Ecco finalmente un altra uscita della serie "Archivi" di Neil Young.
Il cd contiene la summa di 2 concerti tenuti il 9 e il 10 novembre 1968 alla Canterbury House, in Michigan. Il periodo é quindi molto interessante: Young era reduce dai (per certi versi) controversi successi con i Buffalo Springfield e aveva la necessitá di "costruirsi" una nuova carriera o quanto meno un modo diverso di porsi.
Intraprende quindi un breve tour in solitudine, completamente acustico. Con la sola chitarra Neil presenta ad un pubblico (probabilmente) non numeroso, brani del suo ancora limitato songbook, in perfetto stile folk, alla maniera del giá famoso e acclamato Dylan.
Nel CD si possono quindi gustare versioni "grezze" di brani era Buffalo Springfield come "On The Way Home", "Mr. Soul", "Broken Arrow" o la psichedelica (nel testo) "Nowdays Clancy Can't Even Sing", (dedicata ad un suo compagno di scuola malato di sclerosi multipla) e versioni ancora acerbe di futuri successi, all'epoca ancora inediti come "The LAst Trip To Tulsa", "The Old Laughing Lady", "The Loner" o una toccante esecuzione di "Birds", poi in "After The Goldrush".
Che dire! Un disco formidabile che ci mostra il Loner in una delle primissime fasi della sua carriera solista.
I pezzi sono suonati in modo molto semplice e diretto, senza fronzoli o virtuosismi e il cantato, a mio avviso forse un po' troppo dimesso, é di sicuro impatto emotivo.
Nel mood complessivo (anche se avrei preferito ascoltare un concerto per intero) traspare comunque quella vena di sottile malinconia e tristezza, tipiche di Young, vena che lo accompagnerá fino ai nostri giorni e che hanno il loro culmine in capolavori quali "Harvest", "Tonight's The Night" o "On The Beach", solo per citarne alcuni. Un modo di cantare piuttosto "strano" per i canoni dell'epoca, dovuto anche ad una voce molto particolare, in grado comunque di catturare e trasporre lo spettatore in bilico tra sogno e realtá, tra la ricercatezza di una metafora barcollante e l'immagine nuda e cruda (vedi " The Last Trip To Tulsa).
E' questo anche il modo dualistico di percepire l'opera Younghiana: l'acustico e l'elettrico, il colore e il bianco e nero, la scintillante luce del rock e del country e la quasi mistica penombra delle ballate crepuscolari.
In definitiva un disco (il terzo come pubblicazione d'archivio) molto interessante a livello storico, per comprendere la genesi di uno dei cantautori piú prolifici e originali della storia del rock.
Le canzoni sono pubblicate anche in versione su DVD, dove presumo saranno accompagnate da immagini dell'epoca.
Ecco la track list:
Emcee Intro / On The Way Home / Songwriting Rap / Mr. Soul / Recording Rap / Expecting To Fly / The Last Trip To Tulsa / Bookstore Rap / The Loner /
I Used Rap / Birds / Winterlong (excerpt) Out Of My Mind (Intro) / Out Of My Mind / If I Could Have Her Tonight / Classical Gap Rap / Sugar Mountain (Intro)
/ Sugar Mountain / I've Been Waiting For You / Song Rap / Nowdays Clancy Can't Even Sing / Tuning Rap & The Old Laughing Lady (Intro)
/ The Old Laughhing Lady / Broken Arrow
Elenco tracce e testi
04 Mr. Soul (03:13)
Oh, hello Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason
For the thought that I caught that my head is the event of the season
Why in crowds just a trace of my face could seem so pleasin'
I'll cop out to the change, but a stranger is putting the tease on.
I was down on a frown when the messenger brought me a letter
I was raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her
Any girl in the world could have easily known me better
She said, You're strange, but don't change, and I let her.
In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?
Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster
For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster
Is it strange I should change? I don't know, why don't you ask her?
06 Expecting to Fly (02:38)
There you stood on the edge of your feather,
Expecting to fly.
While I laughed, I wondered whether
I could wave goodbye,
Knowin' that you'd gone.
By the summer it was healing,
We had said goodbye.
All the years we'd spent with feeling
Ended with a cry,
Babe, ended with a cry,
Babe, ended with a cry.
I tried so hard to stand
As I stumbled and fell to the ground.
So hard to laugh as I fumbled
And reached for the love I found,
Knowin' it was gone.
If I never lived without you,
Now you know I'd die.
If I never said I loved you,
Now you know I'd try,
Babe, now you know I'd try.
Babe, now you know I'd try,
Babe.
09 The Loner (04:41)
He's a perfect stranger,
Like a cross of himself and a fox.
He's a feeling arranger
And a changer of the ways he talks.
He's the unforeseen danger
The keeper of the key to the locks.
Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.
If you see him in the subway,
He'll be down at the end of the car.
Watching you move
Until he knows he knows who you are.
When you get off at your station alone,
He'll know that you are.
Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.
There was a woman he knew
About a year or so ago.
She had something that he needed
And he pleaded with her not to go.
On the day that she left,
He died, but it did not show.
Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.
11 Birds (02:16)
Lover, there will be another one
Who'll hover over you beneath the sun
Tomorrow see the things that never come
Today
When you see me
Fly away without you
Shadow on the things you know
Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go
It's over, it's over.
Nestled in your wings my little one
This special morning brings another sun
Tomorrow see the things that never come
Today
When you see me
Fly away without you
Shadow on the things you know
Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go
It's over, it's over.
17 Sugar Mountain (05:46)
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
It's so noisy at the fair
But all your friends are there
And the candy floss your head
And your mother and your dad.
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
There's a girl just down the aisle,
Oh, to turn and see her smile.
You can hear the words she wrote
As you read the hidden note.
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
Now you're underneath the stairs
And you're givin' back some glares
To the people who you met
And it's your first cigarette.
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
Now you say you're leavin' home
'Cause you want to be alone.
Ain't it funny how you feel
When you're findin' out it's real?
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
with the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
18 I've Been Waiting for You (02:04)
I've been looking for a woman to save my life
Not to beg or to borrow
A woman with the feeling of losing once or twice
Who knows how could it be tomorrow?
I've been waiting for you
And you've been coming to me
For such a long time now
Such a long time now.
I've been waiting for you
And you've been coming to me
For such a long time now
Such a long time now.
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