Album Review – Time Fades Away by Neil Young

An Out of Print Live Album Shows Neil At His Beautiful, Sloppy Best

May 18, 2009

Following the death of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, Neil Young took a turn to the darker side of rock, releasing the first in his ditch trilogy: Time Fades Away.

Any musician who's been releasing music since the late 60s (or even any time in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, depending on how prolific and consistent the artist is) has an album or two that has been overlooked or lost, and subsequently turned into his/her high point by a motherwolf-protective fanbase. Prince has The Black Album, Weezer has Songs From the Black Hole, The Who has Lifehouse, Marvin Gaye has Vulnerable, and so-on.

In the history of rock music, a guess that nobody has more unreleased, out of print, hard to find, tucked-away songs than Neil Young would be a good one. Of all the gems in his vault, 1973's Time Fades Away is one of the best examples of Neil eclectic, finicky genius.

Band of Gypsies

It's not quite as drunken as 1975's (recorded in 1973, after the Time Fades Away tour) Tonight's the Night, but it could easily pass for its tipsy, lovesick brother. Tequila was Neil's drink of choice around this time, and his experimenting shows it. Neil stated in an interview with Jimmy McDonough for Neil's biography Shakey (Random House, ISBN: 0679427724, 2002) that "Somewhere in that tour I started drinking. A lot of Tequila," (McDonough 397) .

If the album sounds almost unreal in it's violence and sadness, it may be because Neil felt the same way, saying "Tequila kind of got me away from the reality of things." (McDonough 397) For the songs he manages to get through, he gets through on jagged terms, even without the off-beat Crazy Horse.

The Stray Gators weren't exactly keeping it together much better than the Horse. Jack Nitzsche's microphone had to be muted to keep all of the obscenities from leaking into the PA and recordings (McDonough 394). Drummer Kenney Buttrey looked away from Neil badgering him to play harder and saw a puddle of blood on his snare (he left the massive 63 date tour shortly after the incident) (McDonough 396). Steel player Ben Keith was also apparently so drunk during the tour that he didn't know which instrument he playing at some soundchecks. (McDonough 395)

Also, Neil was playing new stuff on the tour as opposed to his popular country-tinged material from Harvest and CSNY's Déjà Vu. The absence of the recently-overdosed Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten left a hole in Neil's stage and heart, a problem he medicated with volume and alcohol. The band slugged through a bunch of songs they didn't know before treating the crowd to terribly mixed and questionably performed versions of old favorites.

An Unreleased Fan Favorite

Despite the fact that Neil hates the record (as evidence by its widely bootlegged and out of print status), Time Fades Away is seen by most obsessive fans as Neil hitting his artistic, musical, and personal stride.

The title track's polka-bass is up front and bouncing along as Nitzsche's back-alley piano licks roll in and out of one of Neil's darker tunes. He makes it come off like the old guy down the street telling anyone who will listen that we're all going to die someday: true or not, he’s still crazy. Nuts or not, fourteen junkies turn into thirteen.

"Journey Through the Past" and "Love In Mind" are fairly similar to the versions on 2007's Live at Massey Hall set, if not a little more inebriated. "Love in Mind" is proof of what can be done in a song with only a piano and a minute and half. The crescendo of "Churches long preach sex is wrong/Jesus where has nature gone?/What am I doing here?" blurs the line between sex, love, and blissful apathy.

"Yonder Stands the Sinner" and "LA" are both three minute rockers that bring it not only with Ben Keith's ever-haunting slide work, but all out rock-flailing. "Yonder" sounds like Neil doing the Faces, and "L.A." find the band shifting from spewing bile and laying back, kicking its feet, ashamed. "Don't Be Denied" -- written the day after Whitten's death (McDonough 390) -- is autobiographical right down to the part about wearing white bucks, and it lines up with the music: mid-tempo, yet swaggering, with some pretty parts and some ugly parts.

"The Bridge" is the third of three piano ballads on the record, and it's got the simple beauty that is a Neil Young trademark: simple harmonica, simple piano, and borderline meaningless lyrics with sections about being made lonely (ooh baby, ooh baby). But he pulls it off by doing the right simple harmonica line, the right simple piano chords, and the right vague/mysterious/6th grade lyrics (“and love came runnin' down/like a river on your skin/and you let me in”).

Last Dance

The highlight of the album is the brutal "Last Dance.” It's a Neil Young epic jam not dissimilar to all of Neil Young's epic jams (guitar solos, catchy everything, simple rhythms, etc), but this one is a beast of its own. It's dirty and hopeless and drenched with feedback laden breaks.

The chord Neil hits during the final reprise of "No no no . . . no no no . . . no no no" sounds like some tequila-drunk madman tied to the train tracks, watching a freight liner filled with junkies coming right towards him. The "no no no" sees his eyes getting bigger. Someone yells out "Last dance!" before the music fades, the screen goes to black, and the train hits the lush in an explosion of needles, booze, and damage. Done.

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