Tag Archives: Ditch Trilogy

Song of the Week – Tonight’s the Night, Neil Young

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Neil+Young+1973+PhotoLast week’s post was about the first album in Neil Young’s “Ditch Trilogy” – Time Fades Away. The next is Tonight’s the Night. This may be somewhat confusing to some Young fans because TTN was released after On the Beach, even though it was recorded before. But it makes more sense to deal with them in chronological order in the context of the Ditch Trilogy story.

Part 1 of the this series dropped off with the live album Time Fades Away, recorded on the tour that began right after the heroin overdose death of friend and bandmate Danny Whitten in November 1972. A few months later, in June 1973, tragedy would strike again when Young’s friend and roadie Bruce Berry would also succumb to the drug.

This time Young reacted by pulling together that band to grieve and record. They would hang out at his ranch and play pool and party from early evening until the wee hours of the morning when they would turn their attentions to recording. The resulting TTN is a ragged set of cuts, even by Young’s standards. So the album was finished in just a few days in August 1973 at Studio Instrument Rentals, a rehearsal space owned by Berry’s brother Jan (as in Jan of Jan and Dean).

In Young’s book Waging Heavy Peace, he describes TTN as “a wake of sorts.” He admits the LP was “recorded in audio verite, if you will, while completely intoxicated on Jose Cuervo tequila.”

The SotW has got to be the title song.

You can feel the pain in Young’s voice as he bios the life and death of Berry, especially the way he yowls the lyrics in the final verse.

Bruce Berry was a working man
He used to load that Econoline van.
A sparkle was in his eye
But his life was in his hands

Well, late at night
when the people were gone
He used to pick up my guitar
And sing a song in a shaky voice
That was real as the day was long.

Early in the mornin’
at the break of day
He used to sleep
until the afternoon.
If you never heard him sing
I guess you won’t too soon.

‘Cause people let me tell you
It sent a chill
up and down my spine
When I picked up the telephone
And heard that he’d died
out on the mainline.

The mixing for the sessions was tortured. Ultimately the tapes were put away for two years before they were dusted off and finally released, thanks in part to The Band’s Rick Danko. Danko was previewing a tape of Young’s latest album Homegrown (still unreleased) in early 1975. The TTN recordings were on the same tape. When Danko heard TTN he said “You ought to put THAT out!” So he did, in June 1975.

In Waging Heavy Peace Young also says “The album was risky and real. It was a real mess of a recording, with no respect given to technical issues, although it sounds like God when played loud…”

Turn it up!

I’ll post he final installment of the Ditch Trilogy – On the Beach – next time.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Don’t Be Denied, Neil Young

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Between February 1972 and April 1973 Neil Young recorded three of his darkest and most misunderstood albums. Coming off the success of his work with Crosby, Stills and Nash, then his blockbuster country rock album Harvest (1972), he had the music world eating out of his hand. He even had a #1 hit with Harvest’s “Heart of Gold.”

But Young famously wrote in the liner notes to his Decades compilation: “‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.” This quote is responsible for the next three albums – Time Fades Away, Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach – to become known as “The Ditch Trilogy.”

When Time Fades Away was released, fans expecting the follow up to Harvest to contain more material in the singer/songwriter vein were caught by surprise. Was Young intentionally trying to sabotage his own career? Clearly, they weren’t aware of the anguish Young was facing at the time – the first hint of which he tossed out on Harvest’s “The Needle and the Damage Done” – a song that bore his observations of the effects of bandmate Danny Whitten’s heroin addiction.

In fact, Young and his band were rehearsing for a tour to promote Harvest at his ranch south of San Francisco when Whitten’s substance abuse caused him to struggle to learn and play his parts. Though Young tried to help him out, he was finally persuaded it wasn’t going to work out. He gave Whitten $50 bucks and a ticket back to LA. That night Whitten ODed and died. Young felt responsible.

But the tour was about to begin, so Young headed out on the road with no time to grieve. Instead, he dropped the material he was supposed to promote and instead played a set of loud, menacing, new songs that were a better reflection of his mood. That became the live album Time Fades Away.

The signature song from Time Fades Away is “Don’t Be Denied”, penned the day after Whitten died.

Its autobiographical lyrics cover Young’s journey from his father’s abandonment to schoolyard bullying, to rock and roll stardom. But he ruefully concludes:

Well, all that glitters isn’t gold
I know you’ve heard that story told.
And I’m a pauper in a naked disguise
A millionaire through a business man’s eyes.

Part 2 of the trilogy – Tonight’s the Night – is coming next week.

Enjoy… until next week.