The embarassing tale of Neil Young’s accidental zenith: “I wasn’t trying to make a masterpiece”
Not every classic album has to be a technical marvel on all levels, and Neil Young is perhaps one of the finest examples of an artist who can create a masterpiece while leaving in all of the imperfections.
Now, of course, records like After the Gold Rush, Harvest and On the Beach are all regarded as some of his many masterworks, and while people might be able to look beyond his occasional missteps in vocal pitching as an example of one of his celebrated flaws, each of those records shines in other aspects, whether that’s through lavish approaches to arrangement, clever and taut songwriting, or his imaginative way with weaving a story in his lyrics.
That can’t be said of every album he’s ever made, though, and the further you dive into his career, particularly in the late 1970s and beyond, the rougher things start to get, and his desire for rawness begins to take hold of his work. This is, by no means, a bad thing, but it does divide the opinion of people who prefer his classic rock works of the early ‘70s over some of his more experimental material.
So, if it doesn’t negatively affect his output, then things are all fine and dandy, right? Try telling Warner, the parent company of Reprise, Young’s label during the mid-1970s, that it isn’t a problem. In fact, they were so thoroughly unimpressed with one record that he submitted to them that they almost refused to put it out when it appeared on their desk.
The album in question was 1975’s Tonight’s The Night, which he’d written and recorded two years prior to its release, and its presentation as a chaotic, jam-heavy and depressing record was completely the opposite of what they evidently wanted from Young at the time. They had clearly made up their minds that this record was going to replicate the brilliance of his earlier works, and ended up being completely perplexed by the dramatic shift in tone towards atonal guitar work, with lyrics that were heavily inspired by the drug-related deaths of two of his closest friends.
Young would reflect on the initial response that he had from the label a few years later, insisting that the roughness is what makes it one of his best releases. “When I handed it to Warner’s, they hated it,” he proclaimed. “We played it ten times as loud as they usually play things and it was awful. I mean, can you imagine listening to it at 1:00 in the afternoon in some corporate office?”
In truth, Young wasn;t attempting to make something that would last for eternity: “Well, I wasn’t trying to make a masterpiece. I was trying to capture a moment. I didn’t want to clean it up. I don’t want the Carpenters to play Tonight’s The Night.”
It might be rough around the edges and considerably harder to get into than some of his earlier records, but does that make it any less of a masterpiece than, for example, Harvest? It certainly doesn’t, and if anything, it shows just how brave Young has always been when it comes to trusting his musical instincts and following what he wants to do rather than following the every whim of his record label.
