#neil young

[ultimatespider-guy]

i wanna see you dance again.

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - “Second Song”

When Neil Young lays an 11-minute song on his fans, it’s reasonable to expect a loud monster seething with feedback. But said fans know expectations and Young go together like fascism and Canada, and are therefore unlikely to be fazed by “Second Song” as it slowly unfolds across more than a dozen verses separated by occasional harmonica solos.

When I woke up this morning, I heard a melody and a rhyme/I knew the song was over, but I couldn't find the time/the words just tumbled forward in this second song of mine, Young sings early on in the languid series of stream-of-consciousness musings.

Another surprise: Young, who’s released a mountain of subpar material in the last couple of decades, has a bonafide masterpiece on his hands with this wistful reflection on life and death. It’s acoustic, with dulcimer, a gentle rhythm section and splotches of keyboard and musical and lyrical allusions to “Till the Morning Comes,” “Comes a Time” “Thrasher” and “Harvest Moon.”

Young sings it alone until angelic harmonies appear around eight minutes in. They add weight to the remaining words and the refrain that signals resignation and, perhaps, satisfaction:

Make it up on another day/baby, I don’t care, Young & the Chrome Hearts sing.

Second Song is out Sept. 18.

Grade card: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - “Second Song” - A

8/10/26

[blondebrainpowered]

Neil Young - The Needle and the Damage Done, 1972

[myimaginaryradio]

Dear Prudence - The Beatles / Pocahontas - Neil Young

[89rooms]

[manitat]

Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts - Second Song

[rachaellikespink]

Young waxed poetic about prepubescent fantasies not only in "I Am a Child" but in "Sugar Mountain," where you can't be twenty--calling bullshit on his self-infantilizing, Joni responded by writing a song in which the child survives in the adult, "The Circle Game." The melancholy she brought to her lyrics was in fact also present in the aching melody of Young's song, grounding his whimsical words. The happy-sad attitude infused the many songs that took up similar themes. Phil Ochs traced his arduous journey from the tube of his mother's birth canal through other narrowing passages in "Half a Century High." Cat Stevens, Beatles wannabe turned hot young sage, voiced the doubts of a boy leaving home for the first time in "Father and Son." Tom Rush, covering Murray McLauchlan, did the same in "Child's Song." Janis Ian, barely out of her teens, mourned the dreamy days of youth in "When I Was a Child." Pop craftsman Neil Diamond showed his songwriterly side in "Shilo," which celebrated a boyhood imaginary friend. These are just the most obvious examples from a playlist that could run hours long.

Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell, Ann Powers (1989)

[realtalkmattt]

My 🐐