Prairie Wind (2005)

Mortality was much on Neil Young’s mind in the spring of 2005. In March, while working on Prairie Wind, he suffered a brain aneurysm and went in for surgery. After passing out a couple days later from complications, he had to cancel a Juno Awards appearance. In the midst of this, his father, the writer Scott Young, was suffering from vascular dementia, and would pass away in June 2005. All of this was on Neil’s mind as he worked on the album and it pervades most of the songs. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt album. That said, I’m not sure I’ll return to it. While the music is gorgeous and it’s immaculately produced, the lyrics and vocals are a little awkward. There’s a bluntness to his lyrics and vocals that is unlike his usual opaqueness. A little mystery could have improved the songs for me. The album is sequenced in the order the songs were recorded, so Neil suffered the aneurysm just before he recorded “The Painter,” and then had the surgery just before “He Was The King.” So…mortality might have rushed things along a bit:

SIMON: I have to ask a question--I'm--forgive me if it's just a little brusque, but did you--did you feel you had to lay down all those songs then because you might not get the chance?

Mr. YOUNG: Well, you know, I always feel like I have to lay down all the songs because I might not get a chance. So that it was--even though there was in reality some reason to believe that, it wasn't that much different from the way I usually approach things... (Interview with Neil Young, NPR, 9/17/2005)

“The Painter” starts things off with a poignant and wistful comparison between painting and life. Painting what you see, but trying not to get lost if you attempt too much (Neil knows a lot about this concept). He touches on the loss of friends, but takes comfort that they are always with him in the sounds they made (and recorded) together, much like how a painter captures memories in their images. It’s a great way to set the frame for the album. To bring home the memories of times past, Neil adapts the main riff and melody of “Captain Kennedy” (from Hawks & Doves) on “No Wonder.” It’s too bad the song contains the most awkward lyrics on the album (that Chris Rock reference sticks out especially). The heavy rock drum breakdown and inclusion of Old Black mixed with the country style give the song a somewhat 80s feel, making this perhaps the most out of place song on the album. I think the lyrics are a bit muddied by the references, but it also addresses the passage of time and loss.

One of the prettiest songs on the album is “Falling Off The Face Of The Earth,” which is where Neil brings the concept of love into his meditations on mortality. It’s a simpler song in content and instrumentation, and works wonderfully. Despite his father dying a couple months after recording “Far From Home,” Neil is already talking about his impending loss. Amongst some gorgeous and fat horns by the legendary Memphis Horns, Neil relates his father’s desire to be buried out on the prairie. Soon enough, it becomes Neil’s desire as well and he talks about various travels across the country. While still in a country vein, the Memphis Horns bring this slightly into the Stax/Volt arena (Otis could be singing this song!) and it makes me wish Neil had cracked the code on his various attempts at soul music. This is already a better attempt than Are You Passionate? While “It’s a Dream” is a nice composition, I think Neil is reaching a bit too much on the vocals here. There’s no doubt what he’s comparing to a dream on this album.

“Tryin' to remember what my Daddy said/Before too much time took away his head” is a devastating way to start “Prairie Wind,” my favorite song on the album. The Memphis Horns lay down a foreboding wail while Spooner Oldham’s elegiac organ makes this song like a hymnal. The backing vocals float along like a small choir. Neil’s guitar work on this song is amongst the best on the album, too. There’s no doubt he’s drawing a line between his brain aneurysm and his father’s stroke and subsequent dementia at the time. It’s a fitting track for the album to be named after as it does everything in one song that he does in pieces elsewhere on the album. All the emotions are here.

While “Here For You” is nothing special and too saccharine by far, “This Old Guitar” is a special moment. On this album, Neil’s acoustic guitar is “Hank,” the 1941 Martin D-28 once owned by Hank Williams. He brings in EmmyLou Harris to duet with him on this ode to guitars in general (Neil does a little “Harvest Moon” riff in the song to tie it all back to his own history). Famously Neil considers himself just a caretaker of “Hank,” and the song acknowledges one day it will be passed on to someone else. Mortality and legacy much, Neil? It’s a lovely song, gentle and intimate, like the most meaningful of relationships. EmmyLou’s higher register vocal is sad and perfect. There’s a great little documentary on the Neil Young Archives that shows the making of this song and Neil tells her he thought of her for this because he knows how much she loves her guitar. It comes through in her voice.

