I'm sure there were bigger corporate rock bands at the time (I know how to measure "bigger," not as sure how to determine "corporate"). Chicago, for one, comes to mind.
― clemenza, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:30 (nine years ago) link
if we're talking size and GDP and per capita income Europe and Asia were bigger.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 March 2015 21:32 (nine years ago) link
oh like Neil's above this shithey now
hey now now now
― totally unachievable goals and no incentive to compromise (Sparkle Motion), Friday, 20 March 2015 21:33 (nine years ago) link
"heart of gold" is graceful coherent songwriting with a good balance b/w float and weight. "horse with no name" is 100% awkward self-regarding plod, its only redeeming factor apparently being one-note hippie camp. p sure there are much clearer documents of fucked up youth from that era than a dumb hit song, archival truth factor minimal, rejected as evidence. and alfred where is a n.y. lyric as artless as "I was looking at a river bed and the story it told of a river that flowed made me sad to think it was dead". agree neil isn't above that level of inane faux-profundity but at least he always manages to get the picture across in half the words w/ a much richer profile.
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:47 (nine years ago) link
really they're both self-regarding but only "heart of gold" earns it.
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:54 (nine years ago) link
neil is obv a champ and a better songwriter and a hero and a patriot etc etc but man that line about the riverbed is awesome.
― da croupier, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:54 (nine years ago) link
kind of reminds me of the meat puppets
― da croupier, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:55 (nine years ago) link
lol. i have to admit just typing that out it grew on me a little bit.
xp good point
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:56 (nine years ago) link
in their case though the songs are a lot faster.
neil is obv a champ and a better songwriter and a hero and a patriot etc etc but man that line about the riverbed is awesome.― da croupier, Friday, March 20, 2015 5:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― da croupier, Friday, March 20, 2015 5:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yes it is kind of cool. Like when GTA: Vice City glitches out and you fall through the beach.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 20 March 2015 21:57 (nine years ago) link
But I think "sky of blue/sea of green" is a similar idea only more evocative.
pretty sure we're all convincing ourselves that america > neil young
― tylerw, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:58 (nine years ago) link
Neil would write "I was lookin' at the river/It flowed/She was dead/So the story goes"
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 March 2015 21:58 (nine years ago) link
haha
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:59 (nine years ago) link
Donovan wrote that line iirc
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 March 2015 21:59 (nine years ago) link
Didn't Donovan do a wandering-in-the-desert-on-mushrooms record in the 70s?
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 20 March 2015 22:00 (nine years ago) link
Alfred that rules!
don't mind me i haven't listened to neil young in months, it's friday, and hating on something harmless sounded appealing.
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 22:05 (nine years ago) link
speaking of inanity
― mattresslessness, Friday, 20 March 2015 22:06 (nine years ago) link
what you mean this one?http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/Donovan-Cosmic_Wheels.jpg
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 March 2015 22:08 (nine years ago) link
And now we're back to Bob Dylan imitators LOL.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 20 March 2015 22:33 (nine years ago) link
Donovan also living in the southwest around when Dylan was living in Phoenix iirc
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 March 2015 22:49 (nine years ago) link
"Heart of Gold" in acoustic set (but electric brings onslaught)
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/09/24/neil-young-crazy-horse-fukuoka-japan-march-8-1976/
"Welcome to Miami Beach, ladies and gentlemen." Yes, tonight's the night:http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/03/19/neil-young-the-santa-monica-flyers-manchester-england-1973/
Thanks Tyler!
― dow, Friday, 20 March 2015 23:25 (nine years ago) link
Had to do something drastic, since we're drifting into post-sell-by-date Leitch.
― dow, Friday, 20 March 2015 23:26 (nine years ago) link
speaking of ny inanities I always liked the 'tell me why / is it hard to make arrangements with yourself / when you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell" line but iirc it's often been lambasted for its faux profundity. Beautiful melody though and the lyric is evocative enough without actually meaning anything coherent
― marcos, Saturday, 21 March 2015 00:35 (nine years ago) link
they worked a lot with George Martin. they have a pretty good song about the wizard of oz. i like america.
― mizzell, Friday, March 20, 2015 9:12 PMI like America too, but I'm not so sure that Tin Man is about the Wizard of Oz. It could equally be about the Tropic of Sir Galahad. I'm not sure, in fact, if any America song is about anything.
― Bloody Snail, Saturday, 21 March 2015 01:04 (nine years ago) link
Nah, man, Chicago were the real revolutionaries. The inscription on the inside gatefold of Chicago II reads as follows:
"With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of its forms."
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 21 March 2015 01:07 (nine years ago) link
And from there it was but one small step to celebrating a man selling ice cream (in all of its flavors), singing Italian songs.
― clemenza, Saturday, 21 March 2015 01:20 (nine years ago) link
funny you should say that, since the hot dog place closest to me when i was growing up was owned by chicago's manager and had all their gold records on the wall, so the band chicago is inextricably linked in my mind to hot dogs, fries, and soft-serve ice cream.
anyway, this thread has gotten pretty entertaining!
please don't go dragging down "one toke over the line" with your "horse with no name," though. "one toke over the line" is a great pop song. also, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tdmaEhMHE
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:32 (nine years ago) link
i mean, at least "one toke over the line" is genuinely weird! "horse with no name" is not weird, although it wants to be.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:33 (nine years ago) link
A horse is pretty great. The "la la la" part is spooky as hell. Who cares about the lyrics, yall hate on Toto - Africa as well?
