Roy Orbison 'King Of Hearts' (1992) Album Review

Robbie Robertson asked the right question when approached to produce 'Love In Time' for this album in the early 90's (excuse me if I paraphrase) 'How will this thing hold together with so many producers?'. Before I attempt to answer that, let's look at how many it had. T-Bone Burnett (1 song), Jeff Lynne (2 songs), Don Was (3), Robbie Robertson (1), Will Jennings & David Briggs (1) & Orbison, Roache, Hammond & Warren (1). That's 6 different production teams or solo producers over 10 tracks. It really is too many to have a stylistically cohesive album that flows smoothly from track to track. That's the theory anyway, let's have a look at the reality.

There were many problems facing this project from the outset. Firstly, there were not enough newly completed songs to fill a whole 'new' album, so previously released (but little heard) material was roped in to fill out the track list ('Coming Home' from 'Class Of '55, 'Wild Hearts' from the 1985 film 'Insignificance' & the duet of 'Crying' with k.d.lang from the 1987 film 'Hiding Out'). The additions meant that the problem of multiple producers could not be avoided. I suppose you could argue though, that the multi-producer route with the other tracks may have helped proceedings in a way, rather than 6 or 7 tracks with a cohesive style, then 3 jarring additions, the album runs through several production styles, some that sit fairly easily together, some that don't. All the tracks seem like happy orphans rather than an awkward two thirds one third mix.

Another problem was how to promote an album that was likely be perceived as glorified leftovers, by an artist that is no longer around to promote it. Well, you stack the album with guests stars and star producers, and then the Missus hits the publicity trail and plays up that fact. That's exactly how they did it. It's a classical album in a way, with several big name producers giving their interpretation of an Orbison song. It is very difficult to judge this album as a whole, because the quality of the tracks and the elements within them are so wildly different. It is not cohesive enough. It feels like apples and lemons. Not even the theme that attempts to tie it all together, the 'heart' ('King Of HEARTS', HEARTbreak Radio, Wild HEARTS Run Out Of Time, Careless HEART), can fake it. The rather pointless inclusion of the latter track indicates there was clutching at straws to try to drive home a cohesive concept or vision where there really wasn't one. What 'King Of Hearts' is is a worthy compilation of some good and some great bits and pieces that weren't finished ('You're The One', 'Heartbreak Radio') and tracks that not enough people had heard from obscure films ('Crying', 'Wild Hearts') . 'King Of Hearts' contains some great songs, but it isn't a truly great album or even really an 'album' in the classic sense.

The T-Bone Burnett produced 'You're The One' starts things off well. His production provides a gorgeous warm bed for Roy's voice. For a demo, the vocal is superb. The only tiny fault that sticks out is the way Roy sings 'foll-ow' a little awkwardly. That would have been a one line drop in on a near flawless take. k.d. langs harmony vocal is a lovely touch and the lyrics are wonderfully evocative. The production is the most successful on the album, no gimmicks, no then-contemporary sounds to date it today, just warm rich sounds with tasteful strings. If the album was to be completed by just one of the star producers, T-Bone is my pick.

Next up, Jeff Lynne goes to town on 'Heartbreak Radio', and almost pulls it off. He sped up the vocal track and corrected the pitch to make it more rockabilly-esque, and threw on some thigh slaps right after chucking in the kitchen sink. In other words, the sound is a touch too busy and dense, but it does sound like the work of a very conscientious fan done with a lot of love and respect too. It's propulsive and hooky.

'We'll Take the Night' is where the cream starts to curdle. The production is too slick and safe, and a histrionic MOR sax solo from Clarence Clemmons, who is capable of much better this, pushes the song perilously close to Michael Bolton territory. Two tracks later, 'After The Love Has Gone' fares better. A faux-soul, gospel tinged hand clapper, it puts Roy right at the middle of a big party, with everyone from the neighbourhood on backing vocals. It's an unusual place for Roy to be, but I'm glad I've heard it tried. I'm not sure if deep soul backing vocals doo wopping behind Roy really suit him, but overall it is far more engaging than 'Well Take The Night'. Sitting between 'We'll Take The Night' & 'After The Love', the duet of 'Crying' is the best of the Don Was tracks, though most of it was actually produced by Pete Anderson, with Was adding a few little touches. You can't really fault it. It is quite different to the 1961 original and live solo versions, but it works at the slower pace, which upps the palpable tension. The spacious, minimal production allows even more sonic space for Roy and k.d. lang to soar. You hear every nuance in their voices. Wonderful stuff.

