Sunday Music – Borrowed Tune

Today’s music video is Borrowed Tune from Canadian singer songwriter Neil Young.

This video was posted to You Tube by azcarf44

As a music fan in the 70’s, about the only thing you would hear about new bands or solo artists was on the release of a new album from them, unless the band or solo artist was monumentally huge, and then you heard a lot of them. Such was not the case with Neil Young, as he was not all that huge, even though still quite a recognisably large star, but you never really heard much about him. So, anything new was on the release of new albums.

The next album released after On The Beach was the album titled Tonight’s The Night, and that was in mid 1975. It has two stories to it, the one from my perspective from when it was released and the one that came out many years later.

My record guy now knew I was a huge Neil Young fan, and as soon as he received anything new, he put aside a copy for me, and I picked it up the Friday after it arrived in his small record shop. As soon as I got back to where I was staying at the time, it went onto the record player and was played for the first of many times. While I sat and listened, I read the information that came with it. It was a fold out album, similar to a double LP, but with just the one vinyl LP disk inside. The song titles are only in a small area along the bottom of the back of the album cover, and each of the four facing sides of the cover had large black and white images of either Neil on his own, or the band he was using for this album. The inside sleeve containing the LP was also done in card with the plastic album cover inside, and this sleeve showed images front and back of Neil and the band. However, inside this sleeve was what seemed to be a small booklet, in reality an A3 sized card folded into four, so 4 small sized single pages with some text and images, opening out into a larger size with the whole of the in side covered in text overlaying an image of Neil and the Band and a scene from Miami. The front of the small booklet contains a fairly cryptic (at the time in 1975) message addressed to ‘Waterface’. Inside is an image of a young boy with a fishing pole and a fish, whistling as he walks home. Next page sees a dedication to Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, whose initials BB appear in the Waterface letter on the front. The back page shows typed text, also cryptic in nature, typed over an image of the liner notes for the earlier album, On The Beach, along with a small image of Roy Orbison. When you open this booklet out to its full A3 size, the other side is text in a foreign language, not understood by me at the time.

That’s the first part of the story of this album from my perspective at the time in 1975. There was so much reading to do, I played the whole album over again to just listen closely to the songs. As with each new album, I was not disappointed, because I just liked anything new from Neil. So far, nothing he had brought out left me disappointed at all, which was odd, because there was new music from other artists and bands that I felt was not as good as their earlier music on previous albums, but with Neil, I just liked everything new, which upon reflection, was a little odd, because had I made my purchases of his albums based on music reviews at the time, then I would not have had these last 4 albums since Harvest, 2 studio albums, the live album and the compilation/retrospective double album.

The second part of the story came a lot later, when I got hold of Neil’s biography, written by Jimmy McDonough in 2003. I found out then that this album was in fact originally recorded in mid 1973, almost two years prior to its release, and with the two other albums released in the interim. Evidently, Neil’s label was not all that keen to release this album at the time, and only released it after two years of ‘gentle’ prompting from Neil himself.

The album is quite obviously one written from almost despair. Months before this recorded album, long time band member Danny Whitten had died during recovery from his addiction to Heroin. Barely 11 weeks before the recording of this album, another friend of Neil’s, roadie Bruce Berry had also died from a heroin overdose. Songs on the album refer to these deaths and one song even pointedly mentions Bruce Berry, the title track itself. Danny Whitten appears on the album in a live 1970 recorded song from when he was a member of Neil’s backing band Crazy Horse, and that song is C’mon Baby, Let’s Go Downtown, co written by both Neil and Danny.

Other songs on the album reflect Neil’s feelings at the time. He had started to tour the enormously popular Harvest album, and with a lot of new material being played at those live concerts, crowds may not have been appreciative of Neil at that time, expecting to hear the mellow sounds from Harvest to the new hard edged material. So, while the album may seem to show Neil in a relatively depressed state of mind, it is in fact indicative of the music he was writing, not to appease fans, but what he actually felt himself, something rare in music even in those days, as musicians, solo artists and bands always sought something that they thought would sell, and that the public would like.

While it might seem obvious to show a clip of the title song, the one I have selected from this album epitomises Neil’s feelings at the time, his despondency especially over the recent death of Bruce Berry. What Neil did with this song was to actually borrow a tune from the Rolling Stones, change the timing and progression, and then add his own lyrics to it, reflecting his feelings at the time. That Stones song was Lady Jane, recorded in 1966, and taken from their album Aftermath.

Another oddity from the album to surface at a later date was that foreign language text on the whole of the inside of that small booklet. The text is Dutch, and is a review from a Dutch music journalist, Neil saw this, and, also in a reflection of his feelings at the time, decided to include it in those liner notes, not having a clue what it said, but thinking when you feel as bad as I do, then everything may as well be in Dutch. However, what he did was to have the text translated for him by a couple of visiting Dutch girls at the time. Once translated, it actually reflected the point he was trying to make, that of general despondency, something that American music journalists could neither understand, nor write about. Neil was in fact quite impressed that somewhere on the other side of the World, someone actually saw the point he was trying to make. That Dutch journalist later stayed with Neil at his ranch.

At the time, none of this was known by me, well, virtually none of it was known by anyone at all, and it has only surfaced many years later.

While critically accepted at the time, the album (in much the same manner as all three albums after Harvest) did not sell all that well, and was not very well received, while now, this album and those other two main albums released following Harvest are looked upon as perhaps classics of Neil Young’s. Isn’t hindsight just amazing.

It’s not often I actually include the lyrics with a video clip and text, but this time, it’s worth inclusion as they point directly to Neil’s feelings at that time. The clip itself is just images laid over the album recording of this wonderful song, that classical Neil Young voice, the stark simple notes played on the piano, and the plaintive addition of the harmonica. Such a beautiful song.

I’m climbin’ this ladder,
My head in the clouds
I hope that it matters,
I’m havin’ my doubts.

I’m watchin’ the skaters
Fly by on the lake.
Ice frozen six feet deep,
How long does it take?

I look out on peaceful lands
With no war nearby,
An ocean of shakin’ hands
That grab at the sky.

I’m singin’ this borrowed tune
I took from the Rolling Stones,
Alone in this empty room
Too wasted to write my own.

I’m climbin’ this ladder,
My heads in the clouds
I hope that it matters.

Tagged: Music, Music Video, Neil Young

Posted in: Music, Videos