Young’s Background
Given the already diverse discography of “Canadian-born, California-based rock troubadour Neil Young” TM at this point in his career, it was anyone’s guess what he would deliver for his third solo album. He’d already made three albums with the hugely influential group Buffalo Springfield. He then released a folk-and-country oriented solo album, and the “brain-shredding guitar powerhouse” TL Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Those two albums already made it clear that Young viewed “albums as explorations of distinct moods.” TM
Then he joined forces with the already successful Crosby, Stills & Nash the blockbuster album, Déjà Vu. The two cuts he contributed to that album (“Helpless” and “Country Girl”) “returned him to the folk and country styles he had pursued before delving into the hard rock of Everybody Knows.” AM They also set the course for After the Gold Rush, an album in which he “laid claim to the field of sensitive singer-songwriters” RV by crafting a collection of “country-folk love songs.” AM
The Players and the Recording
After working with CSNY, Young “regrouped with his regularly backing band, Crazy Horse, which was comprised of guitarist Danny Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot, and drummer Ralph Molina. He also recruited the then-unknown 17-year-old guitarist-pianist Nils Lofgren in an effort to move away from the hard-rock sound of his previous solo released, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.” TB
Young “set up a basic studio in the basement of his new home in the Topanga Canyon hills of Los Angeles, which he soundproofed with lead and pine milled from the trees in his backyard. A modest collection of gear included a Scully 8-track, a small mixer, and a handful of mikes.” TB The songs were “inspired largely by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Berman screenplay that gave the album its title.” TB
How Gold Rush Was Received
The album “matched the tenor of the times in 1970.” AM It struck a chord “with the disillusion felt by many after the death of the 1960s dream.” TB It “is full to the brim with classic songs of heartbreak and mystery.” CQ Its “dark yet hopeful tone” AM “represents the morning after the mayhem, both personal and cultural – the sound of Young waking up with a post-‘60s hangover, catching his breath, and trying to sort through the wreckage.” TL
The album “presents Young at his most diverse, with brooding folk songs followed by rabid rock howls.” TM “The 11 songs embrace the truth of loss that comes after the magic, after the bum-rush of serotonin and possibilities, after you realize the holes inside haven’t been plugged, that the overflow of emotion you poured in ran right out.” PM
Its Legacy
“After the Gold Rush was not immediately universally recognized as a brilliant album, but over the years, even initial naysayers have changed their mind.” CQ It has come to be regarded as “one of the definitive singer/songwriter albums” AM and it established Young “as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.” TB “Along with Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, After the Gold Rush is one of the greatest break-up records ever made regardless of intention.” PM
The album “hits the sweet spot between his ‘popular’ work and his ‘difficult’ work.” EK “Much of what Young has done throughout his career…can be found crystallized right here.” EK “It’s brilliant all the way through.” JA “While Young has had a long and storied career filled with multiple near-perfect albums, this one stands above the rest as his absolute masterpiece” CQ and “his best solo album.” CQ
The Songs
Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.
“Tell Me Why”
The opening cut, Tell Me Why, is one of Young’s “quaint little questioning songs…that are the aural equivalent of needlepoint samplers.” TM
“After the Gold Rush”
The “subdued” EK and “otherworldly title track” CQ “laments the destruction of the earth” RV serving up “apocalyptic doom-saying juxtaposed with delicate piano.” EK It “evokes perfectly the circa-1970 shift between the naiveté of the hippie dream and the paranoia that would come to strike even deeper.” EK It is “a mystical ballad that featured some of Young’s most imaginative lyrics and became one of his most memorable songs.” AM
“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”
The “poignant” CQ “homespun Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is “one of Young’s most beautiful tracks” RV marked by “his distinctively off-center whine warns of the perils of new love.” RV
“Southern Man”
Young “balances masterful hard rockers…with beautiful acoustic songs.” DBW In regards to the former, Southern Man was one of the album’s “few real rockers,” AM showing a talent for tackling “political issues with angry, cranked-up guitars.” RV With “unsparing protest lyrics typical of Phil Ochs” AM the song “attacked the racism inherent in Southern culture of the day.” RV This is “arguably Young’s all-time most harrowing performance.” TM
“Cripple Creek Ferry” and “Till the Morning Comes”
“Much like Bob Dylan, Neil Young has a not-conventionally-attractive voice, and both of them have an ability to write the kind of indelible melodies that make their songs pop even when the singer’s larynx falls short.” EK Throughout the album “the arrangements are simple, with none of Young’s earlier studio trickery or multi-part mini-symphonies. He ends each side with brief piano-led melodies you wish would go on longer” DBW such as with Till the Morning Comes and “the twangy folk of Cripple Creek Ferry.” CQ
“Oh Lomesome Me”
“Young’s own perverse appreciation for roots music, which he’s returned to again and again throughout his career, is on display as he transforms Don Gibson’s jaunty 1958 country classic Oh Lonesome Me into the moper’s lament that it probably always was under the surface.” EK
“Don’t Let It Bring You Down”
“Only Neil Young could have written the chilling” TL but “catuiously optimistic Don’t Let It Bring You Down” TB and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “much less both on the same album.” TL
“Birds”
After the Gold Rush “emphasizes delicate acoustic warbling with a dark hue; ''Birds'' just might be his loveliest song.” EW’12
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