'Love In Time' is interesting, Robertson's production is very muted and watery. I used to think the song and production a little too bland and MOR, but subtleties have emerged with time, both lyrically and in the production. A Robertson/ Burnett co-produced 'King Of Hearts' would have been a fascinating possibility; the authentic richness of Burnett's sound combined with the idiosyncratic atmospherics of Robertson. The biggest jar on the album comes with the gentle drum heartbeat fade of this track leading into another Jeff Lynne production, 'I Drove All Night'. I hated the production when I first heard it. The best way to describe it is freeze-dried. It seemed to have no life and warmth in it; it was cold, sterile and synthetic. The style has grown on me a little, you could argue a case that it suits the obsessive, icy determination of the lyrics, but I still think it was a mistake. It's just not pleasing to my ears in the way some other tracks are. The drums sound ridiculously synthetic and way too huge. The synth noodling is excessive gaudy icing. But, somehow, through the voice and the hooks and its undeniable propulsive energy, the song works. JUST! I wish Lynne had shown the restraint he showed on 'You Got It' though.

'Wild Hearts' is a solid song that is lumbered with mid 80's atmospherics; synthey cock-rock guitars and drums that sound like they were recorded in an aircraft hanger, then reverbed into oblivion. Even just three or four years later, the same song would have sounded very different if it was on 'Mystery Girl'. Once again though, the melody and the stellar vocal performance drag it away the MOR quagmire that it teeters nears. 'Coming Home' also suffers a little from synthetic 80's atmospherics, but it transcends for all the same reasons again. It has a lovely ache to it and some genuine pathos.

'Careless Heart' (demo) is a somewhat cheesier and more synthetic demo of the 'Mystery Girl' album closer. Roy's voice has a stronger, more nasal twang to it here than on the 'Mystery Girl' version; 'alorrn with my lorrrnnly horrt'. We didn't need to hear the demo of this, it really was only included becuase it has 'heart' in the title. A tack on anti-climax. Why not just have 9 songs? Or get the rights to 'Life Fades Away'? (that was finally included on the 2007 re-release). Or better still, finish another of the unfinished tracks? There certainly were/are plenty more in the vaults. So 'King Of Hearts' is a qualified success, absolutely worthy, but really only containing 3 or 4 'keepers' at the most.

Roy Orbison Album Rating Guide

Every official Roy Orbison studio album & group collaboration is listed and rated. 'In Dreams: The Greatest Hits' (1987) is included because the performances were 1985 re-recordings with Roy the only musician in common with the originals. 'A Black & White Night: Live' is included because at the time of release it was Roy's first and only commercially available live recording. It is an 'official' live album & at time of recording in 1987 contained 2 previously unheard new songs. The multitude of other 'best of' and 'greatest hits' packages are not included. Reviews & top track picks to follow soon...

'Roy Orbison Sings Lonely & Blue' (1961) B
'Crying' (1962) B+
'In Dreams' (1963) A
'There Is Only One Roy Orbison' (1965) B
'The Orbison Way' (1966) B-
'The Classic Roy Orbison' (1966) B
'Roy Orbison Sings Don Gibson' (1967) A-
'Fastest Guitar Alive OST' (1967) B-
'Cry Softly, Lonely One' (1967) B+
'Roy Orbison's Many Moods' (1969) C+
'Big O With The Art Movement' (1970) C
'Hank Williams The Roy Orbison Way' (1971) B
'Roy Orbison Sings' (1972) B+
'Memphis' (1973) B
'Milestones' (1973) C
'I'm Still In Love With You (1975) C+
'Regeneration' (1977) B-
'Laminar Flow' (1979) D
'Class Of '55' [with Cash/Lewis & Perkins] (1985) C+
'In Dreams: The Greatest Hits (1987) B-
'Volume One' [Traveling Wilburys] (1988) A-
'Mystery Girl' (1989) A-
'A Black & White Night: Live' (1989) A
'King Of Hearts' (1992) B+

Neil Young Album Reviews (Part Five) 'Tonight's The Night' (1975) & 'Zuma' (1975)

‘Tonight’s The Night’ (1975)

[archive review from 2005]

Recorded before ‘On The Beach’ but released after, messing up train spotters analysis of his artistic evolution at the time no doubt, this is THE great Neil Young album. It needs to be judged by different criteria than his other albums because of the context in which it was recorded & its intentions. On many other Neil Young albums, sloppiness & out of tuneness would be uuforgiveable, and this album is guilty of both on a regular basis, but it is a triumph of pure gut feeling, emotion & inspired, brilliant spontaneity over & above style & polish.

The title track is by turns seductive & bone chilling. Neil eases us into the song with the enticing but somehow unsettling promise ‘Tonight’s The Night’ over & over before his voice cracks into the sorry tale. So much has been said about this song, & said very well, I don’t want to say much more except that it is a superb song & performance & it truly is ‘as real as the day is long’. ‘Speakin’ Out’, it just occurs to me, is something of a dark twist on a mid 70’s Beach Boys song off, say, ‘Beach Boys Love You’. Monolithic banging rhythm piano with lyrics like 'I went to the movies, the other night, the plot was groovy, it was out of sight, I sat with my popcorn, out looking for good times’. But it’s a twisted take on one & the chorus goes somewhere else entirely, but the start does sound like a mid 70’s overweight & zombified Brian Wilson banging out a warped nursery rhyme. This actually predates ‘Love You’ by four years though. But I digress. This has a great expressive & pained vocal & some sweet stoned piano tinkling & steel.