That Neil Young humor is in full force when he follows up the quiet and restrained “This Old Guitar” with a wild and joyful ode to Elvis. “He Was The King” is at once a celebration of the many sides of Elvis that people knew and a subtle acknowledgement that rock stars are different things to different people in memory. The Horns are back on this one and I love it. Neil is giving it his all, showing his love of the King. The band chatter before and after the song capture the hilarity of playing a song so wild, too. It’s quite funny to have this song sandwiched between “This Old Guitar” and the closing hymnal “When God Made Me.” As a non-spiritual person, it’s hard for me to make much of this closer, but it’s quite nice. The message is almost a bit more about the oldest question: why am I here? That’s a little more in my wheelhouse and I can see how Neil is approaching the subject of God and purpose through that lens. It’s a fitting concept to close out this long meditation.

Top 3:

1. Prairie Wind
2. This Old Guitar
3. Far From Home

Cut song: When God Made Me. It’s very beautiful, but not my thing.

The film Heart of Gold by Jonathan Demme contains perhaps the most shocking sight in Neil Young’s entire career: someone else playing Old Black! Grant Boatwright mans the legendary ax for “No Wonder.” I remember there was a story of Neil watching Steve Jordan wail on Old Black during the Landing on Water sessions, but I have to tell you, seeing someone else playing it just makes me nervous!

That aside, Heart of Gold is a wonderful film. Lovingly filmed, it contains a lot of moments of pure emotion and camaraderie. And unlike the album it showcases, it is something I’ll return to often. It was filmed in August 2005 during a two night stint at the Ryman Auditorium, the home of the Grand Ole Opry for 30 years. The first half consists of the majority of Prairie Wind, followed by a retrospective of Neil’s songs recorded in Nashville. There are joys to be had throughout and I’ll focus on those.

Neil talks about his father quite a bit, particularly before “Far From Home,” a song that really rips live. And when he talks about “Here For You” and coming terms with his daughter leaving home for college, you can tell he’s thinking of his own father at the time. “This Old Guitar” is a beautiful moment of stagecraft. Neil appears to be alone on stage (the band is in shadow) until EmmyLou steps up during the first chorus and the line “Or someone else I suppose.”

Neil and EmmyLou really put their feet into an old favorite of mine, “Old King.” While Neil goes to town on the banjo, EmmyLou is stomping and singing her heart out. The whole band really does this song justice. Watching EmmyLou smile at Neil sniffing around the mic in his ode to a canine friend is a joy. I could listen to them do this song over and over. The banjo is just so powerfully played and every time the chorus comes around, the entire band follows EmmyLou’s lead, amping up the energy to the roof.

Then we get to a moment that puts shivers up my spine. The lights come up on a row of guitar players, Neil, EmmyLou, Peggy, Grant Boatwright, even guitar tech Larry Cragg and Neil says in his funny way “Is there a guitar player in the house?” This moment of levity precedes Neil dedicating “Comes a Time” to Nicolette Larson, the musician who sang with Neil on Comes a Time and appeared with him live a few times. She died in 1997, just four years after appearing with Neil for MTV’s Unplugged. She also had sang with EmmyLou Harris. While Nicolette did have a relationship with Neil at the time of Comes a Time, it’s Peggy that Neil has eyes for here and when they look at each other while singing, it makes your heart melt. I gotta hand it to the camera work on this song, too. The camera moves around the stage, evoking “Oh, this old world keeps spinnin' 'round,” but without making it dizzy. A moving and gorgeous performance. Peggy’s smile at the footage fades to black is just beautiful.

Lastly, to put the final word on the theme of Prairie Wind, Neil sings “The Old Laughing Lady” by himself to an empty theater. It’s a little on the nose, sure, but perfectly deployed here and amongst his best performances of his earliest song about death. Demme did two more films about Neil and I’m looking forward to seeing them. Hopefully they are as well crafted as Heart of Gold (PS: this film is on Amazon Prime. Go watch it!)

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