neil young

xpost Amen :/

I am reading Shakey at the moment, and am struck by how often everybody around NY regards Ralphie and Billy as utter clod-hopping stumblebums. Including Neil frequently…Cros in particular can't stand 'em, which is a stupendous recommendation as far as I am concerned…I didn't know before this book that those guys and Danny hadn't been playing instruments for very long before EKTiN…so as much as I often can't believe how rudimentary their playing is live, their harmonizing on the live Tonight's the Night record is exceptional…they sound EXACTLY like that record…

I never heard Landing on water til last week…while I can see that Geffen was setting him up for some Building the Perfect Beast shit with Kootch and that doesn't sit well with Neil stans, I liked it! Also kinda liked Life, which I hadn't heard since 89, but those two are interesting for being the digital/ Synclavier extravaganzas that he would foreswear. Hadn't heard Trans since the 80s either, and that record is fantastic…

and am struck by how often everybody around NY regards Ralphie and Billy as utter clod-hopping stumblebums.

Neil has said that musicians would take him aside and say, "Man, those guys can't play!" Neil's response was always, "Well, they can't play with you." I thought that was perfect.

Croz getting on his high (sorry) horse (super sorry) about the Horse's playing is the funniest thing to me and I've sometimes wondered if it had as much to do with Neil treating Billy & Ralph as equals instead of "just" side men rather then their playing, which admittedly can be...loose

Also "Life" is a kinda of a fun/overlooked record, "Prisoners of Rock'n'Roll" is great, though ironic to have the Horse doing a song about "not listening to the record label" while Billy's playing a keytar

"He can play one note on anything!"

I don't have an ear for this sort of thing, but I could have sworn a friend of mine (who does have a good ear for this) said Billy hits some pretty wrong notes in a few CH songs, which of course Neil had no problem leaving in!

Croz is such a dumb dickhead I really hate this rehabilitation of him

Is Shakey worth a read? Neil's autobiog was pretty good fun, despite all the Pono/car/model railway talk, I would guess Shakey is significantly less all over the place?

Yes. Shakey has its issues, but is still very much worth your time.

yeah, shakey’s essential imo

cheers! you see about it in charity shops now and again, I'll keep an eye out

St long last a good Neil album is coming out (i hope at least)

xpost The song is " When You Dance I Can Really Love." Apparently the bass is a mess. That's Billy, right?

"Man, those guys can't play!" Neil's response was always, "Well, they can't play with you."

<3 <3 <3

Billy is not on that song and not on the whole record…that's Greg Reeves, who had played on deja Vu…the song that immediately comes to mind re: Billy being uproariously out of tune is the version of "Downtown" on the Crazy Horse record (which is fan-fucking-tastic). I had known the live version from TtN since I was 16, and then in 2011 when I found a pristine copy for like $12 at Gimme Gimme in NY in 2010, I was psyched as fuck to hear it, and while it is awesome, one does marvel that Jack Nitzsche, who I don't think subscribed to the "it was meant to be like that, maaannnn" school, didn't fix it. It sounds like his A string is not consonant with his E, D and G strings, in that some notes are okay, but his root is fucked up.

Crazy Horse is the band on “when you dance” — the last whitten era studio recording iirc.

David Briggs pointed out that Talbot made two obvious mistakes on "Lotta Love", and when Nicolette Larson recorded her version, those mistakes were copied by the session bassist, so they are now accepted as part of the song (part of the sheet music etc.).

Tyler is correct! In Shakey, Neil sez its Billy, Ralph, Jack and Danny, he sez indeed that it was the last time he recorded with danny…

Billy isn't in the band to play the songs correctly, he's in there to yell at Neil to keep him from turning into Stephen Stills

And to argue with Ralph about harmonies cf. "Muddy Track"

short review of Colorado after a few listens: three terrible songs, seven pretty good songs. not sure if there are any new classics here. quieter stuff might be the strongest.

assuming there's no Walk Like a Giant on this huh?

more and more Peace Trail I think is his best late period album, had a real unique specific dynamic with the band on that, like the sound and he wrote some really quirky stuff

yeah i like peace trail.
colorado is growing on me though -- i thought it was pretty bad at first, but i'm digging the funkier/more intimate feel that comes across on some of the songs. it's less big billowy crazy horse and more small-scale. main problem is some truly bad lyrics.

unfortunately one of the very bad songs is 13 minutes long ...

lyrically, he's been pretty bad on the whole for a long time now. every now and then there's a couple well written ones but you gotta just kinda dig it for the sound now

He was never a good lyricist.his power is/was in the melodies, his voice and of course his band. Imo.

that's crazy talk, Neil has written a lot of great lyrics.

Not many in the last 20 years though.

brb gonna get a hip hop haircut

Example?

xp he's got a million great lyrics, but yeah, few and far between this century.

He was much better in everything including lyrica in the 70's but man..
I listened to Rust Never Sleeps the other day - The lyrics of Ride My Llama..bad

welfare mothers
make better lovers

VegemiteGirl saw Kelsey Waldon cover "Powderfinger," posted this on Rolling Country

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OXLAeQeUwU&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OXLAeQeUwU&feature=youtu.be

Why does ilx do this sometimes--anyway the link is on Rolling Country; also check YouTube for Lee Ann Womack's version of "Out on the Weekend."

It does show the link when I'm logged out! So maybe log out and paste it---this 'un too (Womack's "out on the Weekend")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtcx-zv-ijg

Tho sometimes I kinda prefer this shorter, simpler live performance---well kinda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ecLa35QvNQ

yeah that's a good cover

idk where to start with great Neil lines, there's so many

the "she's put the kid away and she's gone to get a hit/she hates her life and what she's done to it
there's one more kid that'll never go to school/never get to fall in love, never get to be cool" verse always gets me

otm

Neil has so many great lyrics
I'm talking recent years though
I don't even need them to be great just not so bad as to be distracting which they often are now

"Country Home" has some of my favorite Neil lines; not entirely sure why I dig it so much, though Ragged Glory was the first Neil record I got heavily into.

(In keeping with the spirit of the album -- blacked-out CD booklet where the lyrics had been, because Neil decided at the last minute it was better for listeners to figure them out -- I won't quote the lines.)

And Tonight's The Night...jeez, "Lookout Joe," "Borrowed Tune," "Speakin' Out"...

The saddest thing in the whole wide world
Is to break the heart of your lover
I made a mistake and I did it again
And we struggled to recover
Then I sang in anger, hit another bad chord
But I still try to sing about love and war

^^ Le Noise, 2010 (his best album of the last 40 years imo)

i find the lyrics to 'ramada inn' to be pretty devastating (it's also a fuckin' jam with some of my favourite neil electric-playing ever)

anyway this is of course the greatest neil cover ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UUH8avj6hs

yeah Ramada Inn is v good lyrically

^^ Le Noise, 2010 (his best album of the last 40 years imo)

― sleeve, Thursday, October 10, 2019 2:18 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. Well, maybe 30 years. But yeah, this is among my favorite Neil albums ever, and I am not a Lanois fan at all.

Guitar teacher and I just gave a close listen and didn't hear any bass clams on "Downtown" (either the Crazy Horse version or the TnT version, though he might have been a tiny bit out of tune on the latter), nor did we hear anything wrong on "Lotta Love" or the Larson cover of same. So ... ?

"When You Dance I Can Really Love" for sure has bum bass notes in it.