‘World On A String’ is a stomping dismissal of rotten old fame & fortune. The musicians all sing different lines on the refrain. A very early (maybe even first) take; they hadn’t properly worked out (or were too out of it to notice or care) which line went where & wrongly anticipated which line Neil would sing. It is hilarious & it epitomizes the rough & ready spontaneity of the album. ‘Borrowed Tune’ is singular & incredibly intimate; you can feel the ‘ice frozen six feet deep’ & the loneliness & emotional isolation. The sparse piano/ vocal arrangement let’s no frills or excessive instrumentation get in the way of the bleak & uncomfortable emotions. ‘Come On Baby’ is a frenzied, drug-addled rock out recorded live in 1970, with Danny Whitten on guitar & lead vocals. It is an inspired inclusion, brilliantly reminding us of what was lost & of the lifestyle that inevitably led to the loss. The topic, lyrics & performance are all perfect in a functional sense as well as the song being strong in its own right.

‘Mellow My Mind’ is an extremely whacked out country dirge & it is brave & brilliant that Neil didn’t attempt to fix his most strained & out of tune vocal ever ‘lonesome whistle on the railroad track, ain’t got nothing on those feelings’. Wow! ‘Roll Another Number’ continues the stoned, whacked out rambling, but to me is the weakest track. It’s a bit too much of more of the same & the melody doesn’t really grab. ‘Albuquerque’ on the other hand is extremely evocative. I feel like I’m on a lost highway at night when I hear it: completely alone & desperately depressed with no idea where I’m going, nowhere to go & no one to care. It has a subtly beautiful melody & has some pained steel work. An under appreciated gem.

On ‘New Mama’, the sun bursts through the black clouds, but it is broken & brief. This one makes me teary sometimes. It is so fragile & beautiful & at times innocent sounding, but the lyrics reveal a wisdom & a sad knowing that can only come from experience & understanding of the ‘other’, the opposite of what he is talking about; what he has come from & gone through in recent times. The playing & harmonies are supremely tight & focused in this, making this song something of an oddity on the album, but not at all out of place. It gives the album balance & relief. ‘Lookout Joe’ is a fascinating, fuzzy, rumbling rock song. It has cryptic, Polaroid snapshot lyrics & a wonderful sludgy abandon in the performance & sound. The bridge lifts into a twisted gospel prayer & Neils’ lead guitar stabs gloriously falling back down from it. Another big favourite, this would make any Neil ‘best of’ that I had a hand in.

‘Tired Eyes’ I took an initial dislike to, probably because it seemed too rambling & too far removed from my frame of reference. It did not deserve my dislike though. It is crucial to the album. At this point Neil is so weary & so far gone, he doesn’t even bother to sing or maybe can’t sing anymore. He speaks the verses deadpan & seems to have no emotional reaction to the events of the song. He only lifts into song in the choruses with his whacked out band supporting him in fractured, uneven harmony. He sounds devoid of feeling & emotionally barren. The album ends with another version of ‘Tonight’s’; more rambling & wobbly than the first.

This album seems to have been a tribute offering to his friends lost & a catharsis for Neil so that he could move on for his own well-being & for those he loved & for those who loved him. After hearing it, you cannot doubt that he needed desperately the release of making this album. The album is also a warning; Neil put himself through a lot of pain & torment, in the manner of a method actor, to capture the feeling & (un)reality of the darker aspects of the music world & perhaps to warn others of its danger. Neil might just as well have slit his wrists into the boiling vinyl wax, for it is that brutal a journey. Nakedly emotional & unflinchingly honest, ‘Tonight’s The Night’ is a gift & a lesson to humanity.

[Favourite to least favourite tracks: I'll spare this one, it works too well as a whole to pick it apart]


‘Zuma’ (1975) [archive review from 2005]

The opening ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’ has a sparkly, sunny pop sound that plays nicely against the bitter, defensive tone of the lyrics, the sugared pill. Apparently it was one of his earliest compositions & informed by the influence of one Roy Orbison, although I didn’t pick it in this one. ‘Danger Bird’ is too banal & overwrought lyrically for my liking (‘I can fly, fly away’) & melodically not in the league of some of his other epic guitar workouts such as ‘Like A Hurricane’. ‘Pardon My Heart’ is the highlight for me. A mellow, acoustic ballad with some lovely chord changes, sweet picking & exquisite hushed backing vocals ‘you brought it all on, oh but it feels so wrong’. Everything about it is perfection, not a word or note out of place. The outro just aches. ‘Lookin’ For A Love’ is wistful, sunny, country-ish pop & a real grower. ‘Barstool Blues’ is a great stomping rocker aptly titled. It has a great, high pitch, impassioned vocal ‘burn off all the fog & let the sun shine through the snow’.

