Neil Young song draft

[Erik]

8. Tonight's the Night (Tonight's the Night, 1975; written and first performed in 1973)
The title track and best-known song of Neil's most successful concept album, Tonight's the Night tells the story of Bruce Berry, Neil's friend and roadie who died of a heroin overdose around the same time that Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten did. Those deaths prompted Neil to write this and a bunch of other songs about the dark side of 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Neil recorded two versions of this, opening the album with one and closing it with the other; this entry covers both as they are the same thing with slight differences in their arrangements.
Against a foreboding bass line, Neil hauntingly chants "Tonight's the Night" as if something evil lurks around the corner. The opener (identified as just "Tonight's the Night" on the studio album but labeled as "Tonight's the Night -- Part I" on Decade") with its slow buildup and piano noodling conveys the seediness and shadiness of the stories Neil is about to tell, while the closer (identified as "Tonight's the Night -- Part II" on the studio album) is harder rocking and its music cuts right to the point; I've always thought the arrangement and placement of this version was a way of telling us that if we band together and believe in what we're doing, we can beat these demons that haunt us.
It can reach pretty spectacular heights live. Versions with Crazy Horse such as those that appear on Live Rust and Weld take after "Part II" even though they are just labeled as "Tonight's the Night" on the live albums. The version I saw in 2000 with Neil's Friends and Relatives Band featured Neil on piano and sounded more like "Part I", and was equally fantastic. A college friend, who saw a show on the Weld tour the night after my show, said Neil that night finished with a Tonight's the Night that lasted about 30 minutes; I've never heard it so I have no idea if that's true (this would have been 2/6/91 in Philly), but it certainly sounds like something Neil can do, as this is one of those songs where he can really get lost in the moment while playing.
"Part I" is linked here, I'll put "Part II" in the next post.

[Erik]

Part II:

[Erik]

7. Powderfinger (Rust Never Sleeps, 1979; written in 1969 as "Big Waves")
An incredibly powerful tale of a family's property being invaded, this song is notable for many reasons, including the protagonist being killed in mid-song ("Then I saw black and my face splashed in the sky") and singing the final verse from beyond the grave.
It took Neil 10 years to release the song in the format that he wanted. The first version of this song was written in 1969. The album art for After the Gold Rush has names of songs that were being considered for an early version of the record, and one of them is Big Waves. In a fanzine interview from the early '00s, Neil confirmed what many die-hards suspected, that Big Waves was the first version of Powderfinger.
Neil cut a solo acoustic version of Powderfinger in 1975 and intended to put it on Chrome Dreams, but that album was abandoned. He then offered the song (and Sedan Delivery) to Lynyrd Skynyrd, who turned him down. The song made its live debut at a solo acoustic show in May 1978, but was reworked into a crackling electric arrangement with Crazy Horse for their tour that fall. One of those versions, with the audience noise stripped out, is what opens side 2 of Rust Never Sleeps.
The song combines the best elements of Neil's acoustic and electric work. The attention to detail in the protagonist's story is incredible. In just 5 minutes, we learn that he is 22, that his father is dead, his brother is away and another male relative is an alcoholic, leaving him as the decision-maker, that he gains confidence from holding his father's rifle to defend his property, but that he gets killed by people who come up the river in a white boat who "don't look like they're here to deliver the mail."
The slamming Crazy Horse arrangement hits you in the face after the gentle acoustic styling of RNS side 1. The loud, somewhat twangy backing of Sampedro, Talbot and Molina serve as the base for Neil to launch into some stinging, visceral solos that are among the best of his career. Those with more grounding in music theory than I have said the chord structures in the solos are designed to convey heights that are cut short abruptly, mirroring the narrator's tale.
The story fits snugly with the lyrical themes of RNS, especially this passage from the final verse:
"Just think of me as one you never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone
Remember me to my love; I know I'll miss her"
I remember audibly gasping when Neil closed his Live Aid set with this. It's just brilliant in every way. In 2014, Rolling Stone released a special issue devoted to Neil and ranked what they thought were his top 100 songs. This was #1. I have a number of problems with their rankings, but that is not one of them.

[Erik]

Acoustic Chrome Dreams version:

[Mithrandir]

Powderfinger is my #1 Neil song.

[Erik]

Powderfinger is my #1 Neil song.

I figured, since you took it second overall in our draft.

