Album of the Week - Vol. 19

Hitchhiker NEIL YOUNG (2017)
Week: Friday 26th March to Thursday 1st April
Format: Vinyl
Producer(s): Neil Young, David Briggs & John Hanlon
Track listing:
1. Pocahontas *
2. Powderfinger *
3. Captain Kennedy
4. Hawaii
5. Give Me Strength *
6. Ride My Llama
7. Hitchhiker *
8. Campaigner
9. Human Highway *
10. The Old Country Waltz
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 33:44

Recorded in a single studio session on 11th August 1976, Neil Young's intent to release these songs as an album took 41 years to come to fruition. At the time, his record company (Reprise) baulked at the idea, and suggested full band arrangements for each of the tracks. More fool them. This is stripped to bare basics, and it's fantastic. Just Neil with his guitar and harmonica, except for the last song which is performed on a piano. It reminds me of Nick Drake's similarly stark Pink Moon, and both have the same fault of being too short. 

Except for Hawaii and Give Me Strength, all of these songs would appear on subsequent NY albums. The most recent occurrence being the title track, which was recorded in solo electric form for the 2010 album Le Noise, produced by Daniel Lanois. While it doesn't have the menace and growl of the newer version, this incarnation of Hitchhiker does still manage to be unnerving and imbued with small sense of paranoia. 

Three of these songs would arrive on 1979's excellent Rust Never Sleeps album, namely Pocahontas, Powderfinger and Ride My Llama. The former exists almost in the same form, but has a new vocal overdub. The latter is rerecorded before a live audience (as is the spirit of most of the album), but has a slightly different structure. Powderfinger is performed with Crazy Horse as part of the electric half of the album and is one of its highlights. To hear the song stripped down to its simplest form is quite something. As Paul Stanley once said of Kiss preparing for their 1996 MTV Unplugged performance, if a song doesn't work on an acoustic guitar, it's just a crappy song. Nothing more is needed here to express the emotion of the track. Wood, wire, skin and bones, as it were.

Human Highway was actually supposed to be the title track on CSNY's follow-up to their classic 1970 Déjà Vu album. There are even recordings of Young performing the song with Graham Nash and David Crosby in the mid seventies, but the record never materialised, despite their massive 1974 stadium tour. The world wouldn't get a second CSNY album until 1988's patchy American Dream. Human Highway was eventually recorded for Young's 1978 Comes A Time album, the closest relative to his Harvest smash. Again, hearing it here stripped of backing vocals and a band arrangement is like listening with fresh ears. I think I prefer this version to any other I've heard.

This take of Campaigner would see a release on Young's retrospective Decade in 1977, albeit with a verse removed, and Captain Kennedy shows up on 1980's Hawks & Doves as heard here. Both songs feel like they belong on this album. The former was one of a handful of unreleased songs to be included on Decade, and possibly was chosen due to its then-timely lyric stating that "even Richard Nixon has got soul". 

The album ends with The Old Country Waltz, played by Young on the piano, a far cry from the shambolic take with Crazy Horse on 1977's unfocused American Stars 'n Bars. In my mind, this is the weakest track here, but it is still very listenable, and I much prefer this version to the band one. Hawaii is probably the only other contender for that title, but again, is still quite good. When Young sings the title in the chorus his falsetto is eerie and unsettling. 

This leave us with Give Me Strength, which I really dig, and like Hawaii, I had not heard before. It's quite a nice song about loss and trying to move on, and I think it's a shame it was never revisited or released before this came out. There are a few flubs on the track, and that might be a reason it stayed in the vault, but I think it adds to the song's charm, and as result, the whole album.

The biggest travesty here is that the album stayed on the shelf for so long. It's a wonderful look into the mind of Young who was just coming out of his so-called 'Ditch trilogy' period and starting to look ahead. The deaths of Crazy Horse singer/guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry affected Young profoundly, and had a cathartic effect on the music he produced following their passings. Here he seems a little dazed still, but trying to fight through the fog, and carry on. I'm so glad that he did. I first listened to this album shortly after its release via the excellent Neil Young Archives. Obtaining a copy on vinyl by the time I decided I wanted to own it proved a challenge, but good things come to those who persist!