This week I had a lot of late
hours at the office and I really needed a good weekend. Fortunately I got
exactly that, with a low key time hanging with friends, playing sports, and
spending my Saturday night with my lovely wife just hangin’ out, listening to
music and playing a board game.
On the music front I am really
digging Frank Turner, a folk/punk singer in the mold of Billy Bragg. I’ve
bought three of his albums in the last two days. I also discovered the Ngozi
Family, a seventies band from Zambia, courtesy of the guys at Ditch Records,
who were playing it while I was busy shopping for Frank Turner albums.
The moral of this story is that
you might work until your eyes go blurry, and you might get absolutely killed
in a game of Ulti (17-7 if you must know) but if you are lucky enough to fill
some of your time with the company of the people you love, listening to music
that lifts your soul, then life is good.
Disc 730 is…. Ragged Glory
Artist: Neil
Young and Crazy Horse
Year of Release: 1990
What’s up with the Cover? The fish-eye lens
is like the semi-colon; you should only use it when you are certain it is the
best option. That last sentence is a good way to use a semi-colon, but this
album cover is a bad example of when to use a fish-eye lens.
How I Came To Know It: The boring old story of me liking
an artist and just trying another one of their albums on a wing and a prayer.
How It Stacks Up: I have twenty Neil Young albums. Of those twenty
“Ragged Glory” is in the middle of the pack. I’ll go with 12, while reserving
the right to bump it down or up a spot based on what happens in future.
Rating: 3 stars
For the
second week in a row we have a well named album. “Ragged Glory” is exactly
that, an album that mixes Neil’s early optimistic hippy vibe with the tattered,
distorted rock guitar sound he started rocking a year earlier on “Freedom.” The
glory is in the optimism and idealism the songs express, but the ragged edges
of the song arrangement and production gives the whole experience a new,
heavier experience.
For many
of the songs on “Ragged Glory” you could unplug them and they would be at home
on “Harvest” or “Comes a Time.” “Country
Home” is a pastoral piece about life in the country. “Love to Burn” and “Love and
Only Love” are both songs about how we all just have to love one another
because, shucks, doesn’t that just make more sense? It would also have made
sense to just put one on the album, though. Personally, I prefer “Love and Only Love” just because the
lyrics are better.
Neil
weaves electric guitar solos throughout these songs and this (plus the
production) has the effect of turning three minute folk ditties into eight to
ten minute rock anthems. All this guitar wankery could easily have become
annoying, but because it stays rooted in the melody it just adds texture.
Besides, if you bought a Crazy Horse album and didn’t expect to get some guitar
wankery, then you have only yourself to blame. I could’ve lived with one less
overlong song, though – the album only has 10 tracks, but clocks in at over 60
minutes which is a touch too much.
“Ragged
Glory” is signaling Neil’s return to his roots, and it isn’t surprising that
his next album would be “Harvest Moon.” That said, he isn’t saying goodbye to
his angry rock phase entirely. “White
Line,” “F*!#in’ Up” and “Days That Used To Be” are all songs
about mistakes and the regret and guilt we build up over all those bad
decisions in life. “White Line” is a
song about surfacing from those bad decisions and “Days That Used to Be” seems more like an apology for making them.
As for “F*!#in’ Up” – well, that’s a
song about how it feels when you do just that.
And then
amid it all, there is “Farmer John,”
an irreverent burlesque-style number about nothing more than lusting after the farmer’s
daughter. It is out of place on an album that is so heartfelt and weighty, but
it is delightfully out of place.
“Ragged
Glory” is a reminder that despite all of Neil Young’s songs that bemoan the
state of the world and all its injustices he is, at his core, an optimist. Even
when his music is at its most strung out and distorted, the core of it is about
love and hope. As though he’s reminding us that if glory weren’t a little
ragged, you wouldn’t know it had stood the test of time.
Best
tracks: White
Line, F*!#in’ Up, Days That Used To Be, Love and Only Love
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