5th Anniversary of Release "Time Fades Away" Petition

"It's like stashing Mona Lisa in the basement."
Petition Signature Signer #6628 by Gareth D.

Hard to believe, but it's been 5 years since we launched the Release "Time Fades Away" Petition campaign.

Since February 2005, over 100,000 visits have been logged to the TFA page and the petition has gathered nearly 15,000 verified signatures. (The actual count is closer to 20,000 but the petition site has had several backup failures where thousands of signatures were lost.) Over 13,000 votes have been cast for favorite song on album.



Here's the vote breakdown:

Don't Be Denied - 25.9%
Last Dance - 22.8%
Journey Through the Past - 11.5%

So why does any of this really matter?

Well, for one thing, recent news indicates that there is a possibility that the original TFA may NEVER be re-released at all. From an interview in Guitar World, Young discusses The Archives Vol.#2 which will include Time Fades Away II. TFA#2 is an alternate version from the tour's second half.

"YOUNG: One thing I'll tell you about the next volume of Archives is that Time Fades Away II is in there. And it's interesting because the whole thing has a different drummer than what was on that album. I switched drummers halfway through the tour- Kenny Buttrey was in there for the first half, and Johnny Barbata came in for the second. It's a completely different thing, with completely different songs. So that's interesting. There's lots of stuff like that that I'm working on right now for the second volume."

Again, why does this matter?

It's been called the "missing link" of the "Ditch Trilogy".

Neil Young's 1973 Time Fades Away is one of the most remarkable live albums ever recorded. Certainly at the time of release, it was almost unprecedented for an artist to release a live concert recording of previously unreleased material. Long out of print on vinyl, still unavailable on CD in the early 21st century and widely bootlegged, the album is considered to be the "Holy Grail" of all Neil Young albums.

In an effort to gain wider distribution of this essential Neil Young recording, fans have started a petition requesting that the album be officially released. Those interested in obtaining a legal copy of Time Fades Away are urged to sign the petition today.

In 2003, it seemed that an official release was near when four of the "Missing 6" Neil Young albums surfaced. (On The Beach, one of the four albums released after a long hiatus, was also the subject of a fan's petition drive which would eventually gather over 5,000 signatures from the Neil Young Internet fan community Rust and Human Highway.)

So if you haven't done so already, go and sign the petition!

And if you have signed, then please re-tweet, share, forward, etc.



Thanks Andrew!

UPDATE: We've seen a jump in signatures with folks re-tweeting, sharing, forwarding, etc. Great job everybody!

More on the history and background of Release "Time Fades Away" Petition.