Beginning on April 12, pre-orders will be accepted for Neil Young's latest release from his Neil Young Archive Performance Series (NYAPS). A Treasure (NYAPS #09) is a collection of 12 live recordings from his 1984 and 1985 tours with The International Harvesters, a top quality country band that Neil assembled for this period in his eclectic career. I may be "punk" david, but the Harvesters period has long been among my favorite of Neil Young's, and by far my favorite of his genre-hopping 80s experiments. In part, it's because this band was so talented and tight. Also, Neil Young has a gift for writing really great country music, a talent that few in modern country music can even fathom, and one that Neil has drawn from far too infrequently throughout his career.
From the spring of 1984 through the end of the summer of 1985, Neil fully immersed himself in country music and the surrounding Nashville culture. His fake country accent was only slightly less contrived than Hillary Clinton's, but his music was as genuine as could be, and during this time Neil collaborated with such venerable country legends as Waylon Jennings, Bela Fleck, Rufus Thibodeaux, Anthony Crawford, Ben Keith, and Willie Nelson, with whom Neil and John Mellencamp founded Farm Aid in 1985. On that note, the Harvesters were the band that Neil performed with at the Live Aid concert in July of 1985 before a TV audience in the hundreds of millions.
My favorite thing about this period in Neil Young's career however, is the large number of songs that he wrote and performed and recorded that did NOT appear on his 1985 country album Old Ways. I consider Old Ways to be kind of a middling album in the Neil Young canon, but he probably could have released two full albums of additional material written and recorded during this period, with much of it superior to the material that did make the album. Fortunately for the Rusties, there are many circulating concert recordings and a few circulating studio recordings to give us an idea of what Neil held back.
In addition to the ten songs released on Old Ways, there were a whole crop of new country songs that Neil premiered on these tours that either appeared later on other albums in a slightly less country flavor or have never seen any official release. These include:
Amber Jean (a heretofore unreleased song about his baby daughter)
Razor Love (released on Silver & Gold, 2000)
Let Your Fingers Do the Walking (heretofore unreleased)
Hillbilly Band (unreleased)
Silver & Gold (released on Silver & Gold, 2000)
Nothing Is Perfect (to date released only on the Live Aid DVD in 2004)
This Old House (released with Crosby Stills & Nash on American Dream, 1988)
Interstate (released as a solo acoustic b-side in 1996)
Grey Riders (heretofore unreleased, and long considered one of Neil's greatest unreleased songs)
Several other studio outtakes that were never performed publicly have also reached trading circles and have become well known. Right there you have more than enough material to complete another album of new songs in 1985. But that doesn't even include several songs that Neil had performed earlier but had not been released in the mid-80s and could easily have made their way to a country album if Neil had decided to issue a second at the time.
The Ways of Love (premiered in 1978, released later on Freedom, 1989)
It Might Have Been (an old cover tune that Neil had played with Crazy Horse in 1970, and which only gained its first release in the form of a live recording from 1970 that appeared on Neil Young Archives Vol. 1, 2009)
Too Far Gone (premiered in 1976, released later on Freedom, 1989)
Soul of a Woman (a song that Neil played in four distinctly different styles in the 80's, but which never found a release until now, it is Neil's most often performed unreleased song)
Don't Take Your Love Away From Me (another genre-hopper, which had limited release on the Solo Trans LaserDisc in 1984, but didn't find an album release until Lucky 13 in 1993)
Country Home (premiered with Crazy Horse in 1976, and ultimately released on Ragged Glory, 1990)
And to top it off, there were several of Neil's older released songs that really came into their own, often for the first time, when played by The International Harvesters:
Motor City
Hawks and Doves (2 songs from the early 80s that were a little country, but really needed to be much more so to work)
Southern Pacific (released on the 1981 Crazy Horse album Reactor, the Harvesters make this song truly sound like the train that is the songs subject. AMAZING.)
Roll Another Number (from Tonight's The Night, 1975, I believe this song comes off better as "country & western" than the drenched in feedback-drenched rendition that appears on 1991's live album Weld)
Are You Ready For the Country? (from 1972's Harvest, country-folk becomes pure country, and is better for it)
Powderfinger
Down By the River (2 live staple Crazy Horse jams that saw some of their most powerful performances of his career with the Harvesters. DBTR from New Orleans in 1984 is jaw-dropping)
There's so much more that could be written about Neil Young and the International Harvesters, but I've gone on long enough. As for the title of this post, here is a song that didn't make the cut for A Treasure, but tells a story that is as timely and poignant today as it was in 1985 when it was first written and performed.
"This Old House"
Midnight, that old clock keeps ticking,
The kids are all asleep,
and I'm walking the floor.
Darlin', I can see that you're dreaming,
And I don't wanna wake you up,
When I close the door.
This old house of ours is built on dreams,
And a businessman don't know what that means.
There's a garden outside she works in every day
And tomorrow morning a man from the bank's
Gonna come and take it all away.
Lately, I've been thinking 'bout daddy,
And how he always made things work,
when the chips were down.
And I know I've got something inside me,
There's always a light there to guide me,
To what can't be found.
This old house of ours is built on dreams,
And a businessman don't know what that means.
There's a swing outside the kids play on every day,
And tomorrow morning a man from the bank's
Gonna come and take it all away.
Take it all away,
take it all away,
take it all away.
Take it all away,
take it all away,
take it all away.
Remember how we first came here together?
Standing on an empty lot, holding hands.
Later, we came back in the moonlight,
And made love right where the kitchen is,
Then we made our plans.
This old house of ours is built on dreams
And a businessman don't know what that means.
There's a garden outside she works in every day,
And tomorrow morning a man from the bank's
Gonna come and take it all away.
Take it all away,
take it all away,
take it all away.
Take it all away,
take it all away,
take it all away.
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