Neil Young hardly needs an introduction. His name is synonymous with rock n’ roll. Between Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and a legendary solo discography, if his tremendous career somehow doesn’t ring a bell, I really feel sorry for you.
Young’s iconic voice and grungy guitar has catapulted his likeness into a stratosphere of its own. Thousands of musicians cite him as a primary inspiration and millions of fans both casual and core support his every move. Seemingly every compliment in the book has been applied to him at some point in his lifetime.
As such, plucking a single album from his collection should be an arduous task right? Well, not exactly. For me, nothing can touch 1969’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” – his first with primary backing band Crazy Horse. With only seven songs, Young eradicated his somber solo debut and compiled a masterpiece of strangely moving epics and mainstay singles.
(Photo courtesy of Nicholas Latona)Let’s discover just where nowhere is and how Young found it — on freshly cleaned, virgin black vinyl of course.
1. “Cinnamon Girl”
Instantly recognizable and undeniably brilliant, “Cinnamon Girl” thunders out of speakers begging for air guitar enthusiasts to play along. Young knows how to craft a hit and “Cinnamon Girl” resonates in a way few songs manage to do. I must have listened to this track over a dozen times while writing this and it just won’t wear out its welcome. The power that damn one-note guitar solo musters up just kills me every time.2. “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”
An ode to the cozy hometown cliché, Young introduces a distinct country rock sound. While not yet a superstar, by 1969 Young was touring extensively as a solo act and previously with Buffalo Springfield. The road had scratched his then 23-year-old mind and nothing could alleviate his anxiety better than a trip back home to “take it easy.”
3. “Round & Round (It Won’t Be Long)”
Young’s voice is remarkable — none match his eerie beauty and tenor shakiness. “Round & Round” dials back into acoustic folk tropes and pedestals a vocal performance draped in mourning and remorse. Robin Lane’s background humming adds enigma and elegance as it ebbs and flows through hills of strumming guitars. This track always haunts me into a trance.
4. “Down By The River”
This nine-minute epic exhibits Young’s uncanny ability to take a simple chord progression and flesh it out into something loosely complex and timeless. Young isn’t a virtuoso and yet many consider him a real-life guitar god. He’s the antithesis to men like Jeff Beck and Eddie Van Halen, reveling in the space between notes and stark changes in volume. Every chord is raunchy and deliberate, evoking his wide acceptance as an understated savant.
5. “The Losing End (When You’re On)”
This track pulls “Nowhere” back into country-rock territory with a strange combination of easy-rider attitude, teetering on the edge of mania. The peculiarly off-kilter vocal harmonizing from Young and Crazy Horse underpins the catchy pop tropes with an almost hidden psycho-babble tint, gearing up to murder the woman who put them on love’s “Losing End.”
6. “Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)”
A macabre violin rattles the spine of “Running Dry,” a stoned-on-the-couch ballad with Young confessing to breaking his lover’s heart. His soul longs to shed its destitute demeanor with the comfort of another. The lyrics are intensely personal, almost like Young is writing in his confidential diary, and he provides a level of authenticity few songwriters can reproduce.
7. “Cowgirl in the Sand”
The best track on the album and arguably in Young’s career, “Cowgirl in the Sand” is a 10-minute jam commandeered by a guitar workout that foreshadowed the Grunge movement over 20 years later. Once again, a simple progression culminates into a rush of apocalyptic fury and natural disaster. The song plays like the soundtrack to a frenzied motorcycle gang’s final ride into hell, barking and howling all the way. At the helm is Young, axe in hand with grime smudged all over, taunting the fires before him to engulf his wicked ways.
“Cowgirl in the Sand” is a lesson in reckless abandon and counterculture. It’s as if Young sought to eradicate the “peace and love” nonsense in one fell swoop, and maybe he did. Rock owes much of its ‘70s sentiment to Young and Crazy Horse and it seems fitting to place “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” in the upper echelon of that era’s music, despite its 1969 release.
Buy a copy on vinyl, place your needle and witness Neil Young’s 40-minute acceptance speech into the all time greats category. “Nowhere” is essential.
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