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 was considering not including this album, since it's not
even close to being an album of previously unreleased
songs. But it is an interesting item that was released
(apparantly against Neil's wishes) after Harvest and
before the next album. The full title is Soundtrack to
Journey Through The Past, a Film by Neil Young. I don't
remember how I heard about it, I'm not sure I didn't just
see it in a store and buy it. But it had Neil's name on
it, so I had to get it.
For someone deeply into Neil in the pre-internet days,
finding out about the artist was much more difficult than
it is now. Plus, Neil rarely granted interviews, so my
knowledge in what kind of human being he was was formed by
the songs I'd heard for the most part. JTTP (the
soundtrack album) provided a deeper insight for me, so I
thought this was a terrific find.
The album starts out with some live Buffalo Springfield
from a couple of variety television shows. The sound is
sort of lo-fi which really becomes apparent when the hi-fi
CSNY songs start right after. The segue from Find The Cost
Of Freedom to Ohio an editing work of genius. The other
CSNY song is Southern Man. All of those songs were on 4
Way Street but these are different performances. I now had
two versions of Ohio but still did not have the studio
version and in fact would not have it for several more
years when Decade came out. The parts of the album I most
appreciated were the studio takes of Alabama and Words
(Words takes up all of side 3 of the two-lp set.) In
Alabama, Neil describes to Crosby that he's looking for a
"moving ooo" for the backup vocals to get the effect he
wants. He also says at the end of the song: "I fucked up
the words. But that's okay, the words I fucked up can be
fixed. Words." Then you flip the record over and Words
starts.
It's a movie soundtrack, not an album of Neil songs, and
there are several performances by The Tony And Susan Alamo
Christian Foundation Orchestra And Chorus as well as the
instrumental Let's Go Away For A While by The Beach Boys.
The one new Neil Young song on the album is Soldier.
This album defitely added some facets to my understanding
of Neil and who he is and some insights into his creative
process. I very much enjoyed listening to the Journey
Through The Past soundtrack today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: Rust
Subject: Albums in order: Journey Through The Past
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Also, see more on the album and film Journey Through The Past.
Reviews of Neil Young Albums
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat