Changing Highways: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Broken Arrow

by Mike Gee

Some 27 years ago, Neil Young was re-acquainted with a rough-hewn Los Angeles-based band he first encountered during the early days of the seminal Buffalo Springfield. Called The Rockets, they featured guitarist/vocalist Danny Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina. In a matter of weeks they would record with Young Down By The River and then transformed into Neil Young and Crazy Horse, cut a batch of tracks that blew a visceral immediacy and heralded the beginning of one of the most extraordinary and fulfilling partnerships in the history of rock. Among those tracks were Cinnamon Girl and Cowgirl In The Sand and they, along with Down By The River, formed the core of the timeless Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, released in July 1969. Neil Young was 23 then, he's 50 now - and this is the 14th (including two live sets and Lucky Thirteen) Neil Young and Crazy Horse set, and the follow-up to the acclaimed and ground-breaking Sleeps With Angels. Only Whitten isn't here to celebrate (or perhaps he is), having departed this life in August 1972, an infamous (and sad) overdose casualty. Since March 1975, Frank "Poncho" Sampedro has ridden the licks and fills as the current line-up of Crazy Horse now celebrate 21 years together.

Where to begin? By simply saying that on Broken Arrow, Young and Crazy Horse turn their back on the electronic ambience that threaded the dynamics of Sleeps With Angels, most notably on Blue Eden (daubed "21st century grunge" at the time) and the title track, and step back to an organic earthiness that recalls a host of early, mid and latter references. At its heart Broken Arrow is poignant, backward looking, reflective (loneliness keys strongly in its lyricism) and heartfelt, an ode to urban life and existence, and an incalculable celebration of rock'n'roll as its most spiritual and celebratory, as a life force. The journey, you see, is a long way from over.

And while Broken Arrow is the name of the ranch that has long been Young's home, it is, more importantly, the last track on the definitive second Buffalo Springfield album Buffalo Springfield Again, an album that contained such early masters as Mr Soul, Expecting To Fly, Bluebird, Rock'n'Roll Woman and Hung Upside Down.

Following precisely a year after the classic anthem and revolutionary shot, For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield Again was the spirit of its times: a red flag to the dream, the glorious hippie daze and a thumb in the eye of the establishment. Protest, peaceniks and fuzzy underground rock rolled into one.

On Big Time, the curling, reverberating, lithe, electric strut opener to Broken Arrow, Young incants in the chorus "I'm still living in the dream we had/ For me it's not over ... " - and it isn't. On Broken Arrow, the dream is revisited, the hope and vision restated for the '90s; and really there is little difference. Time has moved on three decades but the problems are still much the same, only more complicated. Today, Big Brother and the establishment stand in the way of the dream as much as they did then - more so in many ways, and with a great stranglehold on freedom; only, perhaps, now the realism and the spirit to act is - once again - close enough to the surface to be drawn. Broken Arrow is ultimately a rallying point, a musical bugle call to see the essential nature of freedom and life that is out there and take it while you can. Sentimental, maybe the impossible dream, but at least Young and Crazy Horse can remember what it was all those years ago that fired youth and those who had simply had enough to go out and do it their way, to take a chance, to fly in the face of society, to claim rights and liberation. If there is a new awareness, the semblance of a new age, Broken Arrow is its soundtrack. So here's the dream...

Track-by-track

Big Time, 7 (mins) 08 (secs)

