Neil Young News
In 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) Decade was a long-awaited, much anticipated Neil Young
project. By 1977, I was already accustomed to some of the
ways Neil worked, how he delayed projects indefinitely and
then some of them never came out (the Homegrown album and
Chrome Dreams, for example) and Decade was supposed to
have been released in '76 but had been delayed. When it
was finally released in late '77 I rushed to buy it and it
was filled with great stuff for fans.
First off, I was very proud to see that he had so much
material in this package. One lp would not contain "the
best" of Neil, nor would 2. A three lp set; wow. Remember
this was way before the "box set" concept. The art and the
Neil-scribbled liner notes were wonderful. These provided
great insights into Neil's thinking behind some songs and
provided a sort of perspective previously unavailable for
me, at least. I read and re-read those liner notes. Here's
what he wrote for A Man Needs A Maid: "I recorded this
with the London Symphony Orchestra. Some people thought
this arrangement was overdone but Bob Dylan told me it was
one of his favorites. I listened closer to Bob. Robin Hood
loved a maid long before women's liberation." I just loved
reading this stuff.
The best thing about Decade were the previously
unavailable tracks and unreleased songs. Down To The Wire
(how could he sit on a song this great for ten years!!?!!)
Sugar Mountain (I think I had this on a single, but this
is the first time it appeared on an lp.) Ohio (I finally
had the studio version of this song.) Winterlong, Deep
Forbidden Lake; what great tracks these were! Love Is A
Rose; nice to have Neil's own version of his song after
hearing Linda Ronstadt's hit with it. Campaigner: the
first song I ever heard Neil sing live; wonderful to have
it on record. Long May You Run with CSNY vocals (as
opposed to Stills-Young.): I liked the Stills/Young version better.
The remainder of the Decade set I must say I find rather
jarring. The previous albums were like works of art to me.
Breaking up the albums for a compilation such as this was
and is a bit unsettling for me, somewhat like making a
Shakespeare book by taking an act from Othello followed by
a act from A Midsummer Night's Dream, followed by yet
another act from Macbeth. Or taking van Gogh's Starry
Night and clipping a bit of it and putting it next to a
hacked off piece of one of his self portraits. My mind
screams to me to hear If I Could Have Her Tonight after
The Loner and Speakin' Out after Tonight's The Night (part
1) and Homegrown after LAH...you get the idea. I also
cringe when I see reviews saying Decade has "all the Neil
Young songs that matter" as if the other songs I love so
much that aren't on this are so much trash. These are some
of the reasons I am so ambivalent about this album.
Anyway, it's an amazing collection of music, Decade is,
despite my misgivings about it. I must say, I very much
enjoyed listening to Decade today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Decade
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat