Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

Half of these are my favourite on any given day. Today it's "Don't Let It Bring You Down", where Young sounds like he's gonna rip his own arm off in frustration.

7. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" – 2:56
8. "Birds" – 2:34
9. "When You Dance I Can Really Love" – 4:05
10. "I Believe in You" – 3:24

... what a sequence of songs

. . . Cripple Creek Ferry's not bad, either

I had an awesome moment of realisation when I was in school that it's Young passing over Old on the cover, and it's POLARISED, do you see? Pass the joint.

Fuck yeah. Gonna listen to this later this morning.

I prefer the Live Rust version of "When You Dance...," so I voted for "I Believe In You" over "Tell Me Why."

many great songs but Don't Let It Bring You Down is greater than great.
(and my guess it will also win the poll)

I prefer the Live Rust version of "When You Dance...,"

Well, so do I but nonetheless...

Tell Me Why

Can't believe there are only 3 songs from this on Decade.

seriously tempted to vote "Oh, Lonesome Me", even though he didn't write it, it's such a great reinvention of the song.

he was doing it live on the most recent tour.

I voted for "Till The Morning Comes". It's the one I find myself humming or singing inadvertently the most. It's some kind of dance of death, the lyric a vague threat, but sung and played with forced cheer. A hippie dream indeed.

how do i vote for all of the songs

don't vote

7. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" – 2:56
8. "Birds" – 2:34
9. "When You Dance I Can Really Love" – 4:05
10. "I Believe in You" – 3:24

... what a sequence of songs

― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:22 AM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

as seriously otmfm as ^this is, I still have to vote "Tell Me Why"...

this is my favorite NY album. i don't think i'll ever get sick of it.

'tell me why'

mive is On The Beach, but this one presents (almost) all music styles Young ever played, to perfection

"Southern Man"

how do i vote for all of the songs

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 12 May 2009 15:38 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

can't say i'll vote for it, but yeah his take on Don's song is pure class

The title track for me. How many rock-era melodies have surpassed it? Zero maybe? Not even Emmylou, Dolly, and Linda could resist it (although they changed "And I felt like getting high" to "And I felt like I could cry" and updated the ecological apocalypse to the 21st century).

yeah, I'm not voting - this is the album that really got me into Neil, its all pretty fantastic

This is one of those albums where nearly every track is classic, so it's very hard to pick. I think I've fallen in love with practically every song, but right now it's "Tell Me Why".

I voted "Only Love..." and I doubt that I'm the only one who has even though no one has commented on that songs greatness yet.

Shouldn't this have been called After The POLL Rush?

Voted for Don't Let It Bring You Down, but it could have been any of them really.

1. "Tell Me Why" – 2:54
2. "After the Gold Rush" – 3:45
3. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" – 3:05
7. "Don't Let It Bring You Down" – 2:56
8. "Birds" – 2:34

Really it could be any of these but went for 'Don't Let It Bring You Down' in the end, loved the version of it on that BBC solo performance thing. This is one of my stone-cold, life-saving, all-time favourite albums though, amazing to think it came relatively early on in his career.

My problem with "Don't Let It Bring You Down" is that I can still hear Annie Lennox singing it while Kevin Spacey attempts to deflower Mena Suvari.

I like this album, but Southern Man really grates on my nerves.

yea i love this album but 'southern man' is my least favorite track. don't necessarily dislike it though

I need Neil around anyhow.

"Don't Let It Bring You Down"

I hadn't ever thought of 'Don't let it bring you down' as the standout here, but now you all mention it it so is

'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' is hit out the park by St Etienne's cover, that might be why it gets no love

Voted "Birds" but could have gone with almost any of these.

funny, i just pulled this out a week ago for a drive, ended up listening to it like five times in a row, intermittently bellowing along. some deceptively high notes on some of these songs. i sounded like shit obv.

this is one of those albums that i just can't take any criticism about, like if someone says "zomg his voice is grating," i won't even try to respond i'll just turn it up. it's also one of neil's weirdest albums too, some of those lyrics are still pretty elusive to me, but they're just perfect somehow.. pretty epochal. and the outro to "when you dance..." is such a trip and so intense. really tempted to vote for that, it has such a juicy riff.

'tell me why' is one of my all-time favorite songs by anyone, but ive heard a bootleg version that i like better. it can leave me in tears if i'm not careful. title track is just unbelievable, makes me a little slack-jawed every time i hear it. "i was lying in a burned out basement / with the full moon in my eyes" one of my favorite lyrics ever.

i think i'm going to settle for "only love can break your heart" because it was the most fun to just belt along to. that chorus is sublime. "but on ly LOVE can BREAK your HEART..." whatta waltz. also a good song to play when you're hanging out with recently broken-hearted bros.

Birds is dope for the broken-hearted.

Probably my favorite album ever. Mount Rushmore: "Tell Me Why," "After the Gold Rush," "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." Quirky genius: "Till the Morning Comes," "Cripple Creek Ferry." Totally great: "Don't Let It Bring You Down," "When You Dance..." Pretty: "Birds." Good cover: "Oh Lonesome Me." Overplayed: "Southern Man." Ordinary: "I Believe in You." I'll vote for "Tell Me Why," which I think will be overlooked.

love this album. but not the title track. really grates for some reason.

could vote for pretty much anything else, tho.

really? for me it's between the title track and "when you dance. . ."

I packed a number of NY albums on my laptop before I moved a few months ago, and NOT among them is this one! WTF me.

Tell Me Why.

one of the best albums ever made...

