Harvest Time

I saw the new Neil Young documentary last night. Harvest Time chronicles the recording of what is probably his most popular album, Harvest. It was an interesting look at how albums were recorded before the advent of the laptop with Pro Tools. There are some funny bits as well as bittersweet ones, especially seeing Young recording backing vocals with David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills knowing that Crosby is despised by his former CSNY bandmates today. (Well, maybe not Stills.) Those scenes have a fun, youthful comity to them that it long gone.

Plus, the scenes where Young or someone else remark that they hope the film sees the light of day soon aroused lots of laughter in the theatre as we know it took 50 years. A highlight was seeing Bruce Berry whose death the following year would inspire the song "Tonight's the Night". It was neat to see Young playing "Journey Through the Past", a tune that finally emerged in 1973 in a live version.

One thing that stood out to me was how happy Young seems yet how doleful some of the songs we see him playing are. There are songs like "Journey Through the Past" and "Out on the Weekend" yet he appears cheerful and loving with his girlfriend Carrie Snodgress in one scene.

On a geeky note, I left the theatre wondering what outtakes those sessions produced. The internet says "Journey Through the Past", "Bad Fog of Loneliness", "See the Sky About to Rain", and "Dance Dance Dance". The last one was recorded by Young's other band, Crazy Horse, and had been released on their 1971 eponymous album.