Neil Young - Comes a Time

I finally got around to reading my last issue of Rolling Stone magazine.  A friend got it for me and never said a word, and it turned out to be the kind of thing I thought I'd hate, but it's a decent magazine most every issue.  My last issue wast the one with Lou Reed on the cover, shortly after he died.  I'm not going to write about a Lou Reed album here.  I haven't (as of this moment) decided what record I'm going to write about.  But first I'm going to paraphrase a quote from the main Lou article.  He said something like this:

Rock music is the one kind of art where you can get directly to a person.  Where the person is alone.  Someone may be listening to your music at 5 AM, all by themselves.

At least that's what I remember and I don't feel like getting up to get it verbatim.  But Lou is dead on, at least so far as I'm concerned.  I like to listen to music with other people, but I'm more than content to do it by myself.  I know I listen to music by myself a lot more than I listen to it with other people, but it's pretty cool how when there's a record that I do find to be the kind of thing I need to hear by myself at 5 AM I can on occasion go to see  that artist with 100 or 100,000 people that may have done the exact same thing.  What other art is like that?  Sure an author can get you to read at 5 AM, but there's never going to be anything other that you absorbing.  There's never the chance for feedback.  I realize that Rock isn't the only music that this is possible with, but Lou struck a chord with me.

I don't know what it is with Neil Young, but damn, he's the kind of guy that I've hung out with at 5 AM with more than once.  Maybe because he has some really mellow but still great stuff, like Comes a Time.  I mean, what a great song!  The violins, the beautiful harmony vocals by Nicolette Larson and the generally mellow, but good outlook.  I mean, at 5 AM you can use a good outlook, especially when you're looking at the second 5 AM in your day.  Look Out for My Love is more of a 5 AM kinda song, I guess.  It's kind of a warning, and it's kind of insistent and weird.

This came out when I was in high school.  Lotta Love made me even tolerate Nicolette Larson's disco-ish version of that song back when sometimes an AM radio was all we had in the car we were in.  I think Neil back then could be melancholy and optimistic at the same time, and I think this album is a really good example of that.  Like everything is kind of going to shit, but at least I've got a friend.  So at least maybe it's not just me, ya know?

I think I used to fall asleep to this a lot.  Especially side two.  I hardly remember it.  I also think that this record has a hole way the fuck off center.  It's pretty wobbly, but Neil is kind of wobbly anyway.  But Peace of Mind sounds pretty messed up.  Maybe I'll get a new one of these, but when push comes to shove, I really don't listen to it all that much.  As much as I think Nicolette really adds a lot to this, I think the record just kind of peters out.  I suppose that's what happens at 5 AM.  Ya just kind of peter out.  And then you end up with something like Motorcycle Mama.

Neil Young - Decade

I first owned this on an 8 track tape. It was actually two 8 tracks, and I think I got it from Columbia House. I remember when I was 16 we went on vacation in North Carolina, and my dad let me drive the rented motor home one day. I drove it like 500 miles that day, and I don't care what you think, that's a long day behind the wheel (and I still drive a lot for work, so I know). I had all my 8 tracks, and my dad really generally hated Rock music, but he let me play my tapes because it actually seemed to matter to me what music we were listening to. I think dad could take or leave Neil for the most part, but some of the softer songs seemed to keep him happy enough. But I had no idea he was paying that much attention until right after the part in Campaigner when Neil sings, "even Richard Nixon has got soul." My dad laughed and said, "I like Neil Young. I think he knows more than you think."

Now I'm not sure what the old man meant by that, but I think it was obvious to him that I liked the noisy stuff like Cowgirl in the Sand and Like a Hurricane more than songs like Campaigner or For the Turnstiles. I still like Neil at his more noisy, but I always remember my dad when I hear Campaigner, and sometimes I play that side just cuz I miss him.

Nowadays I've traded in my cd version of this album and I've got a really nice vinyl copy. Three record sets were expensive in the 70's, so it was nice to find a decent copy of Decade at a garage sale a few years ago for a quarter. I mean it was really decent! It plays fine, and I'm gonna trade it in sometime soon and some record store around here will make a few bucks off it for sure. I paid a little more for the copy I'm keeping, but it's a real peach.

There was a time when I was a teenager that I thought Neil Young was almost godlike. Then he got real weird and released Trans and that International Harvesters crap, and I tuned out. I was fine with my cd of Decade and my vinyl Live Rust and that was all the Neil I needed. I've since been moving back into my Neil is awesome mode, and Decade is really one of the reasons why. I always loved Walk On, and On the Beach used to be an expensive album to get if you could find one, and Cowgirl in the Sand is still one of my favorite songs ever, even though it's like an hour long.

It's kind of funny that this album was so important to me when I was a kid, and as I've been getting into Neil again lately, it's still an easy "go to" album for me. Yeah, I've got On the Beach and After the Goldrush and other albums, so I can play the "proper" versions if I want, but I like the way the songs go together on Decade. I like that Love is a Rose is followed by Cortez the Killer and I love how Neil tracked side four, with Ohio, Soldier and then Old Man right in a row. I may decide I'm bored with Neil again someday, but I'll probably never get tired of Decade. I can't think of many other albums that bring me a sense of nostalgia, but also seem to have something for me right now like this album does. Maybe it's because the more the world changes the more the same old bullshit floats to the top, but then again maybe Neil really did know more than I think he does.