CD Odyssey Disc 257: Neil Young

Before I begin this review, I'd like to make a quick comment on the type of liner notes I like to see in a CD. I like to see the lyrics to the songs, not a bunch of Polaroids of the band goofing off on the road. I like those lyrics in a font that is easy to read, not written in a way to mimic the scrawl writers use in their personal notebooks. Finally, I like a 'thank you' section that is reasonably inclusive, without being exhaustive.

This next disc gets excellent grades on all counts - but how about the music? Well, read on, and find out.

Disc 257 is...Harvest Moon

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 1992

What’s Up With The Cover?: I believe this is a man pretending to be a scarecrow, or possibly (but less statistically likely) a scarecrow pretending to be a man. Since this album is a bit of hearkening back to Neil's earlier folk sound, I guess it only makes sense that he choose dubious cover art.

How I Came To Know It: I have been listening to Neil more seriously since the late eighties, but I did not get this record when it came out, but instead bought it years later, after being inspired by an even more recent record, "Prairie Wind" (reviewed back at Disc 160).

How It Stacks Up: I have fifteen Neil Young albums. If you are following along carefully, this means you know I've bought three more since my last Neil Young review on October 1st, 2010 - including just getting "Ragged Glory" earlier this month. So yeah - I like him, and I'll likely get more before I'm done. Of those fifteen, I'd say this one is somewhere around 7th or 8th. Not that it is bad, it is just there is stiff competition.

Rating: 3 stars, but almost 4.

It took a long time for me to come around to buying "Harvest Moon". This was principally because I thought the record received undue hype. It was billed as a comeback record, and had all kinds of commercial success in Canada.

I'm not sure what Neil was supposed to be 'coming back' from. His two previous records, 1989's "Freedom" and 1990's "Ragged Glory" are great records - both of which I prefer to "Harvest Moon".

More correctly, "Harvest Moon" was a return to his earlier folk sound. I think it was just an album for its time and place, and so received greater interest than it might have if it had come out a little earlier or a little later in his career. As evidence of this, I look no further than 2005's "Prairie Wind" - a record in the same vein of "Harvest Moon" which if anything is superior. Like many records later in an artist's life it didn't come at the right time, and made a much smaller ripple (for another example of this, try Tom Petty's "Highway Companion" - but more on that hidden gem when I roll it).

Now that I've gone to all this trouble to diminutize "Harvest Moon", let me build it's reputation back up again - starting with an admission that the only person I hurt by not buying this record for fifteen years was myself.

There are some true gems on this album, my favourite being the opening track "Unknown Legend", a character study of a free-spirited woman who once rode her Harley Davidson across the great North American countryside, but is now tied down to a different life, with children, still dreaming of that perfect freedom we have in youth, where we have so few responsibilities, and seemingly limitless options.

This song sets the tone for the album, which is a record in large part about getting older, and looking back. If it is a bit wistful, it is also fairly gentle - particularly following the harsher lens that "Ragged Glory" and "Freedom" chose to see the world through.

The album also sees the present in a mellower tone - the big single being, "Harvest Moon" capturing the love between two people who've been together through thick and thin. It is a good song, stronger in its use of understatement.

Not so, the other love song on the album, "Such a Woman" which I find a painful and awkward intervention into 'wall of sound' folk, such as is employed by Enya. Neil is no Enya, and should'nt try to be. In using layered sound, and background choir to evoke the majesty of true love, he instead left me feeling disassociated from a song that isn't that strong to begin with.

That's because Neil is best when he sings from his heart. My favourites on this album are exactly these. "Unknown Legend"'s reverence for a woman still holding on to the memory of the freedom of the highway and the Harley Davidson, even as she accepts that part of her life is now only a dream.

Later, Young inverts this experience, with "Dreamin' Man" a song about a man who not only refuses to put his dreams on hold, but freely admits he's not capable of doing so:

"Now the night is gone

A new day is dawning

And our homeless dreams

Go back to the street

"Another time or place

Another civilization

Would really make this life

Feel so complete.

"I'll always be a dreamin' man

I don't have to understand

I know it's alright."

Sometimes Neil's waking dreams can run to darkness, such as the apocalyptic "War of Man" but light or dark, he always brings this experience back to a very intense, personal place - where he best operates, and where we can best relate to both his music, and ourselves.

"Harvest Moon" sneaks up on you this way - not his greatest record by any stretch, but damn good nevertheless, and worth your time, even if that time comes years later, as it did with me.

Best tracks: Unknown Legend, War of Man, One of These Days, Dreamin' Man.