Homegrown (2020)

After finishing On The Beach, Neil did a somewhat strange thing. Instead of going out to tour the album, he joined again with Crosby, Stills, and Nash for a massive tour. It was an extravagant affair full of money and giant arenas all over the world. They had custom pillows silkscreened with a drawing of the band by Joni Mitchell. Limos idling by hotels all day, a guy in charge of the coke, and just gobs and gobs of money changing hands. It was the excess of the music industry writ large. One reason for this is that Elliot Roberts got it going but turned it over to the mega promoter Bill Graham, who turned it into a profit generating machine. One casualty of this tour would be the relationship with Carrie Snodgress. Things would come to a head several times and by the time the tour was over, Neil was asking her to move out of the ranch. That would be the genesis of Homegrown and a big reason why this completed album was put in a vault for 45 years, with only a couple songs sneaking out on to other albums in the meantime. Which is a shame because this is really the epilogue to the Ditch Trilogy, showing a vulnerable Neil speaking frankly about the wreckage of a relationship that spanned the previous three albums.

One of Neil’s longest collaborators is a man named Tim Mulligan. He came to the ranch with Carrie’s crew from Chicago and became Neil’s front of house mixer and in-house mastering engineer. I read a quote once that nothing leaves the Neil camp without Mulligan touching it and blessing the mix. And this is the guy who leaped for the record button just as Neil, Ben Keith, Tim Drummond, and The Band’s Levon Helm launched into “Separate Ways.” You can thank him for that wonderful little warble that begins this somewhat ramshackle album. “Separate Ways” is straight out a breakup song and finds Neil lamenting the dissolution while at the same time celebrating their shared life through son Zeke Young. I think it’s a gorgeous song, with a laidback feel that belies its heavy subject matter. If songs on On The Beach sounded like they were coming from a coma due to the honey slides, “Separate Ways” would be right there with them in its slow, floating feel.

“Separate Ways” and several other songs were recorded at Quadrafonic with Elliot Mazer in a return to the combination that gave us Harvest. Neil has called this a missing link and it makes sense. In another life, this is the follow-up to Harvest that people expected, but twisted by a few years of grief, exhaustion, alcohol, and drugs. Plus, Harvest was the beginning of the relationship with Carrie and Homegrown is the end. “Try” could certainly have fit on the former album with a pretty country lilt and earnest lyrics that show Neil was still attempting to repair their relationship but unsure it would work. Ben Keith again makes the pedal steel sing and EmmyLou Harris drops by to harmonize the “ooh ooh.” It’s too bad that the trying would come to nothing.

One of the non-Quadrafonic songs is the (on the face) pretty ballad “Mexico.” With just Neil on piano, it gives the impression of being a sad and plaintive song, but the lyrics tell a different story. One of running away to Mexico to find some other forms of love. It’s followed by a rendition of “Love is a Rose,” the reworked “Dance Dance Dance.” I’ve compared these two songs a couple times and I think I come down on the side of a live “Dance Dance Dance” being the better form. If you compare this Homegrown take to the Massey Hall stomp for “Dance Dance Dance,” there’s no question to me. Likewise, I think I like other versions of “Homegrown” more, particularly the Way Down in the Rust Bucket version. Crazy Horse just seems to give it the rickety scaffolding it needs.

I don’t even know what to say about “Florida.” It truly gives the impression of Neil and Ben just drunkenly talking in the studio one day and messing around with drinking glasses and piano strings. “Kansas” is a slight but lovely, hopeful acoustic song, something that wouldn’t have been out of place on Neil’s many acoustic shows in the years prior. Following that with the goofy jam “We Don’t Smoke It No More” is pretty funny. I think it’s about coke, but who knows?

I love this version of “White Line,” a song that would first officially be released on Ragged Glory 15 years later in an electrified version. The acoustic renditions of this song are sadder and more wistful. Whereas the electric version is an anthem, when played in this slower, acoustic way, Neil’s vocal is almost mournful, as if this is a memory of happier times. So it makes sense that he made this version as he was breaking it off with Carrie, but then rerecorded it in a happier version during his marriage with Peggy. This song features just Neil and The Band’s Robbie Robertson, and I really like Robertson’s guitar flourishes throughout the song. “Vacancy” is a very 70s song and could have easily been a CSNY song (it’s shocking he never played this on the ‘74 tour). I like it but there’s something a bit generic about it.

“Little Wing” is a beautiful song that will have its first release on Hawks & Doves in 1980. It’s the same take, but it took five years for Neil to put it on an album, showing just how personal this album’s content was to him at the time. His harmonica has a really great sound to it. Of note, he ends up playing this in a fantastic electric version with the short-lived band The Ducks. Listen to it on the recently released High Flyin’ compilation. It’s awesome. Closing out Homegrown is “Star of Bethlehem,” which winds up on 1977’s American Stars ‘n’ Bars. It’s a nice song with a little country lope, almost a traveling song. I’m not sure how it fits into the break up narrative but it’s a pretty way to end the album.

Top 3:

1. Separate Ways
2. White Line
3. Little Wing

Cut song: Florida

There were many other songs recorded at this time (30+ songs in about six months) and many of them show up on Archives Vol. 2, particularly Disc 6: The Old Homestead. Definitely check that out to complete this era of Neil.

Thanks for reading Only Castles Burning! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.