Neil Young song draft

[Erik]

cool. i was expecting everybody to go "wtf is that?" lol

you thought i was going to "mirrorball", didn't you?

Oh yeah. There are a lot of PJ fans in this draft, so I was expecting something to have been plucked by now.

[Cobain's Ghost]

Here's your setlist:

1997-07-24, Riverport Amphitheatre, Maryland Heights, Missouri, USA
HORDE Festival
w/ Crazy Horse
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) / Crime In The City / Hippie Dream / Big Time / From Hank To Hendrix / The Needle And The Damage Done / Slip Away / Tonight's The Night / Sedan Delivery // Piece Of Crap / Mansion On The Hill

"Hippie Dream" is from the otherwise dreadful Landing on Water album.

nice! thanks for that - "sedan delivery" was the other song i didn't know. and the "broken arrow" songs - i hadn't heard that record yet.

one of the tarps came loose while they were doing "piece of crap." very fitting.

great night.

[Erik]

Songs by decade of release:

60s: 11
70s: 58
80s: 16
90s: 18
00s: 3
Unreleased: 1

Songs by album:

After the Gold Rush: 9
Freedom: 9 (Cobain has most of them)
Harvest: 8
Rust Never Sleeps: 8
On the Beach: 7
Zuma: 6
Ragged Glory: 6
Harvest Moon: 6
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere: 5
Tonight's the Night: 4
Comes a Time: 4
Sleeps with Angels: 4
Time Fades Away: 3
American Stars 'N Bars: 3
Re*ac*tor: 3
Buffalo Springfield Again (BS): 2
Deja Vu (CSNY): 2
Neil Young: 2
Hawks & Doves: 2 (Mith has both)
Chrome Dreams II: 2
Last Time Around (BS): 1
Trans: 1
Everybody's Rockin: 1
Broken Arrow: 1
Silver and Gold: 1
other: 7

We are one song away from completing On the Beach.
We are one song away from completing Rust Never Sleeps.
We are two songs away from completing Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
We are two songs away from completing After the Gold Rush.
We are two songs away from completing Harvest.
We are two songs away from completing Freedom.

[Erik]

The "Slip Away" on Year of the Horse (taken from 9/11/96 at the LA Forum) is pretty epic, too.

[overkill94]

cool. i was expecting everybody to go "wtf is that?" lol

you thought i was going to "mirrorball", didn't you?

I was afraid you were going to - I want to break an album's cherry too!

Not really one of my favorites, but it at least has some personal connection with me.

14.04 - "Downtown" (Mirrorball, 1995)

This is basically the first Neil Young album I ever heard since my sister's boyfriend at the time drove me to school in the morning. He was a huge Neil Young and classic rock fan and got me hooked on all the classics - Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, etc. This song was kind of the "hit" off the album and I especially liked it because they mention Led Zeppelin in the lyrics. It's a pretty simple song both musically and lyrically, but it's kinda fun anyway.

Embedding is disabled, but here's the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo-4viCN_w4

[Cobain's Ghost]

Oh yeah. There are a lot of PJ fans in this draft, so I was expecting something to have been plucked by now.

man, you'd think a neil young-pearl jam collaboration couldn't fail, but i just couldn't get into "mirrorball." some of the songs are pretty good, but in the end, i just didn't feel like the artists complemented each other. there is one song from that record i am considering for my last pick. i haven't listened to "mirrorball" in a long time. i might give it a listen tonight to see if my feelings have changed.

[Cobain's Ghost]

I was afraid you were going to - I want to break an album's cherry too!

Not really one of my favorites, but it at least has some personal connection with me.

14.04 - "Downtown" (Mirrorball, 1995)

This is basically the first Neil Young album I ever heard since my sister's boyfriend at the time drove me to school in the morning. He was a huge Neil Young and classic rock fan and got me hooked on all the classics - Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, etc. This song was kind of the "hit" off the album and I especially liked it because they mention Led Zeppelin in the lyrics. It's a pretty simple song both musically and lyrically, but it's kinda fun anyway.

Embedding is disabled, but here's the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo-4viCN_w4

and there's the one song i was considering. dick!

[Erik]

I have some thinking to do. My pick will be up in a bit.

Part of the reason Mirrorball didn't live up to its potential is that Neil didn't bring much to work with. When they began the session, only two songs, "Song X" and "Act of Love," had been written. Neil made up everything else on the spot. This is often how he likes to work -- but this time he was doing it with people who aren't used to making records that way, and with lyrics that for the most part weren't anything special.

Downtown is a prime example of the strengths and weaknesses of the project. Musically, it kicks ass. Lyrically, it's goofy.

[johnnya24]

Oh yeah. There are a lot of PJ fans in this draft, so I was expecting something to have been plucked by now.

I'm not quite as "dedicated" a Pearl Jam fan as you are a Neil fan ... but I'm getting there

There were a bunch of 80's 90's songs I had lined up (apart from the two I picked) ... they started going a lot higher than I expected before the draft.

[Erik]

I'm gonna get anthemic. This is an anthem that almost no one heard because of when it came out.

