Neil Young song draft

[Erik]

Two people in my Facebook feed, who are big music fans, knew "Lotta Love" only as a Nicolette Larson song and had no idea Neil wrote or performed it.

[johnnya24]

Two people in my Facebook feed, who are big music fans, knew "Lotta Love" only as a Nicolette Larson song and had no idea Neil wrote or performed it.

Did you unfollow?

[Mithrandir]

Two people in my Facebook feed, who are big music fans, knew "Lotta Love" only as a Nicolette Larson song and had no idea Neil wrote or performed it.

Well even people that we say are "big music fans" don't come close to the level of music fandom that some of us here at RJ have attained.

[Erik]

Did you unfollow?

Oh, there are many, many greater transgressions than that being committed on Facebook right now.

[Erik]

Because we were in lockdown and I was bored and had a lot of time on my hands, I made a list of my top 100 Neil Young songs. I'll be posting one a day on Facebook (when I remember) and when I do, I'll add it to this thread because why not.

78. I Believe in You (After the Gold Rush, 1970)
One of many, many gorgeous acoustic songs from After the Gold Rush, Neil's greatest contribution to the singer-songwriter movement that was all the rage around this time. This one has particularly vexing lyrics, even by Neil's standards, but it's more or less about trying to make love endure amidst change and chaos.

[Erik]

77. Through My Sails (Zuma, 1975; written in 1973)
How did a CSNY song end up on a solo album that was otherwise the epitome of the powerful sound of Crazy Horse? Only Neil knows. Neil brought this to an informal 1973 CSNY session; it was one of six songs they worked up at that time and likely would have appeared on the planned reunion album, Human Highway. After attempts to finish that album imploded in 1974, Neil decided to keep this, one of his gentlest songs, for himself, appending it to an album of electric mayhem. The gorgeous harmonies and aquatic imagery somehow make the perfect denouement to Cortez the Killer.
This song had never been performed live ... until this year, when Neil played it at one of his virtual fireside sessions.

[Erik]

76. LA (Time Fades Away, 1973; written in 1968-ish)
Time Fades Away was about as ragged as Neil got, but shining moments of grace peek through on this one -- some of Ben Keith's steel guitar licks, the harmonies. It's about the apocalypse coming to Los Angeles, so this is a good year to revisit it. The song had been around for a few years before Neil unveiled it on the tour from which TFA was taken; it may have been considered for his debut solo album.

[Gregg]

76. LA (Time Fades Away, 1973; written in 1968-ish)
Time Fades Away was about as ragged as Neil got, but shining moments of grace peek through on this one -- some of Ben Keith's steel guitar licks, the harmonies. It's about the apocalypse coming to Los Angeles, so this is a good year to revisit it. The song had been around for a few years before Neil unveiled it on the tour from which TFA was taken; it may have been considered for his debut solo album.

Seems more Crazy Horse meets Buffalo Springfield than CSNY influence at the time of his writing this.

I do not remember this from 1973. Did I hear it and not like it enough to remember or did I not hear it at all. 2020 Gregg likes it, I can't help wonder if 1973 Gregg would have liked it.

[Erik]

75. Goin' Back (Comes a Time, 1978)
This is one of those "chill on the lawn on a perfect summer day" kind of songs and sets the stage for the blissful calm that is most of Comes a Time. Neil liked the main riff enough to use a close approximation of it again 14 years later.

[Erik]

Seems more Crazy Horse meets Buffalo Springfield than CSNY influence at the time of his writing this.

I do not remember this from 1973. Did I hear it and not like it enough to remember or did I not hear it at all. 2020 Gregg likes it, I can't help wonder if 1973 Gregg would have liked it.

All those people who latched on to Neil because of CSNY, After the Gold Rush and Harvest? Most of them HATED Time Fades Away. My understanding is word of mouth was pretty harsh, and so it wasn't heard nearly as much as his 1969-72 material. Lucky had a lot to say about this during our draft.
I love the "raw" Neil of Time Fades Away through Zuma, but I came to it many years later (I was 2 when TFA came out) and well after they had been reappraised for the outstanding work that they are.
So anyway, yes, chances are you never heard it because word of mouth/promotion was poor, or you did hear it but didn't think much of it because it was not the Neil you were expecting.
Warning: TFA gets much more raw than this, which will be evident on a few later entries.

[Erik]

74. Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero) (Freedom, 1989)
In the spring or summer of 1988, Neil had thoughts about crime, urban decay, and the toll it takes on the people involved. A lot of thoughts. After a writing session at sea, he emerged with a 12-verse, 18-minute epic called Sixty to Zero. He performed the full version of it six times while on tour with the Bluenotes in 1988. During subsequent sessions with the Bluenotes which became part of Freedom, he pared it down to five verses (verses 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11 from Sixty to Zero) and 9 minutes and retitled it Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero part 1). It's quite the grand statement and still hits home today.
But the story didn't end there. Neil reworked it again for his 1991 tour with Crazy Horse, trading in subtle acoustic picking and gentle horn charts for raging electric riffs. It was a highlight of those shows (one of the Philly gigs on that tour was my first Neil show) and the Weld live album. And Neil has said that a studio version of the full 18-minute Sixty to Zero does exist, and he hopes to include it on an Archives project someday.

[Erik]

73. From Hank to Hendrix (Harvest Moon, 1992)
A wistful meditation on love and music, this catchy tune shows up often in Neil's acoustic sets and benefits from harmonies by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. This album showed that Neil's late 80s/early 90s revival wasn't just about the Godfather of Grunge side of him.

[Erik]

72. Drive Back (Zuma, 1975)
Stuff like this is why he's the Godfather of Grunge. Sit back and worship.

[Erik]

71. World on a String (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written and first performed in 1973)
One of many songs Neil wrote about skepticism toward fame, this one is especially raw given its context; it was from the batch of songs he wrote while grieving the deaths of his friends Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry. "It's not all right to say goodbye," indeed.

[Erik]

70. Sea of Madness (Woodstock soundtrack, 1970; with CSNY)
In true Neil fashion, this song from Woodstock wasn't actually from Woodstock. He wouldn't allow himself to be filmed or for his playing to be included on the soundtrack. In 1970, the general public would have had no way of knowing that, so it was easy for the producers to slap on a version from a show later in 1969 and pass it off as the real thing.
But it's easy to see why they did. Melodic and rocking, this was an early sign that Neil's post-Buffalo Springfield career was going to be very special. Unfortunately the song disappeared after the 1969 tour and has never been revived.