#294/929
August 12 1985
Neil Young
Old Ways
Genre: Country
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
The Wayward Wind
Get Back to the Country
Um…Allen…this is…psst…this is country. You said we weren’t doing country.
Well, Allen, that’s true. I did say that. I am also a creature of whimsy. And I would tell you that, if we were doing The Listening Post 2019 we would absolutely cover Springsteen’s Western Stars. And if this was The Listening Post 1981 we would most definitely be listening to Elvis Costello’s Trust. And, heck, we give The Knitters a listen.
Look, “rock music” was going through one helluvan identity crisis in 1985. Everyone wa doing something different, be it use synths instead of guitars, doubling down on alternative sounds, or playing in different idioms. And this is Neil Young. You sorta have to cover it, no?
Neil is lamenting the loss of something. It feels like he’s longing for an ideal that America was built on but he knows (and you and I know) that it probably wasn’t real. It was a fiction. Which is what makes this album even more honest to me. Because I enjoy incongruity. And I enjoyed this. Because when he is earnest it makes me wonder if that means that he was being earnest on the songs where he sounds ironic and snarkily sarcastic. And that works in reverse. His snark makes me wonder if the heartfelt honesty of, say, “Once an Angel” or “My Boy” is actually sarcasm.
Young is a victim of his own intelligence.
And his voice works here.
This album is a nice curve off the rock and roll highway. I’m here for it. Thanks, Neil.
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