― brimstead, Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:43 (nine years ago) link
no it's pretty great. the chorus part is melodic as hell.
― mattresslessness, Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:47 (nine years ago) link
super melodious.
― mattresslessness, Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:48 (nine years ago) link
No I like AfricaI guess I like America ok too
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:50 (nine years ago) link
They are both songs that seemed really spooky & sad & big & meaningful to me when I was a small child & even as they revealed their own cheap tackiness there's still some element of the old feelings there, like how the country fair felt at night
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 21 March 2015 03:52 (nine years ago) link
it was spooky and sad and meaningful but the air was full of sound
― totally unachievable goals and no incentive to compromise (Sparkle Motion), Saturday, 21 March 2015 04:10 (nine years ago) link
yeah or just riding around in the family car at night looking out the window. the smell of dew on grass, that sort of thing. my cousin and i built this fort out of logs and scrap wood, it probably looked like a decrepit dog house, actually it was attached to the real dog house. that summer we would bring up a radio and sleep out on the roof. i remember one night being elevated into some kind of delicious ecstasy by one song that played, sailing over the moon when the guitar solo hit and then going on about how it was the kind of music i lived for and that all music should sound like it. that song was "(everything i do) i do it for you" by bryan adams.
― mattresslessness, Saturday, 21 March 2015 04:11 (nine years ago) link
the song is better if you picture he's in the desert at night
― brimstead, Saturday, 21 March 2015 04:58 (nine years ago) link
does any Neil song have such prominent bongos?
― mizzell, Saturday, 21 March 2015 11:56 (nine years ago) link
― marcos, Friday, March 20, 2015 7:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkau contraire, mein herr! "old enough to repay" all the things we've done for you, son, pay your debt to society (as a youthful offender, which you are re lawbreaking, being a hippie, or just being young and Young). How do you do this? Well, at the same time, you are "young enough to sell" your attractive wares, so get going, "make arrangements with yourself" and appointments with others. "You can't be twen-ty/On Sugar Mountain," you've either gotta be a kid or step "one toke over the line." You can't loiter. You're "sittin' downtown at a railway station" for a reason. It's a purpose-driven life and Brewer & Shipley know this. Are they "just" waiting for their man or Man? Purposeful as hell, son.
― dow, Saturday, 21 March 2015 13:56 (nine years ago) link
I can certainly see liking "One Toke Over the Line" more--I like it a lot, and anyway, we like what we like--but I have a harder time getting my head around the idea that "One Toke Over the Line" is the weirder of the two. It's sprightly country-pop--outside of the drug connotation, I think I could easily name a dozen records from the era that have a similar feel. (And lots of Jesus songs, ironic or not, from the same moment...that Lawrence Welk clip is mind-boggling). Outside of the guy whose thread this is, I can't think of anything that sounds like "A Horse with No Name."
― clemenza, Saturday, 21 March 2015 15:23 (nine years ago) link
i think there's a false dichotomy emerging here
one can like a song and still acknowledge its faults, like asinine lyrics
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Saturday, 21 March 2015 19:54 (nine years ago) link
I'm not sure if you're referring to "One Toke Over the Line" or "A Horse with No Name," or what that has to do with the question of weirdness. I'm speculating, but simple point: get 50 people to listen to both songs for the first time, and ask them which one's weirder. I say an overwhelming majority says "A Horse with No Name."
― clemenza, Saturday, 21 March 2015 20:57 (nine years ago) link
Never thought of "One Toke" as particularly weird, just a snapshot of Jesus Freak culture from an era where even stuffy evening TV variety shows dabbled in psychedelic pandering.
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 21 March 2015 22:21 (nine years ago) link
clemenza otm, it doesn't matter if a horse is intentionally weird, it just has this heavy 70s negative energy to it.
― brimstead, Sunday, 22 March 2015 00:24 (nine years ago) link
fading billboard in smog
― mattresslessness, Sunday, 22 March 2015 02:54 (nine years ago) link
― mizzell, Saturday, 21 March 2015 11:56 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
'on the beach' is pretty bongos-forward
― bizarro gazzara, Monday, 23 March 2015 10:17 (nine years ago) link
The songs from trans that were recorded with joe lala for his scrapped yacht rock album - ie "little thing called love" and "like an inca" are bongo fever
― da croupier, Monday, 23 March 2015 17:04 (nine years ago) link
yeah and joe lala adds a tropical vibe to a lot of the stills-young band LP. though with that album, you get the feeling neil was like: "um, congas...? sure, whatever!"
― tylerw, Monday, 23 March 2015 17:30 (nine years ago) link
I just got the deeper meaning of 'I Want to Drive My Car'
― Team Foxcatcherwatcher (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 25 March 2015 18:29 (nine years ago) link