Neil Young released After the Gold Rush

After the Gold Rush Neil Young

Released: August 31, 1970 Peak: 8 US, 7 UK, 5 CN, 13 AU, 12 DF Sales (in millions): 2.5 US, 0.6 UK, 5.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Tell Me Why After the Gold Rush (6 CL) Only Love Can Break Your Heart (9/19/70, 33 BB, 20 CB, 32 GR, 14 HR, 11 CL, 16 CN) Southern Man (3 CL, 1 DF) Till the Morning Comes Oh, Lonesome Me Don’t Let It Bring You Down (21 CL) Birds When You Dance You Can Really Love (3/13/71, 93 BB, 93 CB, 59 HR, 16 CL, 54 CN) Believe in You (49 CL) Cripple Creek Ferry Total Running Time: 33:32

Rating: 4.541 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Quotable: “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.” – Consequence of Sound Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

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

Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Neil Young AM AllMusic.com review by William Ruhlmann JA John Alroy, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” EK Eric Klinger, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) JM Jason Mendelsohn, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 885-6. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 133. TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light DBW David Bertrand Wilson, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 8/31/2012; last updated 8/26/2024.

Neil Young “Cinnamon Girl” released

Cinnamon Girl Neil Young

Writer(s): Neil Young (see lyrics here) Released: April 20, 1970 First Charted: June 19, 1970 Peak: 55 US, 56 CB, 36 GR, 52 HR, 1 CL, 25 CN, 34 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 10.50 video, 22.13 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: After Neil Young’s departure from Buffalo Springfield, he released his first solo album in 1968. The self-titled debut failed to dent the charts, but the follow-up, 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, logged 98 weeks on the Billboard album chart, peaking at #34 and reaching platinum status. The album ranks as one of the top 1000 albums of all time. Lead single “Down by the River” failed to chart, but the second single – “Cinnamon Girl” – was a top 40 hit in Canada and Australia and got to #55 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is sung as a duet between Young singing the low harmony and Danny Whitten singing the high harmony. WK Whitten was a songwriter and guitarist in Young’s backing band, Crazy Horse. Beck called the guitar riff on “Cinnamon Girl” his all-time favorite. WK The British magazine New Musical Express (NME) ranked it one of the 50 greatest guitar riffs of all time. WK Some have speculated that the song refers to Jim Morrison’s common-law wife, Pamela Courson, who had reddish-brown hair. WK Young has denied that, never confirming who the cinnamon girl is, SF although there is a reference in the song to ‘60s folk singer Jean Ray via the bit about finger cymbals. SF Young has also confirmed he had a crush on her. SF Lyrically, the song is about the singer daydreaming about having someone to love. Critic Johnny Rogan said the lyrics are “exotic and elusive without really saying anything at all.” WK Author Toby Creswell called them “cryptic love-song lyrics over the cruching power of Crazy Horse.” TC Critic John Mendelsohn sees it as a message of “desperation begetting brutal vindictiveness.” WK The song has been recorded and/or performed by Big Head Todd & the Monsters, the Dream Syndicate, John Entwistle, the Gentrys (#52, 1970), Hole, Phish, the Pretty Reckless, Radiohead, the Smashing Pumpkins, Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Type O Negative, and Wilco. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Neil Young TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 267. SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 3/9/2023; last updated 4/26/2024.