I went with Birds. Though I could have picked any track - it's just such a great album.

this album TOTALLY has magical healing qualities...

"Tell Me Why" sounds like CSNY at their best, and deserves my vote because most people will probably vote for the more famous tracks.

betting tell me why wins, or is top 3 at least

"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" cos its so so true.

I wonder what happened to that Dean Stockwell film script this record was the kinda sorta soundtrack to?

only just seen this poll.

this was my first ever NY album. my grandmother had been given it for a car boot sale (the original 1970 pressing), and I took it instead cos I'd read some good things about this Neil Young guy. that was 20 years ago. I realise now that I unwittingly chose a wonderful album to get to know Neil Young with.

Must consider my vote, mind..

went with "only love can break your heart" after another listen.

and "southern man" IS overplayed... but still pretty awesome! the historical feud angle is pretty funny too.

whoa -

http://usuarios.lycos.es/southernboy/hpbimg/Ronnie%20Van%20Zant.jpg

(ref'd in the southern man wiki)

didn't realize that the feud wasn't actually much of a feud!

ooh Tonight's the Night t-shirt - WANT

totally.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wtf was this rigged

^yeah totally.

10. "I Believe in You" – 3:24 0
11. "Cripple Creek Ferry" – 1:34 0

I haven't thought about it until now, but I think this result sums up why I prefer On the Beach over this - On the Beach has a fantastic finish, while with After the Gold Rush, the closing songs are nice enough, but they don't exactly stand out either.

Poor Cripple Creek Ferry - such a good track, even if it is only likkle.

where have you been? GREAT to see you back dog latin!

this is one of those albums that i just can't take any criticism about

Well......the title track's a bit pompous, no? I mean, who's going to pick the chosen ones, Neil?

And before anyone chews my head off, I voted for this song (see above).

in "shakey" it says that he was buried in that tonight's the night t-shirt

what is the story behind Oh, Lonesome Me...? The original's kind of obscure, much faster, and the melody's slightly different, and it's only one of what, maybe two or three covers he's officially released in his whole career, right? How did this end up on the record? One of my favorite tracks tbh

yeah, it's pretty much a reinvention, isn't it? gets me every time, especially the distorted guitar that comes rising out of the mix at the end.
didn't know these dudes did it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73DiNACjNVE

oh shit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7iJSeMMzBI

it's a perfect song. kind of a revelation to hear the original imo. like, comparing a to b. or z i guess.

omg xp

whoah! nice find!

that is NOT on the released Muppet Show DVDs

looks like it was on the swedish (?) version? haha. loretta!

The Don Gibson original wasn't that obscure--huge crossover hit in '58.

yeah judging from all the covers in the 60s it became a standard pretty quickly.

it sounds like Neil changes a bunch of the chords to their minor or 7th variants - also cuts the key change

yeah, it was obscure to ME, I guess.

I think Neil talks a bit about his arrangement in Shakey--the main thing I remember is that he'd been doing it that way since the mid-60s.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm6r1aMorU1qb409ko1_500.jpg

"Don't Let It Bring You Down"? The fuck? Good song, but it's Generic Neil - when Dana Carvey imitated Neil Young in some standup special way back it sounded exactly like this.

tyler is that graham nash in the photo?

i think? just saw that untreated/uncropped shot for the first time recently. kind of weird to see!

sure looks like Nash to me

http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2011/06/two-takes-on-neil-young-by-joel.html?m=0

I posted above, but never commented on the results. As much as I love "Don't Let It Bring You Down," I'm kind of amazed it would outpoll the lead three tracks by a 2-1 margin.

And amazed that the two side-closers, both of which I think are brilliant, would only total two votes.

Some more cool stuff about the cover photo here.

lol that is some serious detective work. funny that i've walked around that area a ton, but never knew. now i know!

whenever this record comes up i start thinking about the alt tracklisting on the lp insert (which i know we've discussed in depth on some other neil thread)
Oh Lonesome Me
Wondering
Everybody's Alone
Sugar Mountain
Sea Of Madness
Big Waves
Dance, Dance, Dance
Birds
I Need Her Love To Get By

seems like maybe "big waves" is an early version of powderfinger. at least there's that lyric in that song -- "there's a boat and it's makin' big waves"... i need her love to get by, no one know?

i really like this record but as someone who had four million classic rock songs ruined in his adolescence thanks to a very small radio market mostly i keep being surprised that that wasn't enough to ruin 'southern man'

i need a musicologist telll mee whyyyy it sounds so HEAVY, when everyone in it seems to be playing light

I Believe in You gets a raw deal itt

^^Truthbomb. I probably voted for WYDICRL, because IBIY didn't make its full impact on me til the summer after the poll.

great album... or greatest album?

btw has anyone read the script (by dean stockwell!) that inspired this album?

I think Neil may have invented social media in 1970: "I have a friend I've never seen."

This album is sad as fvck. I guess he hadn’t embraced coke yet?

…except “when you dance…”
That track can never be loud enough

“I can love / I can really love / I can really love”

I mostly agree with that, although I think the two side-closers brighten the mood considerably.

(And are strategically placed to do so.)

“It’s the second half of the cruise / and you know he hates to lose”

I'm thinking in terms of the sprightly melodies more than anything else. As I mention upthread, my favourite album ever.

“birds” is definitely one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard

“Only love can break your heart” no shit dude

A. Bartlett Giamatti refuted that.

In which phase of his career?

Famous quote: "(Baseball) breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone."

(He might have meant "Pete Rose" when he said "baseball.")