Neil Young's new/old album
Is there an echo here somewhere in "Talkin' To The Trees"?
The website “Genius” says Neil Young has 60 albums. “Chartmasters.com” says it’s 43. “Radio Times” says 31 solo, 17 with Crazy Horse, two with The Promise Of The Real and there’s this new/old one called “Talkin’ To The Trees” with Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts.
I say new/old because these ears of mine seem to hear an uncanny/uncomfortable echo of previous Neil Young songs on two of the “new” ones — “First Fire Of Winter” which sounds identical to his classic “Helpless,” and “Silver Eagle,” which sounds identical to his “California Sunset” from this Austin City Limits show in 1984 with the International Harvesters. That’s not good.
You may remember that John Fogerty had to go to court for plagiarizing himself, former Fantasy Records executive Saul Zaentz claiming that his then-new song “The Old Man Down The Road” was a ripoff of his Creedence hit “Run Through The Jungle,” a song that Zaentz owned the copyright to. Fogerty prevailed, though he had to bring his guitar into court to do so.
That won’t happen to Neil Young, of course, but hearing those two songs — back-to-back — on “Talkin’ To The Trees” is a troubling sign. At least to me.
The guy is 79 years old, according to Concert Archives has played 1,450 concerts, and played “Heart Of Gold” 400 times, according to Setlists.com, which seems about 1,410 away from being accurate.
But the point is, he’s played an awful lot of songs for an awful long time and while it’s true that some of his songs do sound similar, these two were way too close for comfort. My comfort.
If he didn’t hear the similarities, that’s one thing. If there wasn’t anybody in the involved in the recording process who didn’t notice, that’s not a good thing. If Neil himself didn’t particularly care, well, that’s another story, isn’t it?
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Neil Young’s recordings this year, working on a book similar to my Bob Dylan book for McFarland and Co. (“Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography 1961-2022,” available on Amazon). On the one hand, it’s great that he’s still out there, overseas at the moment, playing his hits and a few obscurities that always send Neil Young fanatics over the moon. (“OMG! He hasn’t played that song since 1977!”) His fans are truly excited and it’s great that he’s back out there at his age. It’s not like he needs the money or the acclaim.
On the other, if you’re going to release a new record, you’d like to think it met the standard of what you’d expect from a new Neil Young album. To these ears, I’m sorry to say “Talkin’ To The Trees” doesn’t do that. True, it’s probably unfair to expect a lot new from a 79-year-old guy on what might be his 61st record. But at this point of his career, as Neil Young once said in his response to the similarly shaky critical reaction to his “Fork In The Road,” —“Sometimes you just gotta do what you’ve gotta do.” In other words, I’m putting out what I feel like putting out, period.
It may well be that family issues, apparently laid out quite explicitly for his listeners in the album opener “Family Life” — a song he says “might be one I wrote for my grandchildren I can’t see…” that was the impetus for this album. Neil’s only daughter, Amber Jean, has two kids, Ronan and Allyah, both name-dropped in the song, that apparently Neil can’t see. So he issued grandpa’s protest in the album’s opening song. Or so it seems.
On the second number, “Dark Mirage,” he goes even deeper. “Well, I lost my little girl to the darkness inside. Her momma’s gone now. And there’s nowhere to hide…and she told me she can really go low…”
Even Neil Young’s most loyal fans must cringe to hear Dad talking about his daughter and her kids that way. Or they should.
Families are always a challenge, we know that. And remembering that Neil divorced Pegi after a 36-year marriage and that she died of cancer just three years later had to make things difficult for all involved. Singing the praises of new wife Darryl Hannah’s cooking prowess a few lines later in the same song about not seeing his grandkids might not be the most diplomatic of moves. But at this point of his life, Neil Young probably hasn’t heard the word “NO” very often. And it rankles him when he does.
But apparently talking to his daughter in song? Not sure that’s going to help anybody involved in this, is it?
As for the rest of “Talkin’ To The Trees”, it sounds as off-hand as “Fork In The Road” which isn’t exactly a compliment. “Let’s Roll Again” is a call-out to American car companies “build us something won’t kill our kids…” “Big Change,” the original single from the record was rush-released just before the 2024 election where Neil, though very critical of President Donald Trump on his website, rip-corded here with “Big change coming. Might be bad and it might be good.” Remember that in his recent statement invited President Trump to his summer tour and he promised no political songs. Hmmm. He’s never been shy about taking a stand before, even went to court to get Trump to stop using “Rockin’ In The Free World” at his political rallies. So why the change?
To me, there’s really not much else of interest on the rest of the record, songs that sound dashed off, “Well, I gotta put out an album, here goes…” There are many songs here that very likely were played that afternoon in the studio and never again. And that may be the same way a listener feels, heard it once, that’s enough. Which, considering the mighty songbook Neil already has is understandable, I suppose.
The guy is 79, after all. He’s certainly given the world hours and hours, maybe even days and months’ worth of music so he can write about whatever he wants to, I get that. But if you were his daughter or maybe even his grandkids, how are you going to feel to have that difficult situation aired for the whole world. Does he think that’s going to make Amber Jean change her mind?
On the quiet, reflective “Bottle Of Love” he notes that “all your tears are being saved in a bottle of love,” which is a better place for them, most of us would agree, than masked in a song about how your kid disappointed you.
Throughout Neil Young’s amazingly long career, there have been lots of ups and downs, left turns that are surprising, hard to fathom and sometimes, just plain weird. From time to time, he’s also admitted in songs that his impulsive, mercurial nature has caused him, over the years, to “let some good things go.”
Sorry, Neil. I know you’re hurt but talking to your daughter through songs on an otherwise not-particularly inspired album, maybe your 61st, might be a good place to start.
GIVE THIS A LISTEN AND SEE IF YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR!
AND THE SIMILARITIES TO “HELPLESS”
SAME THING GOES FOR “SILVER EAGLE” WHICH YOU’VE HEARD BEFORE
AND THIS CLASSIC FROM 1984’s AUSTIN CITY LIMITS
I’m not sure what has happened with Neil Young as far as his songwriting goes. It goes a long way back for me at this stage. But something went awry. There is no subtext, no nuance, it’s just “the sky is blue and it’s windy today”, or as you cite above in “let’s roll again.” Everything is just stated point blank, but maybe he feels that it is the best option to be understood? I really don’t know, but it’s been 25 years at least since I was moved by a song of his.
Have to agree with all of this. It's the first time I've stopped myself from buying one of his records in at least 10 years, and I've even paid ridiculously high prices for official albums that are just bootlegs in very poor quality that he's dumped on the market without improving the sound (and that I've owned for years and stopped listening to, since there were 20 better recordings from the same tour, etc.)