On side two, ‘Stupid Girl’ is an anomaly, there’s not much like it in the Neil Young canon. The dual vocal works well & has an almost comic affect. The changing between two speeds & sections, like in ‘Sedan Delivery’ keeps interest & is not too intrusive. ‘Drive Back’ is another rock belter, with a startling, stabbing guitar intro. This is another grower. I don’t like cowbell generally, but it works a treat here. ‘Cortez The Killer’ is considered an undisputed classic, but I wouldn’t put it in my top 10 NY songs, probably not even top 20. It is a great work, lyrically & musically, but I don’t feel the urge to listen to it all that often. To me, the parts don’t add up to truly grab me as many other of his songs do. Excuse me while I put on a raincoat for the torrent of tomatoes.

While we’re at it, ‘Powderfinger’ (from ‘Rust Never Sleeps’) is another song I put in this category. If I seem to be unfairly dismissive of Cortez, let me put it this way, it is a great song & certainly among the top 4 songs on this album. It is probably better say than ‘Stupid Girl’, or ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’, both of which I have praised, but because it is seen as beyond criticism by most die hard fans & critics, I feel obliged to have just a little dig at it. I find the lyrics interesting & evocative, but I like a melody that grabs me by the throat & makes my heart sigh, “Transformer Man’, ‘Country Girl’ & ‘Here We Are In The Years’ do this every time. This one doesn’t reach the same melodic heights & overall the performance is less compelling & involving than ‘Like A Hurricane’ or ‘Revolution Blues’. I understand that this song is very definitely & deliberately a different stylistic animal to those I have mentioned, but it is a question of personal taste I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like slow burners (‘On The Beach’ for example). I don’t know why I’m a little at odds with most Neil fans and critics on this one.

‘Through My Sails’ is a sweet acoustic sigh at the end of a solid album, with help from CSN. This album, along with ‘Trans’ has gone through the biggest re-evaluation in my mind since I first heard them. It didn’t really grab me upon first listen back in the mid 90’s when I heard it on Mum and Dad's old turntable. I remember my throat feeling like it had a slowly unfurling razor wire coil inside it that winter day, so maybe it was my ill, distracted state. I didn’t really like it much at all in fact, there were no glaring stinkers on it, but believe it or not, nothing really grabbed me. I’d now rate it upper middle in a ranking of his albums & with no poor songs, the tracks are very difficult to rank.

[Favourite to least - ‘Pardon My Heart’, ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’, ‘Barstool Blues’ ‘Cortez The Killer’, ‘Driveback’, ‘Lookin For A Love’, ‘Stupid Girl’, ‘Through My Sails’, ‘Danger Bird’]

Neil Young Album Reviews (Part Four) 'Time Fades Away' (1973) & 'On The Beach' (1974)

‘Time Fades Away’ (1973) [archive review from 2005]

What an incredible portrait of an artist under pressure! After the huge success of ‘Harvest’, Neil was expected to grind through a seemingly endless tour playing to massive, expectant crowds. This live album chronicles some moments from that tour & not always the best ones. What a brave decision to release a rough live album containing all new songs directly after a world beating success. The songs are not his finest, but they are truly perfect examples of songs written under immense pressure & the burden of great expectation. That is to say under the pressure of a now enormous fan base expecting him to equal or better 'Harvest', while he is being driven into the ground with the nightly grind of live shows, in a new city almost every day & living out of suitcases. This album is rough as guts but should be cherished for capturing the absolute truth of a moment in time. Neil deserves plaudits for ‘keeping it real’ & making no attempts to clean it up, or smooth it over (or bury it for that matter!) Neil’s’ voice shows all the strain of the months of live performance & the band nearly buckle under the pressure of performing new material to those expectant & often critical and impatient audiences. Who even has time to rehearse when you travel all day & play at night? Some of these songs sound like the band first heard them at sound check that afternoon. Somehow though, against massive odds, it works & I love it.

The title track is a fast, countrified boogie about a middle aged mans broken down relationship with his drug-dealing son. It has an energetic, speed-freak abandon in the performance & Neil seems to be running on not much more than nerves. It is not a great song & the lyrics are sloppy & vague, but the sadistically gleeful feeling & energy carry it along. Who is this guy? Not the guy who sang that lovely ‘Heart Of Gold’, surely? ‘Journey Through The Past’ is a brief, teasing return to ‘Harvest’ stylings, a sweet reflection on the past very much in the expected mellow, confessional singer-songwriter style & it gives a false sense of security after the disconcerting title track. “Ah! there he is again”, ‘Harvest’ fans sigh with relief, “glad that’s over!”. But no! in crashes ‘Yonder Stands The Sinner’, a cracked-voice rant digging at religious hypocrisy with lots of out of tune whoops & interjections from the band. I love it! It is rough, cheeky, indignant & full of life.

