I have almost everything Neil Young has recorded [and released] with Crazy Horse. I’ve seen him perform live with Crazy Horse twice, so I think I know what to expect when I see the two names linked together. I expect long guitar jams, extremely high volume, ear-splitting feedback and mind-altering distortion. So that was what I thought I'd get when NY & Crazy Horse released Sleeps With Angels in 1994. However, these guys decided to throw me and their fans a filthy breaking ball, and I mean that in a good way. Sleeps With Angels is one of the most subdued performances from them.
Kurt Cobain killed himself in April 1994. In his suicide note, he quoted Neil Young’s song Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black] – “it’s better to burn out than to fade away…” Neil just published his memoirs, titled Waging Heavy Peace. About Cobain’s suicide note, NY had this to say - “When he died and left that note, it struck a deep chord inside of me. It fucked with me.” That isn’t all he had to say on the subject - he recorded Sleeps With Angels. Apparently when Cobain’s suicide happened, NY and the Horse were already in the studio. This tragic event steered NY in the direction to make this album a song cycle about death, along the lines of Tonight’s The Night.
My Heart – With NY on tack piano, Frank Sampedro on bass marimba and Billy Talbot on vibes, this is a very unusual beginning to an album with Crazy Horse. It would be right at home on After the Gold Rush. There’s the pastoral image of a shepherd who sees his flock and a shooting star, the first metaphor of death on an album filled with them – “A star is falling down from someone's hand…”
Prime of Life – With another unusual choice of musical instruments, NY plays a Tibetan flute to color this song. I have no idea who’s life he’s singing about, but he keeps asking the question - Are you feeling all right /Not feeling too bad myself /Are you feeling all right,my friend?
Driveby – Suddenly after NY asks “are you feeling all right” in Prime of Life, you get Driveby, where someone is struck down at random, someone who is in the “prime of life.” This is a story of someone NY knew who was killed in a driveby shooting and the randomness of how somebody can be here today and suddenly gone tomorrow [“like a shooting star…”]. For a song with Crazy Horse, the instrumentation is very different. The Billy Talbot/Ralph Molina rhythm section assume their normal bass/drums roles, but NY plays the acoustic guitar while second guitarist Frank Sampedro plays the piano.
Sleeps With Angels – This is the one song that is specifically about Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love. This is a quick and dirty meditation on Kurt Cobain’s suicide that has the thunder one normally expects from Crazy Horse.
Western Hero – Like Driveby, NY plays acoustic guitar while Frank Sampedro takes the piano. Western Hero shares the same melody as Train of Love. Here NY talks of a man who “fought for you” and “fought for me” on the beaches of Normandy, but now is “just a memory.” To me, this is a song about another dead guy. It continues the “songs of death” cycle.
Change Your Mind – This is the centerpiece of Sleeps With Angels. Clocking in at 14:40, it has the look and sound of Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This one stresses the importance of having love in someone’s life, as if that is the way to get through life and enables on to “fade away” gracefully rather than take Cobain’s method of “burn out.” Even the music seems to enforce that message – when NY sings about being confused and the world is getting you down, it’s all in minor chords. But when the message of hope [the “change your mind” bit] are all in major chords. It’s like alternating between sad and happy.
Blue Eden – Rarely does one see a song on a Neil Young album credited to anyone besides Neil Young. This one credits all four guys with songwriting, which tells me this is a made-in-the-studio jam. The somewhat anarchic character of the music was my second clue. It’s anarchic, and it’s bleak. The words are a mash – it’s like an overview of the album. The words came from three other songs from Sleeps With Angels [my third clue]:
Embracing, distorting, supporting, comforting
Convincing you, consoling you
Controlling you, destroying you
All over you
[from Change Your Mind]
I know someday we'll meet again
We come and go that way my friend
It's part of me, it's part of you
[from Train of Love]
You feel invincible, it's just a part of life
You feel invincible, it's just a part of life
[from Driveby]
Safeway Cart – This one has a sinister vibe. The music is bleak. Mostly it alternates between E Minor and G, but every so often B Minor and C sneak in there. Frank Sampedro plays the Oberheim and Wurlitzer piano in the background to set the mood while NY quietly strums his guitar. NY blows a heavily distorted harmonica that sounds like an air raid siren. Wherever this “safeway cart” rolls down the street, “it’s a ghetto dawn.” It sounds like someplace I don’t want to be.
Train of Love – After the dust settles from Change Your Mind, Blue Eden and Safeway Cart, here’s another pastoral piece where the singer tries to make sense of what just happened. Train of Love recycles the melody and arrangement from Western Hero.
Trans Am – Lyrically, I’ve got nothing here – the meaning escapes me. Sometimes that happens with NY’s songs. Sometimes only he “gets it.” But the music is ok…
Piece of Crap – This song is a gratuitous piece of comic relief bemoaning the lack of quality in manufactured goods, especially what one would buy from QVC.
A Dream That Can Last – Sleeps With Angels ends here on a note of guarded optimism. Like My Heart, NY plays an upright tack piano while he sings about heaven and hope.
Sleeps With Angels would end up being the last album NY would make with producer David Briggs, who died of lung cancer the following year. From what I’ve read about David Briggs, he was the only guy who could tell NY when the emperor had no clothes. Between playing the grand piano, the Wurlitzer, Oberheim, bass marimba and guitar, Frank Sampedro is this album’s MVP who finally put to rest any comparisons with the long-lost Danny Whitten. Sleeps With Angels is one of the most musically diverse albums Neil Young has recorded with Crazy Horse. This album is a lost nugget in the huge Neil Young discography.
No comments:
Post a Comment