Psychedelic Pill (2012)

It’s remarkable that Neil still has a song like “Ramada Inn” in him nearly 50 years after starting to write songs. Then again, it’s Neil Young and nothing should surprise me. He will always defy expectations. Just when you think he’s lost the plot, an album as good as Psychedelic Pill will appear (right after the strange detour of Americana, too). I liked Americana a lot more than I expected, but Psychedelic Pill is an incredible album with Crazy Horse.

My understanding is that Poncho pushed Neil after the Americana recordings to make a “real album” and they started jamming in early January. The first fruit of that is the “bonus” track “Horse Back” which was released on his website as kind of a preview of Americana (it revealed lyric sheets for those songs). It’s a 37-minute jam made up of a slow, instrumental version of “Fuckin’ Up” and a loose but wonderfully evocative “Cortez the Killer” that is pretty damn majestic. From there, they kept jamming, eventually coming up with the three long songs on Psychedelic Pill. To this, Neil added an unreleased song from 25 years previous, two songs that had been kicking around since Le Noise, and two short new ones.

An interesting complement to this album is Neil’s first memoir Waging Heavy Peace. It’s frequently concerned with his nascent Pono* project in his present day thoughts, but throughout the book, he talks about getting the Horse back together for what would become the Americana sessions. Those sessions would lead to this album and its nostalgia-inflected tone. Not only is it Neil and the Horse doing what they do best, but many of the lyrics are looking back and considering his life. These are the lyrics that recapture Neil’s early career magic. I think sitting down to write a book made Neil write more thoughtfully than he had in years. He always obscures the imagery when he’s talking about something personal to him (“Ramada Inn”). When he talks about a social or public issue, he’s more blunt, less poetic. He also stopped drinking at this time because he said it made him behave badly, something we will return to on the aforementioned “Ramada Inn.” He also dropped marijuana at the same time. Check out this great Grantland article for more exploring the relationship between Waging Heavy Peace and Psychedelic Pill.

One other important element of all this is that Neil got John Hanlon to install a new analog studio on his ranch for Americana. Hanlon is the heir to David Briggs in my mind, as he was who first employed Hanlon to record a Neil project, Ragged Glory. This Mix article shows the lengths they went to get a certain vibe and recording style together, using many of Neil’s old faithful soundboards, like the “green board” Briggs and Neil had used on many previous albums. This effort shows, as Americana and Psychedelic Pill have a distinctly warm and natural sound that albums produced by Neil’s frequent producer Niko Bolas tend not to have. Personally, I wish Neil would use Hanlon more. While he may not have the intense personality that Briggs used to push Neil, he’s got the recording and engineering down.

The long intro track “Driftin’ Back” is a good example of Neil’s blunter side. After a gentle acoustic intro, the song morphs into a 27 minute Horse jam where Neil makes oblique references to writing his memoir and complaining awkwardly about mp3s and audio compression. While the music is incredible, it’s essentially a free association diatribe about mp3s (“When you hear my song now/You only get five percent”).* I love the use of that acoustic intro as a sort of flashback indicator. You can picture Neil strumming along as the scene shifts to an old memory of his. To call this a song might be a stretch, but it’s made with love for Horse fans for sure. I can’t imagine any fan of Neil and the Horse turning down a chance to peek behind the curtain and hear what happens when they just jam for fun (as evidenced by the aforementioned “Horse Back”).

*A short aside about Pono, mp3s, and Neil. I never bought into the Pono player as it seemed unnecessary and convoluted. The debate about whether or not the human ear can really discern the difference in audio compression will rage forever. This article has a little blind test in it (the second test), if you care to give it a try. For myself, I got a subscription to Neil Young Archives early into this retrospective and played around with the helpful Hi-Res/CD/MP3 comparison selector. When flipping between them, I notice I can hear more sound in the Hi-Res setting than the MP3 setting. Mostly in the background sounds/reverb, so in that respect, yes, I’m hearing more detail. Is it better, though? I think so. When I listen to a straight MP3, the sound feels duller, less “full,” almost like the warmth of live instruments have been whittled away. This debate has a lot of confirmation bias, though, so I might be fooling myself (I was able to discern the difference in the blind test linked above, though). That said, I’ve been listening with this signal chain: Neil Young Archives Hi-Res on iPad > 24bit/192kHz DAC > Aux cable > a small stereo amplifier > Av123 Onix x-ls monitor speakers. This is not a hill I’ll die on, though. Listen to music however you can. Even Neil’s music.

There are technically three versions of the song “Psychedelic Pill.” The “album mix” has a heavy flange effect on it that I don’t love particularly. “Alternate mix 1” (a digital and CD bonus) drops that flange and “Alternate mix 2” (a Blu-ray bonus) seems to have less flange on it, so it’s kind of a happy medium, maybe? For my part, I like “Alternate Mix 1” the best as the flange is not something you normally associate with Neil’s music and I don’t think it’s employed particularly well. Yes, psychedelic music tended to have a lot of flange effects, but it’s not the only thing that makes it. To just apply like a coating on top of this song feels gimmicky and takes me right out of the beautiful vibe this album has.