Track four ‘LA’ is the high watermark for me. A jet-black humoured & disturbingly gleeful imagining of the apocalypse in Los Angeles. With a slow but determined slop rock grind, the song builds unflinchingly in intensity as it progresses. The steel guitar pleads & the piano tinkles in a beautiful dance around an aching, fractured melody. 'Don’t you wish that you could be here too?' Neil accuses rather than asks. If it sounds as good as this on those shaking streets, then damn the fucking earthquakes, I’ll be there! 'LA' is inspired, under-rehearsed, make it up as you go rock & roll at its best. This is one of my very favourite Neil Young songs. Definitely in my top 5. ‘Love In Mind’ shows that the melancholy romantic still lurks somewhere behind the frazzled madness & it’s a brief & beautiful solo piano ballad to end side one.

Beginning side two, the autobiographical ‘Don’t Be Denied’ is a bit of a let down. Some critics feel it is the highlight of the album & a canon classic. I find it painfully plodding & melodically impotent. I also find the repetition of the one chorus line ‘don’t be denied’ ad nauseum, lazy & dull. I suppose though he was trying to hammer the point home with no pretty poetry or rhymes that might distract you & let you forget it. By the by, the theme of repetition (in different forms & with different meanings) is one he returns to often, most notably in the albums ‘Reactor’ and ‘Broken Arrow’, with varying levels of inspiration & success. ‘The Bridge’ is another short piano ballad with a pleasing melody & it is lovely & heartfelt if not a bona fide classic. It also has some sweet harmonica. Neils’ singing on the ballads is as sweet & beautifully pained as ever. The strain in his voice is not as evident as on the rocky shouters.

It is only on ‘Last Dance’ that the album tips over the edge of madness & total collapse that it had been brilliantly teetering on. It is even more rambling & sloppy than the rest of the album & without a tune to hold it together, it descends into utter confusion. Maybe that is where it had to go, as it does sum up the album perfectly in a way. It doesn’t make for good listening though. Listening to this track again as I write, there is some nice guitar work half way through & some stunning piano work, but overall it is still an ugly mish mash.

Where is the blueprint for this album in rock history? Where is the map to help listeners to navigate it? I just know that this is a vital & precious album for the circumstances it brilliantly captures & for what Neil bravely let it be where precious few others would have.

[Favourite to least - ‘LA’, ‘The Bridge’, ‘Time Fades Away’, ‘Love In Mind’, ‘Yonder Stands The Sinner’, ‘Journey Through The Past’, ‘Don’t Be Denied’, ‘Last Dance’]

‘On The Beach’ (1973) [archive review from 2005]

Is this album really worth all the fuss? Is it really the holy grail we all made out, or is it just because it was for so long out of print & so many people had not heard the lions share of the album until 2001 (apart from the two tracks on ‘Decade’) & could only judge it by repute & desperate hope. Well I had this on LP & knew it well, so I hope my opinion is fairly balanced. I should also say that the release of the also long unavailable ‘Reactor’ did nothing to change my opinion of that album & as for ‘American Stars & Bars’, well I’m going to go town on that one later, so I think this album is worth a lot of fuss.

Starting with the perky ‘Walk On’, a rebuttal to his critics who had savaged him for ‘Time Fades Away’ & the ‘Tonight’s the Night’ tour probably, it is a disarmingly open & breezy first track which gives little indication of what is to come. Neil catches our interest with breezy pop so that he can have our full attention when he starts to scratch at sores. ‘See The Sky About The Rain’ is appropriately titled. It is foreboding; the rain clouds are coming & they stick around for the remainder of the album, lifting only in the dying verses of the final track. ‘See The Sky’ has some trite lazy rhymes, & doesn’t really hit its stride until mid song, but when it does, it is superb. The chugging organ combined with Neils’ wordless wailing & moaning is just sublime.

‘Revolution Blues’ is the crucial track on this album. A snaky, simmering, muted rock song where the repressed rage shockingly bursts to the surface. ‘I hate them worse than lepers & I’ll kill them in their cars’. Much has been made of the Manson references, but what interests me more than playing ‘spot the reference’ to those events, is the bravery & willfulness of writing a song from a murderers perspective & so soon after the events that it supposedly alludes to. Who else would have dared? Good taste has been questioned, but not in question are the quality of the song & the performance. R.B. has some of Neils’ most incisive & evocative lyrics & is a vocal tour-de-force. Every nuance & phrase is just right as he spits out the bile & indignation. Absolutely stunning.

‘For The Turnstiles’ is another perceptive, observant & wise reflection on the world around him & the concepts of fame & success. It has some lovely tight, high country harmonies & steel & banjo work. This song is brilliantly concise & its relative shortness & modesty do nothing to diminish its greatness. It is another great Neil lyric, with too many great lines to pick just one. Closing side one is ‘Vampire Blues’, the weakest track on the album. The song deals with pressing themes such as ecological exploitation & capitalist greed, but despite the noble intent & its function in the overall sweep of the album, it is not particularly interesting melodically & is a little too vague & plodding for mine. The vocal is a good one, with some humourous moments & the organ stabs work well, but it struggles to hold me after the two sinewy, toned performances directly before it. Strangely though, for a song with this title & theme, it is light relief before side two!