[Mithrandir]

That final verse passage that you quoted has always been a favorite of mine.

I would have loved to hear Skynyrd's version!

[Erik]

That final verse passage that you quoted has always been a favorite of mine.

I would have loved to hear Skynyrd's version!

It would have been perfect for them. Though I'm glad they turned it down since we got Neil's.

[madducks]

Powderfinger is my #1 Neil song.

It's my favorite also. I didn't know it was #1 on the RS list. Although, i'm not surprised. I'm also glad that Skynryd let Neil keep the song.

[madducks]

I'm thinking that the offer of the song "Powderfinger" to Lynyrd Skynyrd was a peace offering from Neil during their songwriting feud of the 70's.

Neil Young on "Southern Man"

Better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

Lynyrd Skynyrd on "Sweet Home Alabama"

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
a southern man don't need him around anyhow.

[Erik]

I'm thinking that the offer of the song "Powderfinger" to Lynyrd Skynyrd was a peace offering from Neil during their songwriting feud of the 70's.

Neil Young on "Southern Man"

Better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

Lynyrd Skynyrd on "Sweet Home Alabama"

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
a southern man don't need him around anyhow.

I don't think there was a direct connection; they had made up long before. As I said in the Southern Man entry, Sweet Home Alabama was more inspired by Alabama, the song on Harvest that to the Skynyrd guys probably felt was like piling on, than Southern Man.

Here is what Neil played his first show after their plane crash: A medley of Alabama and Sweet Home Alabama:

[Erik]

6. Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) / My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) (Rust Never Sleeps, 1979)
The top 6 are where they are on my list not only because they are amazing songs with iconic status, but because I feel a deep personal connection to each of them. Warning: these remaining 6 entries are all very long.
I'm counting the twin theme songs of Rust Never Sleeps as one entry because, despite slight variations in the lyrics and one being electric while the other is acoustic, they are the same song with the same message. (Why Jeff Blackburn of The Ducks receives a co-writing credit on Out of the Blue but not Into the Black is a mystery.) With this creative accounting, Rust Never Sleeps is the only Neil album to have every track represented on my list.
This is Neil's best-known and most powerful "statement of purpose" song. It is a direct response to the punk movement that was relegating acts like CSN to the dustbin (Johnny Rotten is namechecked), and Neil most definitely did not want to be painted with the same broad brush: "There's more to the picture than meets the eye". The song is not just a celebration of the power of rock and roll (which the electric version demonstrates in sound) but also a treatise on how to sustain that power.
The most famous, and tragic, line is "it's better to burn out than to fade away," which the Mandela effect probably tells you is in the electric version, but actually appears verbatim only in the acoustic one. It's there because it's what the punks, and the early rockers they drew inspiration from, believed, though Neil's other lyrics here (and the way he's conducted his career) are not really an endorsement of burning out but more of a determination to avoid fading away. This line was included in Kurt Cobain's suicide note, which devastated Neil (and, less importantly, me), because that is not what he meant by it at all.
Neil opens Rust Never Sleeps with the acoustic version and closes it with the electric one, a device he would employ again with great effect 10 years later. The acoustic version sets the tone for side 1, with its crisp, melodic guitar line and thoughtful lyrics, while the electric version caps side 2 with a bang, generating one of the most fist-raising riffs Neil has ever composed. If you recall from earlier entries, I first heard Rust Never Sleeps at age 8 when it came out, and this pair made a huge impression on my developing mind. It (they) was (were) my first favorite song(s) that wasn't (weren't) pop music. Not too long thereafter, I left the Bee Gees and their ilk behind for harder sounds and more complex emotions. (Don't get me wrong, I still love the Bee Gees.)
It's no accident that when Neil embarked on the Weld tour, whose purpose was to be as loud as possible and evoke the sounds of war (the first Gulf War was in progress), he started the sets with this. Thus, as if this wasn't already a significant enough song in my life, it was also the first song I ever saw him play live.
Oh yeah, where did Neil get the phrase "Rust Never Sleeps" from? Members of Devo who were chanting it while Neil was playing an early version of this with them on the set of the Human Highway movie.

Into the Black:

[Erik]

Out of the Blue:

[chancellor]

"into The Black", college, and Blatz Light Cream Ale are tied into many memories for me....

[Erik]

"into The Black", college, and Blatz Light Cream Ale are tied into many memories for me....

You're not the only person who got drunk to this song in college.