Album: Time Fades Away
Recorded: February-April 1973
Released: October 1973
Highlights: Don't Be Denied, L.A. and Time Fades Away
Album rating: B-
Recorded: February-April 1973
Released: October 1973
Songs / length: 8 / 34:33
Time Fades Away is a bit of a curio in Neil Young's discography. It's of huge interest to his fans because it's the first in his "ditch" trilogy, while the album has also attained general cult status for being out of print for so long. In a 2010 Uncut poll of the greatest "lost" albums ever, Time Fades Away was listed at #1 ahead of Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby (later released on iTunes after Von Vliet's death in 2011, then physical releases in 2014-15), Van Morrison's St Dominic's Preview (still out of print, but available on streaming platforms) and The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl (released in 2016 along with the Ron Howard film). Time Fades Away has never been reissued on CD, but it is now available on vinyl and streaming platforms, and my first time listening to it was on the Neil Young Archives site earlier this year.
Confession: I don't understand the fuss. Sure, the LP is an interesting document of a critical moment in Young's career, and it was novel for an artist to release a live concert recording of previously unreleased material, but beyond that the sound quality and songwriting is below par. Now that Archives Vol. 2 is due for imminent release, covering this transitional period in Young's life, I'm hopeful that something superior to Time Fades Away will soon come along, perhaps including remastered versions of the songs, plus outtakes from the late 1972 tour rehearsals and even alternate versions from earlier shows featuring Kenny Buttrey on drums. I'd also prefer complete live sets to songs from various shows spliced together, as is the case here with Time Fades Away.
The tour took place from late December 1972 until early April 1973, and all of the songs on Time Fades Away except for Love In Mind (which is taken from the same UCLA concert in January 1971 as Needle & The Damage Done on Harvest) were recorded during the tour's final two months:
You have to admire Young's dogged determination to keep evolving as an artist during this time, notably his decision to play lots of new non-Harvest material on a 90-city tour to promote Harvest, which by May 1972 had become the #1 selling album in the US. 1972-73 was a disruptive time for Young on both a political (Watergate scandal breaking in June 1972) and personal level (Danny Whitten's death aged 29 in November 1972) and his output became erratic and unproductive; in 1972, he recorded just two songs – the single War Song, with Graham Nash and the Stray Gators, released in May, and Lookout Joe, also with the Stray Gators and one of the songs to appear on his 1975 LP, Tonight's The Night. If any period in Young's life requires a series of archive releases it's the early-to-mid 70s, when getting to grips with the chronology of his tours and recordings is no easy task.
That said, though Time Fades away is a muddy-sounding document of disintegration, it still has its merits, not least the band's unique sound. Young was using a new guitar on this tour (Gibson Flying V) after he’d lost the pickup for Old Black, and this combined with Ben Keith’s pedal steel guitar makes for a brilliant combination, especially on the title track. Don't Be Denied is another favourite of mine on the album, a song that Young reportedly wrote the day after Whitten died, its emotional and autobiographical lyrics about overcoming adversity and keeping your artistic integrity (i.e. better to head for the ditch than interact with Sunset Strip "businessmen"). Another highlight is L.A., which depicts a hellscape city ("And the freeways are crammed / and the mountains erupt / and the valley is sucked / into cracks in the earth"); lyrically, it's another of Young's eco-apocalyptic songs, apparently addressed to someone who doesn't believe that this "city in the smog" is facing ruin.
There are love songs in this collection too, notably piano-based ballads Love In Mind, Journey Through The Past and The Bridge, which add to the general melancholy of the album. Time's a-wasting is a common theme in Young's songs, from Sugar Mountain to Old Man, and The Bridge voices his awareness that building a strong emotional bond ("the bridge") takes a lot of time and that lies can unravel the whole process. The title track Time Fades Away appears to be about the dual threat to young people at that time, specifically young men, of drug addiction ("fourteen junkies too weak too work") and being sent off to war ("All day presidents look out windows. All night sentries watch the moonglow"), while the heavy rocking Last Dance seems to be addressed to working people, encouraging them to drop the 9-5. Some of the lyrics are harder to parse, notably those for Yonder Stands The Sinner, with its reference to the old spiritual song Sinnerman, made popular by Nina Simone in the mid-60s, and a mysterious figure called the Great Pretender.
In his autobiography, Young calls this his worst album, and though that's obviously an overstatement based on bad memories of the tour – the haze of tequila and weed while mourning the loss of Danny Whitten, and the financial wrangles with Kenny Buttrey, who was asking for higher fees to tour, causing the rest of the band to up their demands too – it's also based on musical considerations. Young came to the realisation on this tour that he and the Stray Gators just weren't suited to playing big stadiums, unlike Led Zeppelin in the early 70s, and that smaller venues were more his style. Crosby & Nash also had to come in near the end of the tour to add some cover to Young's faltering vocals. You can sense instead how much more relaxed he is on other live albums like Roxy, recorded in late 1973, an album I much prefer (and to be reviewed on the next blog). In my view, a significant element of Time Fades Away's cult status was built on its scarcity, and now that fans can listen to more and more higher-quality recordings from this fascinating period in his life and entire live sets, including Young's witty interactions with the crowd, I think the value of this album is dropping.
