After The Goldrush

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Dave Q - didn't the Band 'understand' the blues?

I'm prob. being too literal here, but Neil seems much more pampered and self-pitying than yer average bluesman, and more in touch w/ his feminine side. That weedy high voice of his isn't very 'masculine' - it admits to a softness, a fragility that's missing from Howlin' Wolf, say - although Ike Turner might've approved of 'Welfare Mothers' ("make better lovers") or any song called 'A Man Needs A Maid' (god I wish there was a whole alb of Young/Nietzsche orch pop, not just that track).

'After the Goldrush' has never been one of my real faves - yeah, 'On the Beach' is prob. THE one - the greatest alb in the world currently unavailable on CD? I was always slightly wary of 'Sleeps With Angels' 'cos of the Kurt trib, but actually it's one of his best recs ...

― Andrew L, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

To clarify my own thought -

1) I meant the song, not the LP;

2) I know it's not blues - it's not remotely blues: I meant in a Noel Coward- meets-Eric Hobsbawm sense. (Yes - *that* sense. ??)

3) Dr C - do you have a view?

― the pinefox, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes, or rather I will when I get the chance to listen to it again tonight. In general NY is of no interest to me, but this song is one of two or three of his that I like. Will report back.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yup, like it plenty: Album, song, even the Prelude cover.

― Matt Riedl (veal), Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

My fave Neil Young album by a long way. But I only have four. Midn you, the other three are Harvest, ...Knows This Is Nowhere... and that double live one. Rust Never Sleeps?

― Nick Southall, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think it is perhaps the most repugnant album ever made. Second only to Harvest.

― ^david_h(owie), Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

And I love Neil Young.

― ^david_h(owie), Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Even Journey Through The Past OST hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

― ^david_h(owie), Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

great album, great song. the only piano song on that album if i remember well. though the horn adds something to it. somehow this song makes me think of joni mitchell. they had a relation around that time. the lyrics are simple but difficult to decipher. i'd like to know to whom joni referred when she sang i could drink a case of you and i'd still be on my feet on blue. that was one year later. neil sings of the seventies when they just had begun. does the title after the goldrush refer to the end of the golden 60s flower power thing? it is a very melancholic song. by the way listening to this album helped in overcoming the break-up of my first big love story. i hated neil's voice before. especially in heart of gold from harvest.

― alex in mainhattan, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It is a great album and a great song. It's been many years since I've played it, one day I will again. Did I mention how great the song is?

I read somewhere that a bunch of copies were pressed with the image in the gatefold mistakenly being the image from "The Slider".

― Sean, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is that an old woman shaped backpack he has on his back on the cover?

― David H(owie), Saturday, 27 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

In the liner notes it says: "Most of these songs were inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Berman screenplay 'After the Goldrush'". I couldn't find any info on this in the Internet Movie Database. Is this screenplay fictitious? Coming back to the title, gold seems to play an important role for Neil. Gold implies greed and destruction of the nature and the natives to underline the power of the white man in Cortez the Killer. On the other hand gold has got an innocent pure connotation like in "I'm a miner for a heart of gold". Many interesting interpretations of the lyrics of this song can be found in the discussion here. Without reading those posts I would never have guessed that Neil possibly is singing about nuclear disaster.

― alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 27 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

six months pass...

in hopes to answer more than one question posed on this site.
after the goldrush was a screenplay, but it was never turned into a movie. this is why it is not on IMDB.
neil young is NOT a blues singer. anyone who makes this mistake does not know music. neil was first and formost a folk singer. his rock is amplified folk, or folk-rock (with a bit of country.)
the best example of this was everybody knows this is nowhere.(for the heavy)or goldrush(for the folkie)
everything after that phase (5-6 albums) was a genre exersize, and some are better than others.
TO RECAP:
NOT A BLUES MUSICIAN
IF YOU WANT BLUES.... LOOK UP JEFF BECK "TRUTH" OR SAVOY BROWN'S EARLY ALBUMS.
NEIL YOUNG DOES NOT PLAY THE BLUES.
AMPLIFIED FOLK WITH COUNTRY MUSIC THROWN-IN FOR GOOD MEASURE.
all the best.
brian.

― brian goldberg, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 04:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

neil was first and formost a folk singer. his rock is amplified folk, or folk-rock (with a bit of country.) ... NOT A BLUES MUSICIAN

exactement

Noel Coward- meets-Eric Hobsbawm

wtf does that mean?!

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 05:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

Has anyone ever read the (unproduced) Dean Stockwell screenplay? It has a wonderful, grandiose title appropriate to that era when the Western mythology was getting a makeover.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 07:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

since we're clarifying things in this thread with FACTS, man, can i add to mr goldberg's remarks by pointing out the pinefox is NOT a four-legged mammal related to the stoat but a human being

TO RECAP: i am NOT a character from a TV show created by Serge Danot in 1965, all appearances to the contrary

― zebedee, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 19:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

sixteen years pass...

Yay for Neil. (Three very famous women doing a pretty good cover of "After the Gold Rush" on the Grammys.)

― clemenza, Monday, 11 February 2019 02:03 (five years ago) link

Ha, just saw that. Was a little surprised.

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Monday, 11 February 2019 02:09 (five years ago) link

easily the evening's highlight too

― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 11 February 2019 02:11 (five years ago) link

Makes me sad kacey didn't foreshadow it with "space cowboy" though (going by Twitter, anyway)

― bhad bundy (Simon H.), Monday, 11 February 2019 02:13 (five years ago) link

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