Neil Young on the most authentic album he made: “That’s one of my favourite records”
Neil Young never minced any of his words whenever it came time to make one of his records. There would always be some tunes that spoke to people a lot more than others, but by and large, Young never made any of his music thinking about whether or not he could get another hit out of the deal. It was just about how he was feeling at any particular moment, and looking back on the album Comes a Time, he felt that he captured something raw and honest that he hadn’t heard before.
Then again, that descriptor could apply to nearly any of Young’s releases. Ever since leaving Buffalo Springfield, every creative choice he made was based on pure Americana music. Ignoring the fact that Young is Canadian for a minute, every single one of his greatest works has always been about the hard-living side of life, whether it be about the emotional struggles people have to live with day after day or having to slave away every day to put food on the table.
There were occasional moments where he would get far too close to his heroes like Bob Dylan, but even when got close to the edge, he would do a complete flip. Harvest sounded absolutely immaculate, but compare that to the raw nerves felt on every second of Tonight’s the Night and it practically sounds like two completely different people wrote them despite having the same voice.
If there was one running thread throughout his music, though, it was country. Country music has never been that far away from rock and roll as far back as The Everly Brothers, and while Young was more in tune with the singer-songwriters of his time, Comes a Time was the moment where he settled into his role as a Western-tinged rockstar.
Despite being released in the same era that birthed Gram Parsons and the Eagles, Young wasn’t trying to piggyback off a trend. If anything, songs like ‘Four Strong Winds’ are executed so well that they are able to put artists like Glenn Frey and Don Henley to shame for their work on Desperado.
Outside of just being a pleasant listen all the way through, Young thought that listening back to it was a lot more interesting because of how imperfect it was, saying, “That’s one of my favourite records. It’s funky. Not that it’s technically great, that’s for sure… There’s something there that’s me, that record.”
And it’s not like that kind of earthiness isn’t felt in the mix, too. There’s a certain warmth that comes from this kind of album, but listening back and hearing the tuning discrepancies in some spots just makes it feel like you’re right there in the room as the group sets up their instruments and puts on an intimate concert.
Young may have been a lot more candid with his emotions on other albums but Comes a Time captures a human element better than anything else he had done. Tonight’s the Night showed his darkest corners, and Everybody’s Rockin’ proved that he could be insanely funny when he got pissed, but Comes a Time is the sound of a man finally content with his life.
