Neil Young writes the best music for when you’re sad. He’s great because he doesn’t mock or make light of sadness, but is rather able to put it in perspective. I think it’s because he’s one of the only songwriters that writes realistically about learning and changing. Whenever I’m truly bummed about something, there has been a Neil Young album that’s been there for me and helped me feel better about everything.
Minor sadnesses: Harvest
Harvest is Neil Young’s most commercially successful album, with hits like “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man” that we’ve all heard so many times that we sometimes let ourselves think we never need to hear them again.
However beneath all the critical acclaim and commercial success, Harvest does a great job of talking about doubt. Take this verse from the title track for instance:
Will I see you give
More than I can take?
Will I only harvest some?
When the days fly past
will we lose our grasp,
or fuse it in the sun.
With the simplest language and melodic choices, Young is able to perfectly depict that moment where one questions the permanence of the people in your life. For me, this doubt has led to some incredibly painful moments in my life. To hear someone state it so plainly, with an emphasis on the possible (rather than the doubt itself) is really helpful to hear.
Tracks like Heart of Gold and Out on the Weekend acknowledge the search to be a better person, whatever that means. When you’re feeling like you’ve done something slightly wrong though, it’s nice to have a song remind you that you’re not perfect, but you’re trying as hard as you can.
Medium-Grade Sadnesses: On The Beach
Rolling Stone called On The Beach ”one of the most despairing albums of the decade.”
While it is a very sad album, this isn’t a good description of it. On The Beach concerns itself more with moving on and saying goodbye to sadness than describing it.
My favourite lyric from it is the chorus of “For the Turnstiles”
You can really learn a lot that way,
It’ll change you in the middle of the day,
Though your confidence may be shattered,
it doesn’t matter.
There have been a few moments in my life that have reduced me to a simpering whelp of a person, and this is a perfect song for those moments. Young acknowledges the emotional weight that our sadness carries, and is somehow able to show us the show us the bright side.
This album doesn’t have the hopefulness of Harvest nor the desolation of Tonight’s The Night, but it doesn’t need either. It is for moments when you feel destroyed, but you’re not really.
Heavy Sadnesses: Tonight’s the Night
An obvious pick for this, Tonight’s the Night is an album made for Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, two of Young’s friends who didn’t get to grow old. It wouldn’t be melodramatic to describe Tonight’s the Night as haunting, since one of the tracks literally features vocals by Whitten.
The liner notes have a picture of the band with names next to their faces. Danny’s name is listed, but an empty space greets us where his picture should be.
The amazing thing about Tonight’s the Night is how it handles grief with humour, anger, denial and an eerie presence of the dead throughout. I am lucky enough to not have had to deal with a great deal of death in my life so far. However, the experiences I have had have taught me that it isn’t a simple sadness, and is often not approachable directly.
Tonight’s the Night isn’t a collection of songs about death. Rather, it has songs with little stories all imparting different emotions. The only thing tying them together is the omnipresence of absent friends.
