neil young

I'm thinking that Neil and Carole are probably good friends...

― clemenza, Friday, November 12, 2010 10:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Well they did write "Oh Carole" and "Oh Neil" for each other.

(Or was that Neil Sedaka and Carole Pope? Neil Peart and Carole Bayer Sager?)

It was Neil Sedaka and Carole King. :)

Why do I love being a Neil fan? Because I can hear a song of his hundreds of times and think, "oh this is pretty good" each time, but then suddenly be completely blindsided by how amazing it really is. This happened with "What Have You Done To My Life" this morning.

yeah, that whole s/t album is probably my big neil re-discovery of the last few years. probably pushed its way into top 5 neil albums for me, thanks to that amazing remaster.

that was one of the first Neil albums I bought (80s CD reissue, I think?) but I just HATED the way it sounded and sold it after a couple years. have never gone back to it. maybe I should

i think that's how i first heard it too. it seriously is a major, major improvement. used to sound kinda rinky dink, but now it's big and layered.

It's crazy how much better that remaster sounds, really.

right? the thing just sparkles now, whereas it was pretty flat sounding (even on the vinyl i have). i guess there were a bunch of weirdnesses with the mix when it originally came out.

Yeah, I think having the remaster is a huge reason why the song was such a revelation for me this morning.

hmm searching for a d/l of the remaster is kinda hard...

oh never mind, found it

the claps on cinnamon girls are blowing me away right now, like i never heard the song before

yeah, after a billion live versions, it's easy to forget how rad that song is. where did it come from? cant really think of another song from the 60s it sounds like.

wow this really does sound quite different than I remember. the fuzz guitar tone in particular seems like it must have been difficult to capture correctly

just to jump on the s/t remaster train, it's maybe the best remaster I can think of ("best" as in greatest improvement in sound quality, hearing it in a new way, etc)

just chiming in here, all the remasters sound great but the first album is like a completely new + awesome album

the fuzz attack on stuff like "I've been waiting for you" and "the loner" is flattening

& the wide open orchestration on "old laughing lady" could be off of Bryter Later

the s/t seems like a template for Gene Clark's "No Other" to me now

yeah, true, and it's interesting how neil could've been more of a cult-type artist along the lines of Gene Clark. Kind of similar trajectories in their early days -- Neil just had some hits (and CSNY of course) that turned him into a superstar.

rumored to be playing the bell house in brooklyn tonight w/peggy & bert jansch.

never thought much of the s/t, but the raves itt (esp the gene clark comparison) have convinced me to buy the remaster soon. only 8.99 on amazon!

Let me say a word for "The Emperor of Wyoming," one of my three favorite rarely-talked-about Neil songs (other two: "Country Girl" and "Ocean Girl"). On the downside, "The Last Trip to Tulsa" is interminable, and almost as silly as the Doors at their silliest.

yeah "last trip" is a misstep for sure. though the version with (i think) the santa monica flyers from the 70s is awesome. a lot shorter too.

Making this pretty funny.

"I've been waiting for you" is one my favorite Neil back catalog surprises.

if anything "last trip to tulsa" is a dylan rip

it's slight but he gets some good lines in

It is more Dylan than Doors, you're right.

haaa, that promo is hilarious

The best part is the implication that Neil somehow got separated from his guitar during his Buffalo Springfield days...Had he switched over to cello or something during that time?

add another missing album to the pile -- just read this, never heard of it before:
I woke up in the middle of the night because I’ve been listening to this – it’s a bit of a tangent here, but I’ve been listening to this album called Treasure, which I have in the can that was done in 1985. I’ve been listening to it because I plan on releasing it someday, and it’s a great record. But all of the people – the key people – are all gone. I have this history of these people that are playing the greatest music of our lives, playing unbelievably great, and now they’re gone, and I didn’t continue playing with them. At some point I had to say, “I’ll see you guys later. I gotta go do this. I’m gonna go play with Crazy Horse now. I’m gonna do this or I’m gonna do that.” In that way I am ruthless, but I’m ruthless for the music. What is ruth? I don’t know what ruth is. If I don’t have any of it, you know, I’m okay.”

He's the one artist that *has* to have a "A NEW ALBUM FROM" sticker on his, um, new albums.

"Cinnamon Girl" - double drop D, no? Got to be relatively unusual, though I think he used the same tuning for "Ohio." Perhaps accounts for their striking-ness.

there's a clip from the archives where neil shows a fan how to play it, and yeah, i think it's double drop d.

he did play with peggi last night in brooklyn. looking pretty old

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music/pegiyoungneilyoung/bellhouse/40.jpg

according to the cinnamon girl wiki page:
The song was written in Double Drop D tuning (DADGBD). This tuning is used in several of his most famous songs, such as "Cortez the Killer", "Fuckin' Up", "The Loner", "Ohio", "Inca Queen", "The Old Laughing Lady", "Ride My Llama", "When You Dance I Can Really Love."

it is a cool tuning!

Pity John Entwistle didn't use it on his version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-avGFz3uzlE

Somewhere on Archives, there's an old clip of Neil explaining to some guy in a park how to play "Cinnamon Girl."

This is not that clip, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6sg5OMZ7uM

just wanted to chime in some more about the s/t remaster, been listening to it a bunch lately:

- Last Trip to Tulsa is possibly the worst song in his entire catalog. aimless, formless, terrible lyrics, terrible delivery. practically everything about it is wrong
- the only other track that irks me is Here We Are in the Years, just for the clumsy lyrical sentiment

there's a great (much shorter & electric) version of "last trip" that was the b-side to the time fades away single. and yeah "here we are in the years" is definitely not the best set of lyrics, but it is pretty!

http://www.bigozine1a.com/TRKSD/NYrarities/NYrarities13.mp3 here ya go

haha omg that is SO MUCH BETTER. sloppy groove and a sneer is def the way that song should be

loving the unhinged-ness of this - feels of a piece with Yonder Stands the Sinner

yeah, the song is pretty funny/nasty in that version

This song is atrocious.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/amplifier/88621/canadian-rappers-sample-brutalize-neil-youngs-old-man/

I listened to A Treasure on the way in this morning and I have to say, I think this is finally going to provide a way for me to get into the 80s country era of Neil's career. That's always been a blind spot for me, both because 80s Neil was the last in general I came around to and also because country can be the hardest genre for me to really invest time in. I'd long heard and read about the legendary International Harvesters tours, but the few bootlegs I heard were of questionable enough quality that I couldn't fully commit. This sounds great and, while it may not represent any kind of peak for Neil, I'm really thankful to have it in my collection.

A nice little sign of the times, the crowd reaction to the "there's already too many Toyotas on the road" line in "Motor City".

80s Neil was the last in general I came around to

Trans!!!! It's all about that album

Trans is amazing

Trans was the first (and only) 80s Neil I had for the longest time. Its the less regarded 80s album I took forever to get into.

news from the toronto film festival:
Neil has just completed his first book, a 105,000-word epic tentatively titled Cars I Have Known.