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) In June of 1975, I think I was dimly aware of the
Tonight's The Night project, perhaps that he had toured
the material in '73 and left many a perplexed fan. Nothing
though could have prepared me for this deep, dark, and
strangely beautiful album.
First the looks of the thing. It came with liner notes
that were difficult to understand (especially the Dutch
parts! ed - see Tonight's the Night liner notes translation from Dutch to English.) Even the disc itself was chilling. Every Neil
Young lp up to that time had the standard orange Reprise
disc in the middle, the one with the riverboat logo. This
one had the logo, but instead of orange it was solemn
black. Then I put needle to vinyl and I must say I've
never heard anything like this before or since. Neil's
vocals were way out front and he carried so much emotion
in the first song and throughout the album. I think the
first few listens were difficult, but soon the eerie
beauty of the music came through after repeated listens.
As I learned later, 3 songs were added to the Tonight's The Night session
songs to complete this album. Borrowed Tune, Come On Baby
Let's Go Downtown (of course), and Lookout Joe came from
sessions even earlier than the '73 Tonight's The Night sessions and I
think they flesh out the album very well, staying on topic
and exploring similar themes. Some songs on the album rank
with Neil's very best, especially Albuquerque. My father
is from New Mexico and I was born there. When I hear Neil
singing about going where they don't care who he is, I
think of it as NM being a place where he'll be accepted
for what he is, not idolized as some rock star icon. Most
of the record is very strong. Listening to this album is
like going to a wake and becoming part of the grieving
process even though you didn't really know the deceased
that well. It was and is a very powerful and moving volume
in Neil's recorded catalog.
At the time this came out, I had become an isolated Neil
listener. Very few of my friends were into Neil and none
of those as much as I was. I actually kind of liked this.
When I listened to my Neil Young music, I was swept into
his world and somehow artist Neil and fan me had this
connection and we didn't really need anyone else to
validate what was there. So I liked that he was not
getting big sales. As long as he could keep making
records, everything would be ok....
Of course I knew there were many fans out there, I just
didn't know them. But it was clear that regarding record
sales, Neil was not the Eagles or Jackson Browne. Long
gone were the big selling days of Harvest. I liked those
other artists, but their music did not have nearly the
intimate impact on me that Neil's music did.
I very much enjoyed listening to Tonight's The Night
today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Tonight's The Night
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Also, see more on the album Tonight's The Night and the Ditch/Doom/Wilderness Trilogy.
Reviews of Neil Young Albums
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat