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) I listened today with much joy to After The Gold Rush.
This is the album that's been imprinted on my brain longer
than any other, as it's the first one I bought. This album
has evokes so many memories and has had such a long-term
effect on my life including the latest old movie I just
watched that I will have to work hard to maintain some
semblance of brevity.
First the artwork. I just loved the scribble sheet that
came with the original vinyl album. It's a xerox copy of
taped-together notebook sheets on which Neil has
handwritten the lyrics. So cool. The inside cover has one
of the best pics of Neil ever. It was my first exposure to
current solo artist/E Street Band member Nils Lofgren and
former child star actor Dean Stockwell. (An aside: the
latest movie I watched was an old classic called
Gentleman's Agreement with Gregory Peck. Dean Stockwell
played his 10 year old son. Peck, Stockwell, and the movie
were just great.)
The music: from the opening notes of Tell Me Why on, I
just love this album. But it wasn't always that way. The
first song I heard on this album was a radio broadcast of
Only Love Can Break Your Heart and when the DJ said that
was Neil Young, I thought to myself "did he mean Neilita
Young, for surely no guy sings like that." But later, as I
was becoming exposed to Neil from other sources and
especially after hearing other songs from the album like
Southern Man and When You Dance, I had to go out and buy
it. My life was never the same.
I somehow knew I was on to something when I was riding the
school bus home in 10th grade, sometime in 1971, and I
heard a very pretty girl singing Birds. I recently was
able to relay that memory to her at my 30th HS reunion and
she confirmed she did used to listen to that album a lot
back then and my memory of her singing songs from the
album was very likely correct.
This album will always occupy a special place for me. I
very much enjoyed listening to After The Gold Rush today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: Rust
Subject: Albums in order: After The Gold Rush
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Also, see more on the album After The Goldrush.
Reviews of Neil Young Albums
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat