Storytone (2014)

These songs were written during a period of profound change in my life. Everything I want to share is there. (Neil Young Archives, 2007)

Storytone is a record I made for myself. It was a tumultuous time in my life with my marriage of 35 years crashed on the rocks. Yet miraculously, I had found love and was beginning again, sorting out the intricacies of a huge change. (Neil Young Archives, 2020)

There’s no way to talk about this album without talking about Pegi Young and Daryl Hannah. Neil and Pegi married in 1978 and were incredibly close partners, both personally and musically. Neil wrote many of his most well-known songs with Pegi in mind, “Unknown Legend” and “Harvest Moon” among the most famous. He writes at length about his love for Pegi in Waging Heavy Peace (written in 2011). However, inklings that all was not well appeared around 2001 when Neil shelved Toast because it was too personal. He straight out says they were having serious problems in Special Deluxe, his second memoir. Here’s what he says about that time on the Archives:

The music of Toast is about a relationship. There is a time in many relationships that go bad, a time long before the breakup, where it dawns on one of the people, maybe both, that it's over. This was that time. (Neil Young Archives, 2022)

Neil met Daryl Hannah in 2013 while they were both filming a Greenpeace documentary. They took a 6 hour road trip in his rebuilt LincVolt, now known as “Miss Pegi.” This event even makes a short appearance in Special Deluxe, where Neil describes Daryl as an “inspiring and dedicated activist.” In April 2014, they were together again at a Keystone XL pipeline protest in DC. The long last chapter of Special Deluxe covers a bit of the burgeoning romance between them, it seems. By July, Neil would file for divorce (in the middle of recording Storytone, in fact). Pegi was shocked and devastated. He and Daryl go public with their relationship a month later. A brutal and fairly insensitive time to be making a record that in part serves as an ode to new love. David Crosby infamously trashed Daryl (despite subsequently apologizing, Neil did not forgive until Crosby passed). A fraught backdrop to this album, to be sure. Yet Neil saw it as a Hollywood romance epic, recording it with an orchestra on the MGM stage where the music of Wizard of Oz was recorded, using Barbara Streisand’s microphone.

Like Living with War and A Letter Home, Storytone comes in a few versions. The original release is Neil backed by orchestras and big bands. There’s also what’s known as “Solo Storytone” which is just Neil with guitar or piano (this was packaged as a deluxe edition with the original album). Lastly, there’s an amalgam of both these called Mixed Pages of Storytone. Clearly, he had a vision for this album that he either couldn’t pin down or wanted to make it as broadly accessible as possible. I’ll try to tackle these versions holistically, but in general: Solo is better than Mixed Pages and Mixed Pages is better than the original with a few notable exceptions. Given that Mixed Pages is in a completely different order, I’ll follow the original order as much as possible.

Neil melds three topics into a somewhat frayed tapestry: the divorce, meeting Daryl, and his growing concerns about the environment and climate change. These last two items are very interrelated as evidenced by how he met Daryl and how their connection formed through a shared cause. Storytone opens like a Disney movie, with a big sweeping orchestra. Proceeding to obliquely tell the story of meeting Daryl and his unsure wooing of her, “Plastic Flowers” serves as a love story and a climate story. The piano-led Solo version is very beautiful, more intimate than the cinematic Storytone version. Mixed Pages transitions to the orchestra after the first stanza, but keeps Neil’s piano mixed in. For me, this is the right amount of orchestra.

It’s on “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” that the differences between the albums are very apparent. Solo has Neil giving a fragile performance on banjo-guitar, and Mixed Pages incorporates this banjo-guitar, adds a children’s choir intro, then transitions into a visceral live performance with Crazy Horse. Both triumph over the schmaltzy orchestral version on the original album. The heartfelt banjo version is plaintive and pleading whereas the Crazy Horse rendition is a driving anthem to get people out of their seats with the energy the song is asking for. If you don’t care for the banjo and choir intro, you can hear just the live performance on the “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” single (the best actual version).

