Reviews of Neil Young AlbumsIn 2004 Rustie, Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova posted a series of articles on his experience listening to all of Neil Young's albums in chronological order. Here is one in the series. For a complete listing, see Albums in Order reviews.
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:51:36 -0800 (PST) In the mid 90's, I was starting to become conscious of
Neil's age. Neil Young is, within 2 months, ten years
older than me and this recognition was in no small part a
realization of my own mortality. In any case I was
wonderin' in early '96 of course what Neil's career would
take now that he was on the far side of 50. And then one
of those significant landmark events in my life of
following Neil took place, perhaps the most significant
since discovering ATGR in 1971 and the wealth of material
that had preceded it; I joined the Rust List!
It was actually quite an exciting time when I started on
Rust. Neil and Crazy Horse were playing a stretch of shows
at the tiny Old Princeton Landing (aka OPL) bar in
Princeton-By-The-Sea (part of or very near Half Moon Bay)
in California. David Briggs, longtime Neil producer, had
sadly passed away recently, and the band got back
together for these dates and to rehearse and record new
material for the next album. I quickly discovered music
trading (analog cassettes back then) and was entranced
with how easy it was to trade for live shows from
throughout Neil's career and even to get some great
sounding tapes of the OPL shows.
Thus I became aware that a new album by Neil Young and
Crazy Horse was in the works. Since the shows were heavy
on material from Zuma and Neil and the band seemed pretty
intense from the first-hand reports from the OPL I was
reading on Rust, I was expecting the album to be Zuma-ish.
It wasn't, but then that was ok too. I've learned to enjoy
and like Broken Arrow for what it does offer. I remember
well the first song I heard from the album. On my way back
from buying tickets at a venue for a Neil concert later
that year (I got up at 3am to try to get good seats and
pretty much succeeded) the radio station I was listening
to played Big Time, a song I had heard about but had not
yet been able to listen to. Around this time as well, I
became aware that Interstate would be a bonus track on the
BA vinyl; I had just become aware that this song from over
10 years before even existed and I already loved that
tune.
The album itself is a bit, as one of the songs is titled,
scattered. There are songs that evoke the memory of David
Briggs and a commitment to continue (Big Time, Scattered.)
There is the song that refers I think, to the OPL shows in
soaring fashion, Slip Away ("The smoke in the barroom
nights, The faces in the window, The sound of the harbor
horn, She recognized.") There are minor tunes like
Changing Highways and This Town; both entertaining enough
in their own ways but not really in a deep-insight kind of
way. I like the song Loose Change. The instrumental that
ends it has been proclaimed by some to be repetitive and
it is, but I find it hypnotic and mesmerizing. The cover
of Jimmy Reed's Baby What You Want Me To Do is a good one
and special because it was recorded at the OPL and it has
a lead guitar part by Poncho.
Music Arcade, the only acoustic tune on the album, has
always been special to me. He played it at almost every
concert in '96, but not much if ever since. The lyrics,
every time I hear them, find a home in my head, with my
life and the things in my life and the things I think
about. There were a couple of great comets in the 1996
skies and Neil mentions comets in Music Arcade and in
Scattered as well. Anyway, Music Arcade is one of my very
favorite Neil Young tunes.
I very much enjoyed listening to Broken Arrow today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Broken Arrow
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young - Thrasher's Wheat Archives