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) Neil Young's second full-length album of new material
since returning to Reprise records was Freedom. Before I
heard the album, the buzz was very hot that this was a
very strong album with Neil at the top of his game. I
don't know where I heard that, but I do know that I was on
the road when I bought the album [this is the first album
which I bought in cd-format only; no more vinyl...] that
the clerk asked me if I had heard any of it yet. I told
him I had not, except for Rockin' In The Free World on the
radio. He assured me I was in for a treat. Another little
item that told the world about the new music Neil was
making was his very exciting appearance at the debut show
of the 15th season of Saturday Night Live. People that may
have thought that Neil Young was some sort of washed-up
directionless hippie were treated to a very focused,
intense, and entertaining rock performance and I'm sure
this appearance had an effect on the buzz around the new
album.
Without a doubt, Freedom is a great record. I listened to
it constantly when I first got it. It is very powerful on
many levels; great songwriting, some very
emotionally-charged singing, the lovely harmony of Linda
Ronstadt on a couple of tunes, some re-recorded songs from
Neil's 70's catalog of unreleased tunes. All of the songs
are very strong in their own ways.
The acoustic Rockin' In
The Free World, recorded live at Jones Beach on 6-14-89
actually features audience members singing along on the
chorus. [An aside: I have met a guy who claims, and I have
every reason to believe him, to be the one who starts the
chorus refrain in the recording used for this album,
singing "keep on rockin' in the free world..."] Great
start, but I do wish they had not cut out the last verse
"we got a thousand points of light...".
Crime In The City
(Sixty To Zero, part 1) is incredible. This one was
recorded with the Bluenotes. I heard at some point,
perhaps after I was already on Rust, that Neil penned
Sixty To Zero, Ordinary People, and Days That Used To Be
on his yacht enroute to Hawaii after hearing that MTV had
banned the This Note's For You video. Don't Cry is a
powerful, moving, intrigueing piece. Hangin' On A Limb is
one of my favorite acoustic Neil tunes. I cannot cite a
source but I heard at one point that this one was about
Warren Zevon. Eldorado painted a picture that reminds me
of the one of my fave Hitchcock films, North By Northwest.
The Ways Of Love was first performed at the Boarding House
shows back in May of '78. Someday was one of three songs I
like very much from the late 80s with the same title. I
like the airplane sound effect in Neil's song [the other
two artists with songs named Someday are Nils Lofgren and
Steve Earle.] On Broadway was transformed from a hopeful,
soulful tune to a rockin' downward spiral of a show-biz
wanna-be drawn into the destruction of hard drugs.
Wrecking Ball is a sensitive exploration of heart-matters
and is lovely. No More segued with Too Far Gone; wow. I
did not immediately realize it, but Neil had played TFG at
my first ever concert in November of 1976 and also at the
International Harvesters show I saw in Oct of 1984.
"Rockin' In The Free World" was and is one of those songs
that hits a chord about justice and politics and love for
our fellow man.
I think anyone who has read this series of mine, if there
is such a person, knows that I find value in every single
one of Neil's albums. Neil himself in an interview
revealed that each of his records is like a portrait, a
period piece. Here is what the artist was doing then, and
he went on to do this other thing and then he tried yet
some other thing and this was the result. So I don't
really look at Freedom as a return to form so much as an
artist who had hit a chord with music and lyrics he felt
deeply moved to create and share with his audience at that
point.
I very much enjoyed listening to Freedom today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Freedom
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
More on the album Freedom and the song "Rockin' In The Free World".
Neil Young - Thrasher's Wheat Archives
Reviews of Neil Young Albums