Richard Kingsmill said on JJJ in 1996 that the title track was the song his brother feels is the archetypal Neil Young song. He is probably right. It has a downtrodden plod, a melancholy, fatalistic tone & with lines like ‘the world is turning, I hope it don’t turn away’ and ‘all my pictures all falling, from the wall where I placed them yesterday’ it is pure Neil Young. He is the eternally blue boy whispering & moaning his woes into our souls where they resonate with our own. His voice slips up the register in the choruses & back down for the verses & it works a treat. I love the lazy bongos & the slow dripping guitar solo is supremely tasteful & oozes feeling.

‘Motion Pictures’ is so subdued it is almost as if Neil is turning his head away from us briefly & whispering to his ex-wife before once again resuming his focus on the listener in the next song. It is a hushed contemplation of & kiss-off to their failed relationship. There is some tasteful steel work again & this track continues the melancholic, reflective tone. It is subtly melodic, but has the hard task of sitting between the two sprawling & endlessly quotable epics sitting either side of it. Ultimately it is somewhat swamped. Which brings us to ‘Ambulance Blues’.

Attempts by Neil thus far in his career to end his albums with a supreme epic had failed in large measure. Think ‘Last Trip To Tulsa’ & ‘Last Dance’. Here though, the best is saved until last & this is probably rightly felt to be the greatest, most deeply textured & ponderable lyric of his career. A twisting acoustic, lyrical journey over ten minutes, it is Neils’ own ‘Desolation Row’ or ‘Tangled Up In Blue’. The lyrics are so loaded with vivid imagery & emotion that you could write a whole essay unravelling it. ‘Oh mother goose, she’s on the skids’. That line is perversely both hilarious & sad in equal measure. I love that line. It is a sort of ‘things ain’t cooking, in my kitchen’ moment; an unexpected savagely melancholy turn that has great effect when it hits. ‘An ambulance can only go so fast’; He realizes that sometimes even the best & most rapid help still takes time to arrive and sometimes it takes too long. Like Dylan’s ‘Tangled’, it drags us through several places, times & characters & conjurs a complicated web of moments & moods & points of focus. To complete the picture, a weaving, weeping violin tracing beautiful lines around the weary vocal.

'Ambulance Blues' holds interest despite its mammoth length & by the end Neil seems to be at relative ease with his world & with himself again. He seems to have been able to shake off his souls disquiet & sadness. There seems to be resolution with the 'hook & ladder' critics who had dogged him in recent times, offering to 'get together for some scenes'. He also rejects all the damaging rock star ego bullshit that many of his contemporaries had been engulfed by, realizing 'there ain’t nothing like a friend, who can tell you’re just pissing in the wind'. ‘On The Beach’ is always in my top 3 Neil albums at any given time, probably just edged out by 'Tonight’s The Night’ as his all time greatest album. It argues a great case for him on every level of his craft; as lyricist, social observer, singer, guitarist, composer; and there are few weak links. It is a cohesive & truly great album.

[Favourite to least - ‘Revolution Blues’, ‘For The Turnstiles’, ‘Ambulance Blues’, ‘On The Beach’, ‘See The Sky About To Rain’ ‘Walk On’, ‘Motion Pictures’, ‘Vampire Blues’]

Neil Young Album Reviews (Part Three) 'Journey Through The Past' (1971) & 'Harvest' (1972)

'Journey Through The Past (1971)

COMING SOON

'Harvest' (1972)

COMING SOON

Neil Young Album Reviews (Part Two) CSN&Y 'De Javu' & 'After The Goldrush'

More 'archive' reviews from 2005. Neil's first album with CSN&Y and his 3rd solo album...

CSN&Y ‘De Javu’ (1970) [archive review from 2005]

Of Neil’s two major contributions on the album, ‘Helpless’ & ‘Country Girl’, the former has received most of the plaudits & become a NY perennial. It is certainly a beautifully played & sung evocation of the hometown of his youth. That said, I find ‘Country Girl’ far more interesting. I cannot comprehend why it is not widely held up as the glorious gem that it patently is. The lyrics are some of Neil’s most curious & enigmatic ‘winding paths through tables & glass, first fall was new’ (the first of many), the song structure one of his most brilliantly dramatic & the melody one of his most breathtakingly moving. The arrangement, from foreboding timpani & vibes aided introduction to wailing, harmonica & organ drenched apocalyptic fadeout, is masterful. Neil’s vocal is one of his very finest, from tender fragility in the early verses to pained ecstasy at the climax. From the line ‘If I could stand to see her crying’ through to the very end I get chill after chill. I want to start a harmony group every time I hear this grand work. The vocal backing from CSN is spectacular. It is my absolute favourite Neil Young song. Peerless.