"Heart of Gold put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore
so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people there"
– Neil Young, liner notes to Decade
Time Fades Away is a bit of a curio in Neil Young's discography. It's of huge interest to his fans because it's the first in his "ditch" trilogy, while the album has also attained general cult status for being out of print for so long. In a 2010 Uncut poll of the greatest "lost" albums ever, Time Fades Away was listed at #1 ahead of Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby (later released on iTunes after Von Vliet's death in 2011, then physical releases in 2014-15), Van Morrison's St Dominic's Preview (still out of print, but available on streaming platforms) and The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl (released in 2016 along with the Ron Howard film). Time Fades Away has never been reissued on CD, but it is now available on vinyl and streaming platforms, and my first time listening to it was on the Neil Young Archives site earlier this year.
Confession: I don't understand the fuss. Sure, the LP is an interesting document of a critical moment in Young's career, and it was novel for an artist to release a live concert recording of previously unreleased material, but beyond that the sound quality and songwriting is below par. Now that Archives Vol. 2 is due for imminent release, covering this transitional period in Young's life, I'm hopeful that something superior to Time Fades Away will soon come along, perhaps including remastered versions of the songs, plus outtakes from the late 1972 tour rehearsals and even alternate versions from earlier shows featuring Kenny Buttrey on drums. I'd also prefer complete live sets to songs from various shows spliced together, as is the case here with Time Fades Away.
The tour took place from late December 1972 until early April 1973, and all of the songs on Time Fades Away except for Love In Mind (which is taken from the same UCLA concert in January 1971 as Needle & The Damage Done on Harvest) were recorded during the tour's final two months:
Journey Through The Past – 11th February 1973 (Cleveland, Ohio)
L.A. and Time Fades Away – 1st March 1973 (Oklahoma City)
Yonder Stands The Sinner – 17th March 1973 (Seattle)
Don't Be Denied – 28th March 1973 (Phoenix, Arizona)
Last Dance – 29th March 1973 (San Diego, CA)
The Bridge – 1st April (Sacramento, CA)
That said, though Time Fades away is a muddy-sounding document of disintegration, it still has its merits, not least the band's unique sound. Young was using a new guitar on this tour (Gibson Flying V) after he’d lost the pickup for Old Black, and this combined with Ben Keith’s pedal steel guitar makes for a brilliant combination, especially on the title track. Don't Be Denied is another favourite of mine on the album, a song that Young reportedly wrote the day after Whitten died, its emotional and autobiographical lyrics about overcoming adversity and keeping your artistic integrity (i.e. better to head for the ditch than interact with Sunset Strip "businessmen"). Another highlight is L.A., which depicts a hellscape city ("And the freeways are crammed / and the mountains erupt / and the valley is sucked / into cracks in the earth"); lyrically, it's another of Young's eco-apocalyptic songs, apparently addressed to someone who doesn't believe that this "city in the smog" is facing ruin.
There are love songs in this collection too, notably piano-based ballads Love In Mind, Journey Through The Past and The Bridge, which add to the general melancholy of the album. Time's a-wasting is a common theme in Young's songs, from Sugar Mountain to Old Man, and The Bridge voices his awareness that building a strong emotional bond ("the bridge") takes a lot of time and that lies can unravel the whole process. The title track Time Fades Away appears to be about the dual threat to young people at that time, specifically young men, of drug addiction ("fourteen junkies too weak too work") and being sent off to war ("All day presidents look out windows. All night sentries watch the moonglow"), while the heavy rocking Last Dance seems to be addressed to working people, encouraging them to drop the 9-5. Some of the lyrics are harder to parse, notably those for Yonder Stands The Sinner, with its reference to the old spiritual song Sinnerman, made popular by Nina Simone in the mid-60s, and a mysterious figure called the Great Pretender.
In his autobiography, Young calls this his worst album, and though that's obviously an overstatement based on bad memories of the tour – the haze of tequila and weed while mourning the loss of Danny Whitten, and the financial wrangles with Kenny Buttrey, who was asking for higher fees to tour, causing the rest of the band to up their demands too – it's also based on musical considerations. Young came to the realisation on this tour that he and the Stray Gators just weren't suited to playing big stadiums, unlike Led Zeppelin in the early 70s, and that smaller venues were more his style. Crosby & Nash also had to come in near the end of the tour to add some cover to Young's faltering vocals. You can sense instead how much more relaxed he is on other live albums like Roxy, recorded in late 1973, an album I much prefer (and to be reviewed on the next blog). In my view, a significant element of Time Fades Away's cult status was built on its scarcity, and now that fans can listen to more and more higher-quality recordings from this fascinating period in his life and entire live sets, including Young's witty interactions with the crowd, I think the value of this album is dropping.
Highlights: Don't Be Denied, L.A. and Time Fades Away
Album rating: B-
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