Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Ragged Glory POLL

"Over and Over" = what awesome middle-aged sex with someone you love (must) sound(s) like.

Great album. Hard to choose. Fucking Up. Got this album from my library when I was in high school. Neil's pedalboard looming on the cover like the ultimate shop project of mystery.

Fucking Up, no question.

Aww, man...I'll have to listen again before voting. "Love and Only Love" or "Fuckin' Up" would be my first instinct.

farmer john!!!!!! i love that fuckin stupid song!!

"Farmer John" fucking rules!

Farmer John is so much better on WELD that I never play the studio version.

great, can't choose. Never got into N.Y. until Freedom in fact.

White Line. I wish more CH jams sounded like this, to the point and rocking.

I don't think the songwriting on this is all that great. The consistent sound is great though.

As I said during the Neil poll, I was 100% certain that "Over and Over" was going to be the highest-ranking post-Rust song (well, other than the one FM staple). I had it in my top 20, but it didn't even make it into the top 75.

I listened to this album twice a day, every day, for a solid 6 weeks when it came out. I used to stay up until 3am to see the "Over and Over" video on MTV, because they always showed it at that time.

White Line. But this record was never one of my favorites

^^ why do you keep fuckin up?

Love To Burn

"Days That Used To Be" is the sleeper here - such a great song. Voted it narrowly over "White Line" (though I prefer the "River Of Pride" version, which sounds more like side 2 of Rust Never Sleeps era) and a handful of others. Love this one.

http://www.thrasherswheat.org/gifs2/whizzer-replica.jpg

That's a replica. But this, per his legendary longtime tech:

For his cleanest hottest signal, we have a loop bypass that makes his reverb unit go straight into the amplifier, a four input 1959 tweed Fender Deluxe. On top of the amp is a Whizzer, a device that physically turns the amp's knobs. Neil came up with the idea, and Sal Trentino, his amp tech, made the first one. This was a 2 position Whizzer that he used starting on Rust never Sleeps in 1978. The new one was made by Rick Davis in 1991. Its got four presets that completely control the three knobs on the top of the amp. He locks in the preset he wants, and it will always go back to that particular spot. We find that when you have the volume and tone all the way up, by turning that second volume knob up to about 10, it starts to fade away.But right before it starts to fade away, something else happens, and that has to be in exactly the right position. You can't breathe on it, or it fucks it all up.

Here are Neil's Whizzer settings: For the highest volume, we have both the tone and the main volume on 12 and the second volume knob is at about 9.9. When it really compressed and breathing and screaming, that's whats going on. You can hear it on "Cortez". If we push it past 9.9 the sound goes away. The next button down moves his volume to 10, which just cleans it up. It's still broken up but its less garbled. The third button sets his volume on 6 with his that other volume still at 9.9 and the tone just down a little. The fourth preset moves one volume to 3,the other volume to 0, and backs the tone off a bit, its really bright and clean, almost country sounding.

He activates the settings via foot switches on the red box that's always in front of him. Across the slanted part that's always closest to him are five buttons: Four for buttons control the volume on the Whizzer, and one for the reverb kill. Inside the box are all these relays and the actual effects devices. There are seven buttons on the top plateau of the box. The one on the left hand side is mute and tune: You step on that and no sound comes out of the amplifier. We have 5 Strobe-O-Tuners up there, one for each note in standard tuning. The next one is for a green, AC powered MXR analog delay that's mainly used in conjunction with the next button, an ancient Mutron octave divider. That's used for " Out of the Blue", when we really want to fatten up the octave divider. The next button is for a master loop that switches any of the top devices in and out, except the tube reverb. The next one is for a real strange unit, a large very old Boss flanger in a blue cast metal box. He hits that only when he wants to get totally crazy. The next one controls an Alesis Microverb that's in a strange setting that's 100% reverb. When he plays it its almost atonal and you can hardly tell what note it is. It gets the high frequency feedback squeal. Used in conjunction with other things, it gets some very bizarre sounds. The next button is for the main effect, the Echoplex, which remains on a lot. He'll leave the Echoplex on and hit the loop button on and of to activate other stuff. We use sizzling hot cable-not guitar cable, but hard RF stuff-and we don't lose anything in the loop. From there the signal goes into the Deluxe.

Haven't listened to this in ages, but I've had "Country Home" stuck in my head for a month as my motorcycle battery has been dead and I've had to rolling start whenever I go down to the flats.

Also realizing this is one of a couple records where I really dislike the last song (Keep It Like A Secret, Marquee Moon) and sort of wish it ended sooner.

But best song is "Over and Over", definitely.

"Over And Over", but the hard part would be ranking them all, so much good

Love and only Love is a favourite, but the Weld version beats the album version.

Oh fucking fuck, meant to vote for "Love and only Love," voted for "Love to Burn."

Does anyone (Tyler...) know of any live recordings of this period where Love and only Love explodes like it does on Weld?

(sorry for derail)

Poll options should have included "Don't Spook the Horse."

after watching Neil and the Horse open the show with a fifteen minute fucking JAM on "Love and Only Love", that's got to be the choice. Song has been stuck in my head for the last two weeks

The fact that they're opening their shows with that makes me wish I'd gotten tickets to the current tour.

fwiw, when I saw them in '91, there was no extended coda on "Love and only Love" like there is on Weld. But it was pretty early in the tour.

Went with "mansion on the hill". That chorus is chilling for some reason.

1st verse too

I like the earthquake story.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bGjsvmNt8UgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA148#v=onepage&q&f=true

saw Neil @ bridge school benefit last night. love & only love was a great opener for a sublime but only 40 minute "acoustic" set. Neil was sure in a good mood though. between that and over & over for me

"Over & Over" right now, but "Country Home", an oldie but goodie, brings it too

It's kind of amazing/baffling how Neil would hold back such amazing songs as "Country Home" while re•ac•tor was sitting, waving frantically "Hey! Hello? Any decent material you can throw my way? Uh...little help?"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

keys left hanging in a swinging door

35 minutes on Side A. Lots of music for 1 LP.

voted country home, but i think i like/love pretty much everything here. even natural anthem. speaking of which, here's the un-overdubbed live version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33N8M6tQ4e0
i used to have this whole set on tape, not sure where it is now. kind of cool, all blown out solo electric stuff.

Voted "Love and Only Love", but this really is an absurdly great record. I have no problem with the last track other than its feeling out of place, like "Baby, What You Want Me to Do" on Broken Arrow.

Love and Only Love. This is a great Neil-era - lining up the VHS rip of Weld on a Saturday morning has become a kind of new tradition for me.

Only track I skip is "Farmer John," which I bet some people love, but those background vocals are just too much, even for me. Kinda unbearable.

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

lol quite a margin there

My kingdom for an eyeroll emoticon! That song's good, but not even in the top 5 on this record. Cmon, you guys. Jeez. The rest look about right, except, I say again, "Days That Used To Be" is the sleeper on this album.

It had to be.
Although if he'd called it , say,"Messin' up" it would not have had the same bite

pretty heartwarming to see every song get at least one vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDI_2vm-9Ks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXOeNLs0EBY

Love
and only Love

dogs that lick
and dogs that biiiite!

Part of what makes that song work is the match between composition and performance. I’d live to hear a muzak version

Wonder if Neil has ever played Cinnamon Girl > F#%*in Up in concert...it’s like romantic love being violently disrupted by the inevitable mistakes of the narrator. And musically in the same key with the same chords

KEYS LEFT HANGING IN A SWINGING DOOR

WHY DO I-I-I?