14.05 Prisoners of Rock 'N Roll (Life, 1987; special citation for Year of the Horse, 1997)

Conventional wisdom says Neil didn't churn out any of his patented hyper Old Black-driven rockers between RNS/Live Rust and Rockin' in the Free World. It's wrong.

On his 1986 tour with Crazy Horse, Neil rocked just as hard as he had on the tour that produced RNS/Live Rust, and featured a conceit just as brilliant as the Jawa roadies from that jaunt: The stage was fashioned as a giant garage, and every so often an actress playing Neil's mother would come onstage to tell the boys to turn it down. This was raw, passionate, gleeful stuff -- a completely different vibe from what he'd been doing in the '80s up to that point. It offered a glimpse into why Neil got into this rock and roll business in the first place.

A number of new songs were performed at these shows, but Neil gave a special spotlight to one, "Prisoners of Rock 'N Roll," which closed every show on the US leg of the tour. Its lyrics were the reason for the whole tour's being, and in fact sum up the NY/CH sound and attitude in a nutshell. If anyone asks you to characterize the NY/CH sound, just read them the lyrics to this song:

People tell us
that we play too loud
But they don't know
what our music's about
We never listen
to the record company man
They try to change us
and ruin our band.

That's why we don't wanna be good
That's why we don't wanna be good
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
We're prisoners of rock and roll.

When were jammin'
in our old garage
The girls come over
and it sure gets hot
We don't wanna be watered down
Takin' orders
from record company clowns.

That's why we don't wanna be good
That's why we don't wanna be good
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
We're prisoners of rock and roll.

This is the song that was going to revive Neil's credibility as a rocker after seven years of dicking around. But this being the '80s, it didn't work out that way, and it took "Rockin' in the Free World" to complete that task three years later.

The problem was that Neil still owed an album to Geffen, and their relationship was contentious to say the least. In the first three years of their partnership, Geffen had rejected at least two albums Neil turned in (Island in the Sun and the original version of Old Ways), and sued him for making "unrepresentative product" after he turned in a Devo-with-vocoders album (Trans), a rockabilly album (Everybody's Rockin'), and a country album (Old Ways). Sometime around 1985 or 1986, the parties came to an agreement. Terms have never been made public, but it appears to be something along the lines that Neil would make two more albums that weren't "unrepresentative" and Geffen would honor all commitments to him financially and cease seeking monetary damages.

Neil being Neil, he proceeded to give them two of the worst albums of his career. After the Island in the Sun debacle, Geffen basically told him that it wanted to turn him into Peter Gabriel, and so Neil decided to finish his contract with what are more or less bad Peter Gabriel imitations. About half of Landing on Water (1986) had been debuted live with Crazy Horse in 1984, in arrangements that are as close to punk rock as he ever got. But on the record, as fashioned by veteran session pros, they were sluggish and burdened with the layered synthesizers that were all too common on albums of the time, and accompanied by new songs that were even worse. Side 2 of Landing on Water is about as inessential as Neil's recorded output gets. It was the sound of a man who just didn't care -- the first time Neil sounded like that in his whole career.

But the new songs he debuted late in 1986 sounded promising, as did word that he would reunite with Crazy Horse for the next album. But as often happened with Neil's Geffen efforts, the execution was botched. Side one had a nice Harvest-style ballad and a pleasant enough Cortez the Killer knockoff, but they were accompanied by two songs that employed the same sound as Landing on Water, with slightly more energy. Side 2 closed with two not-terrible but not-essential ballads. But the album's main drawing point was supposed to be the three rockers that opened Side 2, "Prisoners of Rock 'N Roll" being the second. But they were just pallid shadows of what they sounded like live, ruined by listless tempos, Linn Drums, and other contemporary production tricks. "Prisoners of Rock 'N Roll" should have been the sensation that "Rockin' in the Free World" was two years later, but in 1987 the mainstream audience was still content with synth pop and hair metal, so they didn't care and the album version didn't give them any reason to. Nor did the label care, as they released the Harvest-style ballad ("Long Walk Home") as the single, which flopped.

Happily, Neil revived "Prisoners" after his '90s renaissance, restoring it to its rightful place as part of the evolution of the Godfather of Grunge. It appeared at a number of shows on the 1996 tour with CH, lean, mean, and stripped of its eighties-ness. The next year, on the Year of the Horse live soundtrack album, Neil officially released a version worthy of what the whole thing was supposed to be about in the first place -- uncompromising, asskicking rock and roll played by people whose passion exceeded their skill.

When I saw Neil in Camden in 2003, after he finished the Greendale production but before the encore, he played four frenzied, anthemic rockers: three from Side 2 of RNS and "Prisoners." It fit right in, like it always should have.

[johnnya24]

Was looking at a few of the songs I like from Greendale and Prairie Wind ... not sure they are worthy of being picked ahead of some of the tracks still hanging out there from his classical period though ...