‘After The Goldrush’ (1970) [archive review from 2005]

Another album generally considered among his very finest &, like 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere', represented by three cuts on his ‘Greatest Hits’. ‘Tell My Why’ has a wall of chiming acoustics & a very high childlike vocal, appropriate considering the ‘young man wondering’ bent of the lyrics. It’s adolescent psuedo-philosophical questions do grate just a little, but it still sounds lovely & earnest. The title track has some intriguing oblique & idealistic lyrics & a striking melody. I have tired of it a little though, perhaps due to its almost continual appearance in live sets and on the compilations. Over familiarity has dulled its impact. It is probably his most ‘famously’ covered song though (k.d.lang, Emmy Lou Harris/ Linda Ronstadt/ Dolly Parton etc)

‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ is a perennial heartstring plucker; resplendant with high harmonies, rich acoustics, a classic melody & another trademark high yearning vocal. The drumming bugs me a little though, for simple drumming it is a little TOO simple & the sloppy plodding thuds weigh the track down like heavy gumboots. That said, it is still one of Neil’s great ‘universal’ songs; open enough for everyone to relate to. For the record, ‘Revolution Blues’ and ‘LA’ are personal favourite examples of the polar opposite of this style; perverse, obscure and idiosyncratic. With Neil there is a vast span between these two poles.

‘Southern Man’ crackles with energy, the guitar work is spiky & thrilling. Nils Lofgren bangs out a wonderfully primal boogie-woogie on the piano as Neil gives one of his greatest, most impassioned vocal performances. When he takes on the ‘southern man’ persona mid song, he reaches an artistic zenith; ‘Lily Belle your hair is golden brown, I’ve seen your black man, coming round’. His voice cuts & claws it way out of the speakers while the ‘ooohhh’ harmonies drip with contempt & bitterness. This is the dead set classic on the album & still has shocking impact after many years & many listens. ‘Till The Morning Comes’ is not even a minute & a half long, but is a lovely rolling piano ballad with a sweet, yearning vocal. The harmonies on the outro are superb. The little trumpet solo is perfect as well. A pretty, humble end to side two after the masterful ‘Southern Man’.

‘Oh Lonesome Me’ is a dirge like take on the Don Gibson tune with a lazy, low down harmonica intro. It is pure Neil Young in its melancholy & self-absorbed self-pity despite the fact he didn’t write it. ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ is another bona-fide classic, though strangely Neil rarely plays it live & did not include it on either ‘Decade’ or ‘Greatest Hits’, opting for lesser songs from this album at times. A chilling, acoustic wander through an urban nightscape, it has one of Neil’s highest register vocals, a finely crafted melody & some of his most sad & evocative lyrics. Absolutely superb.

‘Birds’ is a plaintive, reflective ballad but struggles to really grab me following ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’. Certainly beautiful, but perhaps not essential, it floats by. I brushed over ‘When You Dance’ for many years, the title & topic annoyed me for some odd reason. I have come around now & though I prefer the ‘Live Rust’ version, this is still sparkling, energetic pop capturing well the feeling of being bewitched while watching someone. The recurring piano note motif works well. The fuzzed out jam at the end, with the piano runs & guitar grind is suitably lusty & works a treat.

‘I Believe In You’ is a lush, melancholy piano ballad. The break into the chorus is breathtaking & the shifting melody, chords & backing vocals are very effective in showing Neil trying to break through to someone or express something in several different ways, not sure which one to choose& which one will get his message across; ‘Oh oh, oh oh, I believe in you’. ‘Cripple Creek Ferry’ is another fragment song like ‘Till The Morning Comes’, but less effective for mine. It is an inconsequential & under-whelming end to a great album. It is almost as if Neil is bashfully embarrassed by the greatness of the lion’s share of the album & doesn’t want to big note himself too much.

[Favourite to least favourite tracks - ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’, ‘Southern Man’, ‘I Believe In You’, ‘Till The Morning Comes’, ‘Tell Me Why’, ‘When You Dance’, ‘After The Goldrush’, ‘Birds’, ‘Oh Lonesome Me’, ‘Cripple Creek Ferry’]

Neil Young Album Reviews (Part One) 'Neil Young' & 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'.

Here is the first installment of a mammoth undertaking I started in 2005, writing reviews of all of Neil Young's albums from the beginning of his 'solo' career in 1968 up to date. I decided not to review the Buffalo Springfield albums, because they were very much group collaborations. However, I have included CSN&Y's 'De Javu', because Neil is quite clearly the dominant 'auteur' on the tracks he wrote and sings the songs he wrote, which wasn't always the case in The Buffalo Springfield.

I think my writing style has refined and become less 'superlative' filled since I began these reviews, but looking back over them, my opinions haven't really changed, so they stand as they are, something of a curious time capsule....

