Zuma (1975)

Neil was the happiest I’ve ever known him during Zuma. He was a great guy to be around. A happy, happy guy…we were just cruisin’, havin’ a good time…the recording was a just an extension of our everyday life. (Briggs to McDonough, Shakey)

In 1975, Neil Young, his fans, and his record label had been through the wringer. The tragedies and breakups mixed with the heights of stardom pushed him into places no one expected from him. After mourning Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry at length and severing ties with Carrie Snodgress, he was suffering some depression. So why does Zuma sound so carefree and majestic? I think there are two reasons: it was mostly recorded at David Briggs’ house on Zuma Beach and there was a new face in Neil’s life. Frank “Poncho” Sampedro joined up with Crazy Horse and gelled with Neil immediately. The rhythm guitarist wasn’t Danny Whitten, didn’t play or sing like Whitten, but like the former, Sampedro was able to support Neil’s lead in the same way. The space he creates for Neil is what gives Zuma it’s clear tone. He’s also the most carefree member and encouraged Neil to loosen up.

Neil’s a lot better in houses than he is in studios. (Briggs to McDonough, Shakey)

The way Briggs describes it, the album shouldn’t sound as good as it does. Neil picked the smallest room in the house, it had a low ceiling and windows all over the place. They played loud, sound dampening was just big pieces of foam, and newcomer Poncho couldn’t really play that well. But somehow it all works and you have to give the credit mostly to Briggs. He edited songs to remove flat parts and mixed the songs on the spot. It shouldn’t have resulted in the album that many say has Neil’s clearest tone. What’s more, you’d think a situation like that would result in a mess, but the songs here are wonderful and memorable.

Despite its harsh lyrical content, “Don’t Cry No Tears” kicks things off with a upbeat and punchy rhythm and shimmering guitars. Apparently reflective of Neil’s actual abhorrence of Carrie’s crying during their split, it’s the first indication this album is about feeling betrayed. It’s one of his most enduring hooks and in a long line of “I was done wrong by a woman” songs, he finds his own way into the subject. Poncho, Billy, and Ralph anchor this album opener fantastically and set the mood for Zuma’s tonal consistency.

One of the events that led to Neil’s breakup with Carrie was a trip he made to Hawaii to visit her. Once he got there, he discovered she was out on a boat with a guy McDonough called Captain Crunch, a mysterious figure that was apparently obsessed with Carrie and would pop up in her life sporadically. “Danger Bird” was constructed out of two songs Neil was working on at the time and “L.A. Girls and Ocean Boys” was the one that directly addressed this alleged infidelity (Carrie denied anything happened on the boat). Lyrics from that song about being with another man appear in “Danger Bird” but the original frame was a sad piano song. Here they are transformed into a simultaneously majestic and doom-laden epic containing some of Neil’s most inventive guitar playing.

I never really understood this song growing up and remembering thinking “Danger Bird” was a really cheesy name for a song, almost like Neil’s take on “Free Bird.” And in a lot of ways, it is. A long, solo-ridden song about becoming free from a relationship? Yeah, I’d be surprised if that 1973 song wasn’t on his mind. And in the years since, it’s taken on the same shouted out request notoriety at Neil’s shows. Aside from the gorgeous guitar (that “windshield wiper effect!”), I love the counter harmony vocals that run through this. It lets Neil obscure a few key lyrics during the band’s chorus revival of “L.A. Girls and Ocean Boys” and gives the song a slight shanty feel (as befitting a song touching on that Captain Crunch event). So many layers, like the best of Neil songs.

“Pardon My Heart” is another gorgeous song with an interesting stop start cadence. The pronounced pauses fit the lyrics so well, you hold your breath every time. While that song is written with Carrie in mind, “Lookin’ for a Love” is clearly expressing his worries after meeting Pegi. While he and Pegi didn’t get heavily involved until 1978, they met in 1974 and he says he studied her from afar for awhile. He stated he didn’t want to get into a relationship again right away, so this song is about looking forward. But he acknowledges he has his bad qualities and hopes they don’t interfere here. This song has some of my favorite harmonies on the album, there’s something so free and carefree about that chorus.

McDonough gives high praise to “Barstool Blues” in Shakey and it’s hard to disagree with him. The lyrics are incredibly vivid, Neil’s voice is as genuine as it gets, the guitar sounds so live. The song is pained, cathartic, free, like someone playing their literal heart out. It may well contained some of Neil’s best lyrics: “Once there was a friend of mine / Who died a thousand deaths / His life was filled with parasites / And countless idle threats.” Come on!

I like Long May You Young’s take on “Stupid Girl” that Neil is talking about himself in this song. The way he is harmonizing with himself in the song seems to be the key. Beyond alleviating any potential misogyny, this reading of the song makes so much more sense for the way that Neil constructs songs. He’s said many times that he obscures the subject matter with metaphor to avoid being too transparent about himself. Here Neil is smarting from the breakup with Carrie and putting a lot of the blame for his relationships on himself.