Autobiographical, Big Time calls upon the spirit of the past and twists it to now. In the first verse Young simply unwinds his own beginnings. "Gonna leave the pain behind, Gonna leave the fools in line, Gonna take the magic potion. Gettin' in an old black car, Gonna take a ride so far, To the land of suntan lotion. Gonna take it state by state, Until I hit the golden gate, Get my feet wet in the ocean." The devout will recognise the setting and the story, but for those who don't ... In 1965, Young recorded an acoustic demo for Elektra Records featuring early versions of Sugar Mountain and Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing but wasn't offered a contract by the label. Returning to Toronto, Young played the same Yorkville district coffeehouse circuit as fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell before he joined The Mynah Birds, a Toronto-based band led by singer Ricky James Matthews (later to be known as Rick James who would go on to have several smash dance hits, in particular Super Freak, a song which would later heavily influence Prince). The Mynah Birds recorded several songs for Motown Records (the first white band to ever be signed by the label) in Detroit that were never released. During one of these recording sessions, James was arrested and charged with deserting the U.S. Navy. The Mynah Birds flew apart when James was forced to complete his tour of duty. Only one song ever saw the light of day: Mynha Bird Hop on Columbia Canada.
There was nothing much left for Young in Toronto so looking for fresh opportunities, he and ex-Mynah Byrds bassist Bruce Palmer stuck most of their worldly goods into Young's car - a black hearse - and drove from Toronto to Los Angeles. On Sunset Boulevarde in Hollywood, the hearse was spotted in traffic by Stephen Stills (whom Young had first met at a club in Fort William, Ontario, in 1965 when he was in The Squires and Stills in The Company) and singer/guitarist Richie Furay (who Young had met previously in New York). The four musicians huddled in a supermarket parking lot and started talking about forming a band: with the addition of Dewey Martin, Buffalo Springfield was born.
On Big Time, history revisited and poetic idealism come together in one of Young's finest songs in many years. Featuring three twisting, writhing breaks and hung on a rock-solid Horse bottom and rhythm, Big Time is electric majesty blown by the spirit of time and a deep conversation with purpose. At 50, you look back, you see the present, and you try to look forward - or at least to point the way. Humanity eakes and bleeds through every chord - the long and winding road of life is the coil and whiplash of the solos. "Talking about a friend of mine, Talking about a gold mine, Richest vein in any mountain. Talking about the enemy inside of me, Talking about the youthful fountain. Talking about you and me, Talking about eternity, Talking about the big time." (Big Time will be the first single).

Loose Change, (9.30)

Opening on what could loosely be called a country waltz melody, Loose Change blows into an extended electric workout that is an ocean of breaks, chords, emotion, a panoply of feeling, a universe riveted with power and pain and blown emotion, with sentiment, struggle, confusion, idealism, deep grace and dark beauty, a never-ending flow to the spirit of the land and the soul, the unification of the organic and the spiritual, of Mother Earth and the great path we all walk, of the way; its soul is the spirit of the American Indian, of the lands where the answers are whispered in the breeze and man is but a dirt track carved into the raw earth upon which journeys lead to unknown destinations. Lyrically it needs no other explanation, other than "Feel the house of cards, Feel the house of rain, Feel the house of love, I feel them all again. Build the road to reason, Build the road to hate, Build the road to the promised land, Right up to the gate. Loose change in my pocket, Future in my hand, Too many distractions, For me to understand. Too many distractions, Gotta get back home, Get into something solid, Get outta the zone. Some roads bring renewal, Some roads hide the way, Some roads promise everything, Steal your fuel away." The times they were a changin'... and they still are. But the questions and dilemmas remain the same.

Slip Away, (8.05)

Heaven. One of the finest 10 songs Young has ever recorded, Slip Away is the most radiant sad beauty, an ethereal, vast electric landscape peopled by a mesmerising poetry, a music both lush and spartan, soul-scraped and troubled yet riven with memory: lyrically cryptic it drifts of a woman who "lives in the TV sky, she lives in such pain", who rides in a stretch limousine, "and when the music started, she just slipped away, she just slipped away" ... she could be the eternal sad dreamer for whom music is the last refuge; captured in her solitary loneliness of fame and/or riches, the one warm emotion. Or it could be real life, perhaps Janis Joplin, Valley Girl, Courtney Love , Patti Morrison... perhaps, all of them. In many ways the organic successor to Sleeps With Angels, it caresses on the most gentle yet firm of leads and the most angelic harmony vocal from Young who seems the older he gets to find new notes of sublime high pitched, quavering cadence. Slip Away is the spiritland in music; the other side of the thin veil between life and death. Somewhere, sometime, in its ambience it echoes the Doors, particularly in a refrain solo that reaches into quasi-psychedelia. For a moment The End seems to hover at its core. An electric symphony for the lost and the dreamer; and how close both are. It also closes the opening triptych of long, winding and immensely spacial songs on a mellow note that leaves an ache inside and feeling that somewhere there is meaning, an answer... chilling, deeply affecting and to be treasured. This note is indeed for you. Long may you run.

Changing Highways, (2.11)

A short country pop strut with a harmonica break that rhymes simple "path" lyrics. Jaunty and easy going it has a couple of lovely little licks and simply parallels the traffic, lights and highways with life. There is a freedom in changing highways and the people you meet will change that highway too.