‘Neil Young’ (1968) [album review from 2005]

Neil himself is critical of his debut album, probably remembering with dread the endless hours of overdubbing involved in the creation of this lush & layered work. I feel that it is a superb & beautifully crafted debut album, underrated by Neil & critics alike. It has a consistency & cohesiveness absent from the lions’ share of his albums. Opening with a sunny, disarming instrumental, ‘Emperor of Wyoming’, it moves abruptly into the unsettling tension of the ‘Loner’. Alternating from edgy paranoid character study verses to relieving string laden instrumental sections, it is a moody, atmospheric masterpiece. The production is absolutely gob smacking on this & throughout most of the album; cavernous & crystalline. ‘If I Could Have Her Tonight’ is a slight song lyrically & musically, but nevertheless sounds sweetly vulnerable & contains some pretty guitar work. ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’, with its startling, swirling organ intro & desperate, expectant tone is a major highlight. David Bowie recognized its greatness & covered it on his ‘Heathen’ album in 2000. ‘The Old Laughing Lady’ is elusive & painfully sad, even chilling at times. The gospel chorus is unexpected but very effective & the song builds mercilessly in intensity as Neil’s enigmatic lyrics weave the tragic tale.

‘Here We Are In The Years’ is the pinnacle for me, starting very timidly with a tinkling piano intro, then moving through poignant observations on the ways of the world as the arrangement builds. ‘People planning trips to stars, allow another boulevard to claim, a quiet country lane’. With a gorgeous lilting melody the song moves slowly but with palpable tension to its aching climax; the piano echoing into the distance behind fading strings as the song dies. It is a stunning melodic & emotional journey. It lifts & pulls & digs in all the right places. ‘What Did You Do To My Life’ is suitably accusatory and prickly, with an unsettling, dark obsessive edge; ‘I don’t care, if all of the mountains turn to dust in the air’. ‘I've Loved Her So Long’ is another lovely if not classic ballad with some pleasingly cryptic lyrics; ‘she’s a victim of her senses do you know her’ & ‘veteran of a race that should be over’. The only flat spot is the overlong & self-indulgent ‘Last Trip To Tulsa’; it has some moody unnerving moments but collapses under its own pretence. It aspires but fails to be a sweeping & epic conclusion to the album.

The album sounds strangely unearthly. The vocal production makes Neil at times sound like he is a melancholy phantom beaming in from a distant void. On his next album, there is a much clearer sense of Neil playing in a studio with a bunch of guys; but not on this album. Neil seems to float through & drift in & out of perceptibility & earthly being. I love the effect, but understand the opposite of this effect has great merit too, hence: ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’.

[Tracks in order of preference, favourite to least - ‘Here We Are In The Years’, ‘The Loner’, ‘The Old Laughing Lady’, ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’, ‘I’ve Loved Her So Long’, ‘Emperor Of Wyoming’, ‘String Quartet From Whiskey Boot Hill’, ‘What Did You Do To My Life’, ‘If I Could Have Her Tonight’, ‘Last Trip To Tulsa’]


‘Everybody Knows This I Nowhere’ (1969) [album review from 2005]

Neil rates this album very highly; three songs out of seven made the cut on ‘Decade’ & were also among the sixteen songs on his ‘greatest hits’ release of 2004. A hugely out of proportion representation for the album, but did it deserve it? Well maybe. It contains some of his greatest extended guitar jams & features his early collaborator & duelling lead guitarist Danny Whitten. ‘Cinammon Girl’ is a fuzzed out pop gem & its grind always seems slower than I remember it, but no less intense for that fact. The title track, the shortest on the album, is a modest country stomp & works, appropriately, modestly well. ‘Round & Round’ is the major highlight for me; a rolling, lurching acoustic waltz with lovely (at times wordless) harmonies from Neils’ then girlfriend Robin Lane. Just aching & gorgeous & what a melody! An electric guitar prickles away low in the mix giving just the right amount of edge to the bittersweet harmonies.

‘Down By The River’ is a true epic & doesn’t buckle under the weight of that mantle. The guitar workouts & chorus harmonies are tight & well considered, & it doesn’t seem to drag considering its length. Despite my respect for it, it is not one of my all time favourite Neil songs. I do understand why people cherish this along with ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’, but I prefer Neil when he is more concise & packs all his wares into a cracking 3-4 minute package ala ‘Winterlong’ or ‘Ohio’. ‘The Losing End’ is another high harmony countrified ramble & is probably the weakest track, but on a uniformly good album that is barely a criticism. It would be the glowing gem on many of his lesser albums. ‘Running Dry’ is a ghostly, funereal dirge & the keening, chilling fiddle leaves a bottleneck of shivers cueing up to slide down your spine. It drags a little towards the end & becomes repetitive, but the spooky production & overall feel leave a lasting impact. ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ ends the album on a high & as with ‘Down By The River’, I have great respect for the track, but don’t feel the urge to listen to it all that often. The playing & harmonies are great, the production & sound superb & the lyrics enigmatic & eminently quotable, but I like more change & quick, so on to the next album!

[Favourite to least - ‘Round And Round’, ‘Cinammon Girl’, ‘Down By The River’, ‘Running Dry’, ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’, ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’, ‘The Losing End’.]