And then we come to “Ramada Inn.” Subtitled “Going South” on the Blu-ray, this is simply put one of Neil’s best songs. 50 years into writing songs, he still has it. It’s intensely personal in retrospect, but enough is obscured, I don’t think anyone noticed at the time. Anchored by astounding bass from Billy Talbot, Neil lets loose on several gorgeous solos while he narrates a pensive tale of a married couple. It’s sad, nostalgic, beautiful, and melancholy. The couple has had a lifetime of happiness, raising kids, building a life, but are acknowledging the troubles under the surface and openly wondering if time has got the better of them. I mentioned he stopped drinking at this time, and it’s not hard to connect the dots to these lyrics:

Seem like lately things are changing
Seems like lately things are going south
A few drinks now and she hardly knows him
He just looks way and checks out

And when she says it's time to do something
Maybe talk to his old friends who gave it up
He just pours himself another tall one
Closes his eyes and says, “That's enough”

It’s not an uncommon tale, of course, but it’s one of the moments where Neil is being brutally honest about his shortcomings and lamenting what’s about to happen to him. Baring his soul, to use a trope. This was written and recorded in early 2012. By mid 2014, he would be filing for divorce. All this against a gorgeous rhythm with huge bottom-end, as if it’s literally plumbing the depths of a huge cavity in his heart. Like I said, one of Neil’s best songs, a classic for all time. I really regret not giving this album the time it deserved in 2012 and doubly regret not seeing one of the shows on this tour, the last with Poncho in the band.

In a sequencing masterstroke, Neil follows up that sad epic with the upbeat, countrified stomp of “Born in Ontario.” Gestating since at least Le Noise, it’s an ear worm. I can’t hear this song without singing the chorus to myself for hours afterward. It’s a wonderful ode to growing up, where Neil was relatively happy and has a lot of fond memories. I just love that pump organ accompaniment he added in. It fits the club house feel of this jam; a bunch of friends playing and singing about where they came from. “Twisted Road” dates back to the same time, and is a great companion to “Born in Ontario.” It’s similarly upbeat and hummable, but whereas the earlier song was about his family upbringing, “Twisted Road” is all about his musical upbringing, referencing Dylan, Orbison, and the Dead, giving them all their due in his formation as a a musician. It’s a lovely little tribute and I love how these two songs work together.

“She’s Always Dancing” is another attempt at psychedelica with wonderful harmonies and a slight Mamas and Papas feeling. I like this a lot more than “Psychedelic Pill” (whose title is referenced in this song at one point) as it feels more successful overall, has great guitar work and works well to transport you to that floating feeling the best psychedelic music gives. The chanting harmonies are especially beautiful, in case you forgot Billy and Ralph came up in a vocal doo-wop group. The final song from the Le Noise era actually dates back farther, until at least 1987 when Neil recorded a version of it for the unreleased collection Summer Songs. “For the Love of Man” is a quiet, slow song that is a bit elegiac. It seems to be pleading with a heavy dose of spiritualness. That’s notable as Neil has never been very forthcoming or straightforward about his beliefs. If anything, his approach is mostly humanist and nature focused. Which also works for this song.

The final album track is a monster. Musically comparable to “Ramada Inn” and “Driftin’ Back,” but “Walk Like a Giant” is focused on the oft cited “hippie dream.” I find it captivating and it has a devastating live presence. The band whistles in unison throughout the song and Neil laments the lack of progress the hippie movement made. To supplement the feeling of a giant walking across the earth, huge bursts of feedback take over the latter half of the song, eventually devolving into an almost Arc-like experiment in distortion. In live performances, Neil would literally stomp around the stage with big steps like a giant, and coax Old Black into more and more expressive sounds, eventually leaving a sonic wake of devastation to fade out. Sometimes this would add 10-15 minutes to the song length. He was out to make an impression for sure.

All in all, this is a top Neil album with only a few small issues. But the good far outweighs the questionable. I think it holds up well against any “classic” Neil album there is.

Top 3:

1. Ramada Inn
2. Walk Like a Giant
3. Born in Ontario

Cut song: Psychedelic Pill (original mix). The alternate mix is so much better.

No official movie for this album yet. Neil has been working on a retrospective of this tour (Alchemy) for awhile now and hopefully next year we will get to see it. There’s an incredible clip from it on NYA that includes a 34 minute “Like a Hurricane,” so I’m anticipating this one quite a bit. In the meantime, there are quite a few good things on YouTube to watch. I particularly like watching the band at Red Rocks on this tour. They seem to be having a lot of fun and Neil looks incredibly happy (if nothing else, watch this encore of “Over and Over” for pure joy; one of my favorite all time Neil and the Horse moments in that bit with Poncho around the 6 minute mark). There’s also a few rips of the Austin City Limits performance that was broadcast. “Walk Like a Giant” is particularly cataclysmic in that performance.

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