Recommendations of the Editorial team
The best songwriters of all time (17): Neil Young
His musical evolution of Neil Young is reminiscent of the unpredictable course of a pinball ball. From folk rock to country, from hard rock to new wave pop, from rockabilly to bar band blues.
“Neil Young “He doesn’t know any curves,” his long-time colleague Frank “Poncho” Sampedro once said. “He doesn’t go around the curve, but constantly bounces off it.” Even though he not only lost numerous fans but also a number of annoyed band members with his stylistic hooks, his songs always had the “Real Neil” seal of quality.
Neil Young – “Ambulance Blues”:
The wonderfully crunchy ballads drew from the same timeless pool of themes as his thunderous rockers. It was about American myths, about community and individual freedom, about the fight against constraints and authorities, about violence, mortality, street cruisers and the great revolutionary blues.
Young has released more than 50 solo albums to date – and even though his best work (“Ambulance Blues”, “Powderfinger”, “After The Goldrush”) comes from the 60s and 70s, each album still provides various highlights.
Songs like the soft rock classic “Heart Of Gold”, his only number one in the USA, helped paint the picture of a lonely troubadour – which the 73-year-old Young doesn’t like at all: “Somehow my songs probably give the impression that I’m depressed about life,” he said at his induction into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. “I can’t complain about my fate. I’m in a good mood – and have been for many years. So if I ever look a little tired in the laundry – forget it! I’m fine.”
Country has always been a cornerstone of Neil Young’s work. “Comes A Time” (1978) is a rural idyll in its purest form and is animated by a sore melancholy that Nashville would like to bring to the people in grain silo-like quantities, but which is not available for a rancid sense of home.
“Field Of Opportunity” and “Motorcycle Mama” are certainly not among Young’s greatest moments as a songwriter, but the rest of the album beats a lot of what he has composed since then and some of what he has composed before.
Everything is gone except hope
There are no ballads more heartbreaking than “Peace Of Mind”, “Lotta Love” and “Already One”. In the end, in Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds,” everything is gone except hope.