The album Neil Young called “too personal” to release
Not every artist aims to please the masses. While having a hit single on the charts can be satisfying, the primary goal is always to create something that fulfils the artist’s own vision before considering its reception by the wider audience. Despite Neil Young’s consistent disregard for others’ opinions throughout his career, he acknowledged that there was one album that felt too personal and raw for him to share with anyone else.
After being the signature edge behind bands like Buffalo Springfield, Young was ready to work on his own by the late 1960s, only to be told that another group was waiting for him. Joining Crosby, Stills, and Nash at the insistence of Stephen Stills, Young didn’t need to prove himself next to his fellow world-class songwriters, offering up pieces like ‘Ohio’ and ‘Helpless’ as if he had just thrown together with a handful of chords on his porch.
If there’s one thing that Young doesn’t want to be, it’s boring, and the minute the band started to have its internal problems, he was already out the door. Working on masterpieces like After the Gold Rush and Harvest, though, something happened to Young that he wasn’t really expecting…the masses started to really love his music.
While Young was following wherever his muse took him, songs like ‘Heart of Gold’ would become the biggest hits of his career. A massive album success and a hit single in the charts? Only one place to go from here…a dramatic swerve in the opposite direction.
Despite carrying over a handful of elements from his previous project, many of Young’s albums would be defined by grit as the years went on, like the massive sounds of Rust Never Sleeps, which inadvertently became a blueprint for the grunge bands that would be making noise in Seattle over two decades later.
For all of the great music Young could spit out, there were some tragedies going on in the background. After penning the song ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ about the heroin addiction of Danny Whitten, Young’s longtime guitarist would end up losing his battle with his demons, dying from an overdose before the 1970s wrapped up.
Instead of going into the studio to make another massive record, Tonight’s the Night was one of the most emotionally frail albums ever made, with Young sounding more distraught than he has ever been, having to also deal with the fallout of his marriage breaking down. There was another project in the background, though, but Young couldn’t bear to put out what turned up on Homegrown.
For all of the downer moments on Tonight’s the Night, Young thought that the other album he made was far more revealing than what he was willing to put out, telling Rolling Stone, “That record might be more what people would rather hear from me now, but it was just a very down album. It was the darker side to Harvest. A lot of the songs had to do with me breaking up with my old lady. It was a little too personal . . . it scared me.”
Considering how honest Young likes to be with his music, it’s really saying something when even he is reeling back on releasing it. Fans have laughed, cried, and discovered themselves through Neil Young’s music, but even with a version of the album released in 2020, Homegrown is practically his version of The Beach Boys’ Smile, a work lost to time that was too much for him to put out.
