Neil Young—Time Fades Away

Neil Young—Time Fades Away

Time Fades Away—Neil Young has written and recorded innumerable songs in his more than 50-year career. Counting live and soundtrack albums, as well as his compilations, which often feature until-then unreleased material, he has nearly recorded his age in albums. There are at least ten others that were rejected by his record labels or shelved by the artist in favor of others. Despite his apparent dissatisfaction with albums like Homegrown or Chrome Dreams that led him to relegate them to the archives, he generally lets the material itself eventually see the light of day on other releases or in live performances. Some of his albums are harder to find today than others; Trans (1982) has only been reissued twice on CD, and not for almost twenty years. However, there is one album that, since its initial release, has completely disappeared from the radar, and that album is Time Fades Away.

Harvest (1972) and the #1 single "Heart of Gold" took Young to true stardom. He famously remarked in the liner notes of Decade (1977), "This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there," which has led fans to refer to the three subsequent albums (Time Fades Away, On the Beach [1974], and Tonight's the Night [1975]) as "the Ditch Trilogy." These three albums also document a period in which life was rough for Young and his bandmates; most of them were abusing drugs and alcohol heavily, due in part to the grief associated with the deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten in November 1972 and roadie Bruce Berry in June 1973 from drug misuse. The majority of material that appears on Time Fades Away was recorded after Whitten's death, but shortly before Berry's, from a period of time February 11–April 1, 1973.

Young toured with the Stray Gators, a band that had evolved into a jumble of members of different groups: David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jack Nitszche, and members of Young's studio band from Harvest, but with new drummer Johnny Barbata, who replaced Kenny Buttrey mid-tour. The assembly of musicians coming in with different expectations and lifestyles resulted in friction concerning how the music was played onstage as well as compensation, and so Young only reluctantly released Time Fades Away in October the same year. He persistently remembered the tour so bitterly that he never once reissued the album until 2014 as part of a box set and as a download on his own music distribution service, Pono. Nevertheless, Time Fades Away has been an enduring part of Young's catalog, being widely bootlegged and pirated—the most taboo Neil Young album, if there is such a thing.

The rollicking "Time Fades Away" begins with the line, "Fourteen junkies/Too weak to work," possibly referencing the band and their associates themselves, reminiscent of "The Needle and the Damage Done." The song continues Young's long-standing relationship with time, nostalgia, and things lost ("Sugar Mountain," "Words (Between the Lines of Age)," "Old Man"), as he does on the lovely "Journey Through the Past," which makes its first official appearance after being a concert favorite for years already and the title of his 1972 film and accompanying soundtrack. "Yonder Stands the Sinner" is a sideways take on self-loathing; "L.A." is a subversive tribute or lampooning of the City of Angels, which, nota bene, is where Danny Whitten died. "Love in Mind" is the odd one out, dating from 1971 during Young's Journey Through the Past tour, documented more fully in the concert album Live at Massey Hall 1971 (2007), which was nearly released in place of Harvest.

"Don't Be Denied" is Young's statement on staying true in the face of adversity, obliquely referencing Led Zeppelin ("Well, all that glitters isn't gold/I know you've heard that story told"), which likely relates to Young's decision to refrain from reprising Harvest (Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album and the song "Stairway to Heaven," which references the centuries-old proverb, were contemporary works). "The Bridge" is a minor but pleasing ballad that foreshadows Tonight's the Night. "Last Dance" is a ragged acknowledgement of everyday mundanity that, fittingly, usually closed the concerts or was played as an encore.

Though it's unfortunate that Neil Young had to suffer through the period of its recording dates, Time Fades Away is an engaging spectacle with some forgotten gems. It is a victory for fans that this music has recently become more available, giving them a fuller picture of one of the most rewarding stretches of Young's career.