The Neil Young vocal he could never sing the same again: “There was no sense in trying to do a better one”
One should never mistake imperfections for apathy in the world of rock and roll. Even though it’s easy for someone to critique someone when their guitar is out of tune or when they fall out of step with the rest of the group, those slight mistakes are half the reason why people like their favourite songs in the first place. It’s all a part of a band being human, but Neil Young admitted that he got as close to perfect vocals as he could on ‘Natural Beauty’.
By the time Young had gotten to work on Harvest Moon, he really didn’t need to play any new songs for the rest of his life if he didn’t have to. His work as a rustic rock star led to some of the most celebrated rock and roll of the 1970s, and his unwillingness to compromise also endeared him to the punks of the world as well.
But Young wasn’t one to rest on his laurels for that long. Sure, it might have been nice if one of his songs sold a bunch of copies or resonated with a lot of people, but that was just one patch of his life. Part of a musician’s journey is moving on to the next phase of their lives, but Young seemed to come back into fashion during the 1990s.
Once grunge bands started adopting the same back-to-basics approach to rock and roll, Young was practically their unintended king. He had always done things his own way, and records like Freedom and his collaboration album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam showed that he had yet to run out of ideas after decades in the business.
Compared to his other late-career renaissances, though, Harvest Moon is a different breed. While other rock stars like Bob Dylan were having resurgences, hearing Young adopt an almost gothic approach to country rock was something everyone probably expected to happen but was never quite ready for.
Although songs like ‘From Hank to Hendrix’ are closer to the version of Young everyone knew, ‘Natural Beauty’ was the only live cut that made it on the record. Then again, when you do it this well in front of a stadium’s worth of people, why try to recreate the whole thing over again?
When working on the song, Young figured it would be better to just stick it on the record in its raw form, telling NME, “It’s a live tape I overdubbed on [and] added all kinds of acoustic instruments to. Doing ‘Natural Beauty’ live in Portland and singing it all the way through, I nailed it right there. There was no sense in trying to do a better one. I know I got it when I was doing things with the structure I’d never been able to do again.”
There might be a few added instruments to give the track a bit of ambience, but considering the lyrics, there was no other way to deliver this kind of song. The entire piece is about preserving the beauty in the world that everyone takes for granted, and if Young had decided to clean everything up, it would never have worked.