The guttural hush of the Solo version of “I Want to Drive My Car” is almost shockingly sparse. A simple guitar riff on Solo is transformed into an expansive honkey-tonk funk on Storytone. But Neil’s vocal on Storytone is almost bored sounding and that version ultimately suffers for it, despite the music being great fun. And that’s where the Mixed Pages version is somewhat of a disappointment. It had the potential to mix both of these together to get the best parts, but the transition is too strange and it doesn’t seem to use the Solo vocal with the big band version, unfortunately. “Glimmer” is another song where Mixed Pages presents an improvement over the Storytone version. Most of the song is Neil solo on piano, but with an intro and chorus using the orchestra. I like this version, but Solo has just the piano and it’s the best form for it. The lyrics are fairly sad and the sparse piano fits it perfectly.

“Say Hello to Chicago” on Solo is pretty perfect, just Neil doing heartfelt blues on piano and harmonica. I love the sound of the piano on this, with a little echo that feels like you are right there. I like Neil in nostalgic mode, looking back on his life vs commenting on the issues of the day. He gets more poetic about his own life. I understand why he thought the big band would work on this and it does a little, but the vibe is just not right for what he wrote. Solo proves that. Mixed Pages puts the solo version at the beginning of the big band version and the juxtaposition is so goofy, it just enhances the idea that Solo is the best version.

The strongest ode to Daryl on this project is “Tumbleweed,” apparently a nickname for his new love. He plays this lilting song on ukulele and its gorgeous. The sweeping old Hollywood romance sounds of Storytone do work, one of the most restrained and effective uses of it. If he had been this minimal on other songs, Storytone would have worked better. Or maybe it’s just the big band stuff that doesn’t work. It’s still not as lovely as the simple ukulele version, of course. Mixed Pages is mostly the Storytone version with short uke interludes. Not worth it.

Often the Mixed Pages edits are a little abrupt, such as on “Like You Used to Do” which attempts to meld the guttural Neil guitar on Solo with the big band version from the original album. This is one song where I don’t really love any version, but would have to say the original Storytone version is the least awkward. “I’m Glad I Found You” is much better, a great love song delivered beautifully on Solo. The Storytone and Mixed Pages versions are almost identical to me, as the orchestra is fairly minimal throughout.

“When I Watch You Sleeping” sounds like early 70s Neil in lyrics and composition on Solo. It has great guitar work, vivid imagery, and a gentle, introspective tone. This might be one of Neil’s most underrated songs of the last two decades. The orchestra version is not bad, very happy he retained the guitar, and the added drums and strings work pretty well. It’s almost like a Jack Nitzsche treatment, which has resulted in a few memorable Neil productions. This one tips more into Prairie Wind territory. I definitely prefer both of these to the Mixed Pages Frankenstein, which feels unnecessary given that the Storytone version retains a lot of the DNA of the Solo.

I think “All Those Dreams” retreads a few of the thoughts from other songs, but less successfully. Coming right after the vastly superior “sleep” song “When I Watch You Sleeping,” it fails to impress, even on the usually quality Solo recording. Unlike some of the other songs, this one feels the most unnecessary, oddly. I think the Storytone version is the best one, though. It has a nice rhythm and easy atmosphere that is just purely pleasant.

Overall, I think this whole project was best suited for a solo album, but I get the sense Neil had become reluctantance to put himself out there like that in this time period. When you look at latter day impressions of Storytone, most fans point to Solo as the one they go back to often.

Top 3:

1. When I Watch You Sleeping (Solo)
2. Who’s Gonna Stand Up? (with Crazy Horse live from single)
3. Tumbleweed (Solo)

Cut song: Frankly, just keep Solo and the Crazy Horse version of “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?”

The film of Storytone is not one of Neil’s best. Something he has been doing frequently is taking low quality studio footage and trying to pan and zoom it to give it more dynamism. He’s trying to create a Ken Burns sort of effect, but it just makes the low quality footage even worse quality when blown up. There’s not much to see here, honestly.

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