There’s a strong case that “Cortez the Killer” is Neil’s best song. Neil has told a couple different origin stories for this song, from it being written in high school while studying history and eating too many hamburgers (story he told live in 1996) or it being written while living on the Zuma beach (that’s the story on his website). Whatever the story, he seems to downplay just how special the song is, how incredibly beautiful his playing and singing is on it. The moment this song starts in concerts, a hush comes over the crowd and everyone is enraptured for its duration. It’s the best example of Neil’s guitar playing to me. I don’t think anyone argues Neil is the best technical guitar player, but personally, he’s the most soulful guitar player and frankly, that matters more to me. This song demonstrates that quality better than any other. It’s as if his guitar strings are connected directly to your amygdala. For three and a half blissful minutes, Old Black tugs and tugs, before the dam finally breaks with the ominous opening line: “He came dancing across the water / with his Galleons and guns.”

While Neil’s historicity is debatable, like most of his songs he’s obfuscating something personal with vivid imagery. Does he seem himself as the destroyer Cortez in terms of relationships? An egocentric marauder leaving a ruined wake? There’s an extra verse to this song but it was lost to an electrical blowout while recording, with Neil claiming he never liked it anyway. He has played it live before, though. He also hand selected a version of the song for a sequence in friend Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, choosing a unique 12 string solo version of it, anachronistically from 1999. No matter what inspired the song or what he’s talking about or which version he is playing, surely this is a contender for his best song of all time. Let yourself get lost in it. Also, don’t discount the amazing work Billy is doing here on the bass. He’s anchoring this song with so much weight and feeling, it’s as important as the guitar.

Thematically I understand why Neil and Briggs choose to follow “Cortez” with “Through My Sails.” It fits the “water” theme of the former and works as a blissful exit after that epic. However, it’s a bit out of place on the album overall. Even “Pardon My Heart” isn’t this top 40 feeling. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a gorgeous song, but I would cut this song. There were other songs recorded during the Zuma sessions that could have worked to come down from the high of “Cortez.”

Something that boggles my mind is that this is Neil’s seventh album. Most bands barely make it that far and are hardly turning out their most vital work by then. This album contains several all timer songs of Neil’s. My guess is that Neil’s penchant for using different musicians and different producers throughout his career is what keeps him this exciting, seven albums in. Zuma would be the typical follow-up to Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Same band, similar guitar sound, same type of songs, but I doubt we would have gotten something of this caliber if he hadn’t gone through the entire Ditch saga.

Top 3:

1. Cortez the Killer
2. Danger Bird
3. Barstool Blues

Cut song: Through My Sails

Dume is the eighth disc of the Neil Young Archives Vol. 2 and is essentially an alternate reality version of Zuma. Along with the majority of the released album, there are eight outtakes. Some will be rerecorded for other albums, some have never appeared on a studio album. It’s interesting to see what was in the mix for Zuma before the final track list was decided upon. For instance, can you imagine if “Powderfinger” was on this album instead of Rust Never Sleeps? Likewise “Pocahontas” and “Ride My Llama.” Neil and the Horse wouldn’t touch these songs for another three years and by that time, would decide that “Powderfinger” and “Ride My Llama” should be recorded live for Rust Never Sleeps.

I’m not a big fan of “Ride My Llama” but this rougher version is fun, with loud handclaps that kind of make me smile. One unique inclusion is “Born to Run,” a song Neil has never put on an album despite being recorded during several sessions, most notably a long version during Ragged Glory that is finally seeing the light of day this summer. It’s a cool song with a strange stop time chorus. I really like the circular guitar line that reminds me a bit of shoegaze guitars. I wonder why it’s never made an album? “Kansas” appears on Homegrown in a much different version, just Neil quietly strumming an acoustic. It’s desperate and hushed there. The Dume version is a full Crazy Horse romp befitting the Zuma sound. I like it a lot better, to say the least.

“Powderfinger” is slower than the Rust Never Sleeps version, robbing it of the desperate urgency that recording has. Nor does it have the melancholy quiet of the acoustic Hitchhiker version. Neil (or maybe Briggs) made the right call here. It wasn’t quite ready. I dig the jangly Horse version of “Hawaii,” though. It’s rough and shambling but works great. Maybe not for Zuma, but I could have seen that version on Homegrown. This is a case where I like both the Horse version and the solo version from Hitchhiker. “Too Far Gone” with just Poncho on mandolin is beautiful as ever, showing that basically every other recording of this song is better than Freedom’s.

The real revelation to me is the Horse version of “Pocahontas” on here. I’ve become a diehard fan of the sparse acoustic Hitchhiker, to the point that I really don’t enjoy the overdubbed Rust Never Sleeps version at all. Honestly, since hearing it in it’s original form, I haven’t enjoyed any other version of it. However, this unreleased Zuma recording is great! I’ve heard it electric before and it made me wince. Somehow, they nail it with the Zuma sound, though. Closing out Dume is a song without a home as of yet, the gentle piano tune “No One Seems to Know.” It’s lovely and touching. Overall Dume is a neat case of alternate visions of what could have made Zuma.

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