14.06 Out on the Weekend Harvest

"See the lonely boy out on the weekend ... tryin' to make it pay"

[Lucky]

Erik, I can't remember if it has been posted somewhere here, but do you have or know where I can find the SNL performance of Rockin' in the Free World, I think from 1988? I have seen it a few times since, and thought it would be something good to post here. Many critics have said it was the best ever musical performance on SNL, and some have even gone on to say the best musical performance ever on television.

Bands just don't play at 100% intensity on television shows like that. It has to be hard to get up all the necessary energy and enthusiasm just to knock off one number. Neil knew that RITFW was an encore-type song, not an opener. To combat this, Neil supposedly played a while in his dressing room, and then for thirty minutes prior to the song worked out with his trainer, lifting weights and doing calisthenics, do get him pumped up...feeling more like he's just played a show and was ready for a high-energy encore. You can tell it made a difference.

His vocals are superb, his guitar work is spot on, and the stage just wasn't big enough to hold him. The band looks like they are having a ball. I think he picked up a few fans that night.

[johnnya24]

Erik, I can't remember if it has been posted somewhere here, but do you have or know where I can find the SNL performance of Rockin' in the Free World, I think from 1988? I have seen it a few times since, and thought it would be something good to post here. Many critics have said it was the best ever musical performance on SNL, and some have even gone on to say the best musical performance ever on television.

Bands just don't play at 100% intensity on television shows like that. It has to be hard to get up all the necessary energy and enthusiasm just to knock off one number. Neil knew that RITFW was an encore-type song, not an opener. To combat this, Neil supposedly played a while in his dressing room, and then for thirty minutes prior to the song worked out with his trainer, lifting weights and doing calisthenics, do get him pumped up...feeling more like he's just played a show and was ready for a high-energy encore. You can tell it made a difference.

His vocals are superb, his guitar work is spot on, and the stage just wasn't big enough to hold him. The band looks like they are having a ball. I think he picked up a few fans that night.

Neil Young - Keep On Rockin' In The Free World by Killer_Tomato

If youtube ever fails you, do a google video search

[Lucky]

Two of the songs that have been rolling around in my head the last few days have been "Don't Be Denied" and "No More". There have been others, too.

As soon as this is over, I'm putting together a mix disc featuring songs from this draft. It will include the songs I didn't know or didn't know well, along with some live versions of the songs I know by heart. It might take a few discs.

I'm with Cobain. I was a pretty big Neil fan already. He is probably one of top ten artists in my music catalog, based upon number of recordings, but I also have an emotional attachment to his music. But I have learned a ton from this draft, from everyone's picks, to the videos posted, to Erik's expert commentary. My compliments to all.

At my house we have a lot of "All _______________ Weekends" where the blank is some particular artist.

We'll have All Beatles Weekends,
All Who Weekends,
All Led Zeppelin Weekends,
All Allman Brothers Weekends,
All David Bowie Weekends,
All Stones Weekends,
All (Freddie, B.B. and Albert) King Weekends ,
All CSNY Weekends,
All Steely Dan Weekends,
All Miles Davis Weekends,
All Tom Waits Weekends,
All Jimmy Buffett Weekends,
All James Brown Weekends,
All Pre-1975 Clapton Weekends,
All Springsteen Weekends,
All Doors Weekends,
All Motown Weekends,
All Hendrix Weekends,
All Little Feat Weekends,
All REM Weekends,
All Randy Newman Weekends,
and all different genre weekends.

Of all of these, the Neil Young weekends are some of my faves.

[Erik]

Erik, I can't remember if it has been posted somewhere here, but do you have or know where I can find the SNL performance of Rockin' in the Free World, I think from 1988? I have seen it a few times since, and thought it would be something good to post here. Many critics have said it was the best ever musical performance on SNL, and some have even gone on to say the best musical performance ever on television.

Bands just don't play at 100% intensity on television shows like that. It has to be hard to get up all the necessary energy and enthusiasm just to knock off one number. Neil knew that RITFW was an encore-type song, not an opener. To combat this, Neil supposedly played a while in his dressing room, and then for thirty minutes prior to the song worked out with his trainer, lifting weights and doing calisthenics, do get him pumped up...feeling more like he's just played a show and was ready for a high-energy encore. You can tell it made a difference.

His vocals are superb, his guitar work is spot on, and the stage just wasn't big enough to hold him. The band looks like they are having a ball. I think he picked up a few fans that night.

Johnny -- thanks, I couldn't find it on YouTube and Hulu when I made my pick in the 2nd round.

Lucky -- you can imagine what this must have felt like to a drunk 18-year-old who desperately wanted Neil to be Neil again. As I mentioned, it looks even more anarchic than the normal performance because he refused to participate in camera blocking, so the cameraman had to improvise. It's is probably no accident that the next times Neil was invited back to SNL, it was when he was promoting acoustic albums -- Harvest Moon in 1992 (From Hank to Hendrix, Harvest Moon) and Silver and Gold in 2000 (Razor Love, Silver and Gold). Still, Neil messed with them in '92 by switching his second song from War of Man to Harvest Moon between dress rehearsal and air.