Scattered (Let's Think About Livin'), (4.14)

A gentle chordal intro curls into a spacial backdrop, slow, thoughtful, emotive, with an impossibly beautiful harmony vocal and drifting melody and refrain. Young's voice slips wistful and perfect over chiming guitars, quiescent and ethereal it offers a message and, yet again, an abiding spirituality. The lore of the land is its heart: loss - perhaps death, perhaps love. Confused and very human it touches on the simple stuff of being and those vast yet tiny questions. "I'm a little bit high and a little bit low, I hear your name wherever I go, I'm a little bit wrong, I'm a little bit right, Hear your name all over the night when the music comes, I'll be there, No more sadness, No more cares. Let's think about living. Let's think about life. Like a comet bleeding on the sky, Like an old soul over darkness we fly I'm a little bit here, A little bit there, A little bit scattered everywhere. I'm a little bit up, A little bit down, I hear your name all over this town."

This Town, (2.45)

A chugging little pop song with a couple of power chords, a beautifully picked brief lead, and an observation and statement. "I'm not asleep when I'm lying down. I'm asleep when I'm walking around, This town. This town. Some people think it's not okay, To sleep around, And kiss the hours away. This town, It's okay."

Music Arcade, (3.44)

Beautiful. Just Young and an acoustic strummed where his voice is the melody. Half-spoken, half-sung in the most gentle of caresses, closest to a whisper and a lullaby, lyrically its breathtaking. Observation and insight, blessed with emotion, concern and understanding. There's enough questions, answered and unanswered to offer a myriad of possibilities. Music Arcade is timeless, the heart'n'soul of the highway man, the watcher, the traveller and the searcher. The path that walks so strongly through Broken Arrow is oft forked, and this is a moment in time. When the moment's (and it can be a lifetime or a day) over you've gotta move on.
"Have you ever been lost? Have you ever been found out? Have you ever felt all alone at the end of the day? Yeah, I'm talking about getting down, Take it easy, there's no one around. Just a mirror and you and me, And the TV screen.
I was walking down Main Street, Not the sidewalk, but Main Street. Dodging traffic with flying feet, That's how good I felt. Took a spin in the laundromat, Played a game in the music arcade, Kept winning while the band played, That's how good I felt. (repeat first verse)
Have you ever been singled out by a hungry man? You're listening to the radio, He's washing your window. When you look in those vacant eyes, How does it harmonize with the things that you do? (repeat first verse)
There's a comet in the sky tonight, Makes me feel like I'm all right, I'm moving pretty fast for my size. I really didn't mean to stay as long as I have, So I'll be moving on."

Baby What You Want Me To Do, (7.58)

The classic Jimmy Reed blues standard recorded at one of the four "unannounced" Old Princeton landing shows a few months back on a single hand held microphone in the middle of the audience. As such it's just like a bootleg or many of the tapes traded so assiduously across the US, in particular, of many of Young's shows. The band cook, moving with consummate ease through the blues; the base of all rock'n'roll. Roots.

And in the end that's what Broken Arrow is about - roots. Spiritual, home, emotional, soul roots, about recognising those roots, about getting in touch; freedom is within as well as without. On Broken Arrow, Young and Crazy Horse bring it all on home. Cleverly split in two, the electric evokes the spirit of times, that bugle call to understanding; the second half evokes the spirit of knowing where you are and who you are. Both are equal parts of the whole. And look at the album artwork - in itself a message, a statement and a philosophy.

Take a ride with the comets, listen to your music and turn off the TV that drowns your soul. The answers are out there - and in there. And Neil Young and Crazy Horse are still out there searching. There's one last reference - Deadman for which Young composed and played the score. The film's journey to spiritual reunion and it's final encounter with death could be seen as having a profound effect on Young. This too is a journey and death hovers close like an old friend in several of these tracks. And it's understandable: the older you get the closer death draws and the more it impinges on the conscious. Suddenly it seems as if perhaps there won't be enough time and life becomes more and more treasured. Mortality is an ever-deepening reality.

Broken Arrow isn't perfect - no Neil Young album ever is - and, at times, it falls close to a wistful over-wroughtness, but great emotion and soul-searching should never be condemned and the majority is overwhelming and heart-rending. Rock'n'roll at its most heartfelt; the great communicator. And Neil Young and Crazy Horse remain its finest practitioners, in a league of their own.