Tonight's The Night [CD]

Part of our Two CDs for £9 offer*

"Tonight's the Night" was one of the first few Neil Young albums I bought, almost 10 years ago. At the time I was well into his rock stuff - "Like a Hurricane", "Hey Hey My My" and the like - as well as his acoustic stuff... but this seemed to come from nowhere. On reading the sleeve notes, I was concerned by how little Neil actually plays guitar on the album. He seems to mostly play harp and piano. There's a fair bit of steel guitar too, which I wasn't too optimistic about.

It's difficult thinking back to that time now, since Neil was a big inspiration to me, and I knew a lot of his music, and a lot about him, but there's so much more I know now... I guess all this is leading up to me saying that despite how different this record sounded to the things I liked about Neil Young, I loved it all the more for it, and now it's just a natural and fitting part of the whole. It's a beautiful, tender, and yet raw and jagged album. It's dark, yet playful. The arrangements sooth, while the lyrics and the voices bristle with emotion.

When people who don't know much about Neil Young ask me to recommend an album... well, it's a difficult task because there's so much to consider - nevertheless, I always recommend this one as one of his best, though I know it's not musically representative of the man. And I know that some people who aren't used to this kind of roughness are going to be repelled. However, it is emotionally representative of him, and if a person can open up his mind enough, forget all the autotune of modern records, forget the slick production; he can love this record all the more for it's wailing, out of tune vocals and it's lumbering rhythms.

I'm sure most of you already know that when recording this album Neil and his band would stay up late drinking tequila and smoking weed, and then they would start playing these songs. And that's how they came to sound so perfectly imperfect. This record is a testament to Neil's methods, to his integrity, and to his ability to put his entire heart into his songwriting.

I've said it in a previous review, and I'll say it again: I don't know of any other artist who puts so much of themselves into their music, whose work is as personal as Neil Young's. That quality is was makes people feel Neil's music and what inspires so many guitar players and songwriters.

If you already like Neil Young, get this album and enrich your understanding of him, and your collection. If you're not familiar with him, this probably isn't the best place to start. Do be sure to come back here though; I can't imagine not owning this record - it's that important.

Oh, here's another story about this record: when Neil toured it, as you know, audiences weren't that impressed as he was playing this record all the way through, with none of his hits. I heard from one source that Neil said, "If you stay till the end, then I'll play some songs you've heard before". Then when he finished playing the album, he started from the beginning again. That's pretty funny. And it makes you wonder what you might have done if you had been there. Hopefully you would have stayed.

It's only one source that i heard that from, so I'm not sure if it's true. It probably happened one night. I also read that Neil was drinking a lot of tequila on stage, and some nights would play the title track 3 or 4 times.

Sorry; I've taken a tidy, succinct review and made it messy. I just thought you might like to hear a story if you didn't know it already.

I`ve heard this shambolically tight rock masterpiece sober, drunk, and most points inbetween. I`ve heard it on LP, on CD, and on the advice of a very alternative therapist. I`ve heard it when in the mood and not in the mood. I`ve listened to it happy, sad, strung out, depressed, overjoyed, tired, lit up, lovelorn and loved-up.
It`s one of the greatest rock albums ever made, of that I am in no doubt. I`ll bet Dylan (who`s fond of NY) loved it to death.
I`m playing it, for the umpteenth time, as I write, and it sounds like all the rock albums ever made rolled into one. It certainly `contains` Harvest, Goldrush, Time Fades Away and On The Beach in its sometimes tenuous embrace.
There isn`t a dud track, nothing that should embarrass or frighten any horses, plenty of raw soulfulness, a spontaneous feel to most of it, little piano trills where you least expect them, the fiery catchy Downtown in the middle of a lot of troubled angst, and the whole thing sounds like it`s been around since the dawn of time - Greil Marcus`s `old weird America` come to call with an insistent urgency that won`t be denied.
Neil plays plenty of his trademark intense spidery guitar, he has a tremendous band with him - including the wonderful Nils Lofgren (a too-often unsung hero of thoughtful American soul-rock) on guitar & piano.
I wouldn`t be so crazy as to single out particular songs. This is one record that lives in the world as an entity, one track seeming to segue into the next. For example, when the unhurried Speakin` Out goes right into the relatively jaunty World On A String, it all feels just right! After the welcome rough magic of Downtown, the downhome ramblings of Mellow My Mind are exactly what the sawbones ordered.
These classic rock albums from the 60s & 70s - Astral Weeks, Forever Changes, Five Leaves Left, Happy Sad, Blonde On Blonde, The Band, Sailin` Shoes, Countdown To Ecstasy, Blue, Neil`s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - now have an aura of wonder about them that can never be dispelled.
A reluctant, pained masterpiece. Hear it if you haven`t. Hear it yet again if you have.
Staggering.

This for me is Neil Young's masterpiece. Most of the songs on this album are inspired by the heroin-related deaths of two of Neil Young's comrades - guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. It is an intensely dark exploration into the drug culture associated with rock and roll. The title track (and it's second part later) sets the scene by describing Berry's self-destruction. The album does not really err much from the theme of this opening shot and reaches it's emotional zenith at "Tired Eyes" - it sounds like Young is singing "open up the tired eyes" directly to Berry and Whitten in a futile attempt to bring them back from the grave. "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" is sung by Whitten and even though it's an upbeat song, it reinforces the whole tragic theme of the album. The whole album is entrenched in self-loathing and is funereal, the lyrics sung out of tune drunkenly which adds to the horror. The album's sleeve is mainly black - the colour of mourning and in the picture of the band onstage in the centre of the album sleeve there is an empty space onstage with Whitten's name underneath. The sheer emotional weight of this album makes it irresistable to anyone who wants to know Neil Young; this is basically his bleeding heart on CD. It is for these reasons why the has to be the greatest Neil Young album no question.