Broken Arrow (1996)

When [David Briggs] died years later, I did exactly what he asked me to do after he was gone, just like he asked me to do, some personal things that I know he would not want me to share with you. They had to do with how he felt about some people and how they should be dealt with. (Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace, 2012)

David Briggs died November 26, 1995, four months before recording sessions for Broken Arrow began. It would be the first Crazy Horse-backed Neil album that Briggs didn’t produce. Instead, Neil is listed as the sole producer with the album being recorded in the same space as Ragged Glory using an engineer recommended by Briggs. According to Shakey, Neil and Briggs had fallen out for awhile after Sleeps with Angels, when Neil took off with Pearl Jam. However, they reconciled in September, with Neil spending hours alone with him. Most of what they talked about Neil hasn’t spoken about, but apparently Briggs gave Neil some advice:

One thing that David [Briggs] stressed was that Neil had done so much, so many different things, in his music that he should pare down to the essentials — get closer to the source. (Jimmy McDonough, Shakey, 2002)

On Broken Arrow, Neil seems to take this to heart. It’s full of long jams that sound like the best parts of Crazy Horse live performances, but with studio recording. I feel like that’s what Neil and Briggs had been striving for since they started working together. I really missed something when my musical tastes veered off during college, because Broken Arrow is fantastic and unexpected for this time period. It’s at once a throwback and completely true to what makes this combination of musicians so enduring. An underrated and unsung album, to be sure.

To get in the mood for this album, Neil and Horse played a series of shows (as The Echoes) at small venues near Neil’s ranch off Route 1. These would be sub-150 occupancy places, where the band would be on floor level, ten feet in front of the audiences. The set lists ranged all over place. Adopting something he picked up from Pearl Jam, they erected Echo Village outside for the band and crew to hang out together in, building camaraderie before each show. This created the perfect atmosphere for them to feel comfortable together and lead to the fruitful recording sessions back at Neil’s ranch. With some of Briggs’ ashes secreted in an amp, the band played their beloved producer off.

The first mournful words of Broken Arrow are “Gonna leave the pain behind,” but the chorus “I’m still livin’ in the dream we had/For me it’s not over” is the ode to Briggs contained within opener “Big Time.” For me, this song is a newly discovered classic in the Neil canon. Gorgeous guitar and a subtle groove from the Horse. Briggs’ advice quoted above is on Neil’s mind in "Loose Change,” where he sings about having too many distractions and a desire to “get back home.” It’s quite remarkable how upfront this album is about Briggs. Every song and choice seems to lead back to the infamous producer. “Loose Change” is a sludgy workout, complete with wild harmonica and a hammered home breakdown where the band almost seems stuck for a moment (“We were playing David on his way,” says Poncho in Shakey).

The connection is less easy to see in “Slip Away,” but for me I interpret its tale of a “she” slipping away as potentially about how Neil took Briggs’ death, a portion of himself disappearing. Truly remarkable guitar on here, where Neil slips back into blues territory throughout. It’s heartfelt playing and when his voice floats back in, the band is doing a great job at creating an elegiac atmosphere. “Changing Highways” is an odd one, very dreamlike lyrics about a stranger in the room asking “is this our music?” Hard to pin down the meaning of these visuals, but the music is more rockin’ than the first three songs, with a more pronounced country lilt and structure. It’s possible this was included since it’s a song that Neil and Horse had tried in 1974 when Poncho first joined the band but before they recorded Briggs’ favorite Zuma.

I love the entire vibe of “Scattered (Let’s Think About Livin’)” and it’s heavy with Briggs. “Hear your name wherever I go” must have been Neil’s entire life at the time this was recorded. But he’s all scattered in his mind without his friend by his side. The wall of sound created by Neil and Poncho’s guitar is just gorgeous. They don’t often do this type of feedback wall but it’s employed here beautifully. I just wish this was one of the longer songs, it seems to be begging for a long solo, but at only four minutes, there isn’t much time for one.

“This Town” is one of the least interesting songs on this album, despite being well constructed. It’s the first song on the album that sounds of the time it was made, the late 90s, as rock bands started moving on from the grunge and into a more pop vein. “Music Arcade” is a lovely hushed acoustic epilogue to this heavy album. The mention of a comet in the sky making him feel good hearkens back to “Scattered” and equating with Briggs with a comet.

The particularly odd Neil moment comes from the final track, a long cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me To Do.” It’s an audience quality recording from one of those Echoes gigs that kicked off the Broken Arrow recording time period. It’s a strange choice for Neil, given how much he cares about audio quality (something he shared with Briggs), but my assumption is that he wanted something that reflected a genuine moment as close to the source as possible. Covering a blues classic in a small bar is about as close as you can get to the source of rock ‘n’ roll.

Top 3:

1. Scattered (Let’s Think About Livin’)
2. Big Time
3. Slip Away

Cut song: This Town

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