by most fans and critics seems telling:
the distracting orchestra certainly doesn't help but most people seem to hate
this record simply because people mostly side with Pegi and Neil’s guilt mixed
with genuinely touching songs about the life he let go don’t cut it. The public
aren’t ready to redeem a guilty man and Neil’s already burnt his goodwill with
the music press after a bunch of increasingly esoteric albums. ‘Storytone’
though isn’t one of them – it’s a step back towards the path Neil always used
to take, when he treated his albums like his diaries, keeping fans up to date
with what he was feeling and thinking and it’s a joy to have that back again after
so long away. The bad news is that 'Storytone' is often as heavy going and low on flashes of
inspiration as any of these other recent albums: 'Le Noise' 'Fork In The Road',
especially 'Greendale', with a curious trio of blues songs that sound as if
they’ve flown in from some different album altogether. The orchestral
accompaniment makes a fairly sugary set of songs sound far too sickly to taste
too, not so much a [49] ‘Heart Of Gold’ as Heart Of Gold-plating. The good news
is that the songs that do work are quite brilliant with and especially without
an orchestra, with five maybe six truly sublime compositions that also bring
out the best in Neil as a vocalist, as his voice is finally allowed to quiver
without giving the game away. It might be significant that the last time Neil
released a 'bluesy' album (which admittedly this is only in part) he followed
it up with a cracking run of some of his best loved LPs ('Freedom' 'Ragged
Glory' 'Harvest Moon' 'Sleeps With Angels'). There's certainly enough promise
in 'Storytone' to suggest that the glory days may be here again soon and the
ragged majesty of the 'solo' recordings of the better songs here really do
suggest that Neil is back to pouring his heart out and telling things straight,
after hiding behind characters and snatched cameos of autobiography as per most
albums recently. In short, I rather like it - I don't love it the way I love
'Tonight's The Night' 'Trans' and even 'Prairie Wind', but the creative breezes
are blowing in the right direction and Neil's honesty and poignancy wins my
respect far more than the last decade or so taking it easy. 'Storytone' sounds
like a hard album to have made, confronting a lot of difficult home truths, and
on that level alone it's a 'landmark' album, even if creative inspiration isn't
quite here with the plentiful abundance there used to be. Admittedly we said
this first after the release of 'Le Noise' and have said it again every review
since, but I await the next Neil Young record with great enthusiasm as the
signs here bode well: will a fourth career peak be in sight the next time
Alan's Album Archives reviews the latest release by our most prolific star?
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
'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
'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
'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
'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
‘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
'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
'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
'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
‘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
'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
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