Even a couple of the happier songs sound sad, as if Neil is trying to lift the spirits of a group of mourners in a funeral parlor. The project itself was initially inspired by a screenplay that never made it to the big screen, and perhaps the influence of this “sort of an end-of-the world movie,” explains the sadness that permeates the album.
Neil himself admits that some of the lyrics make no sense at all, but some of those songs are revered to this day.
It’s a quiet album full of sparse arrangements and only a few moments of flash. I still wasn’t entirely convinced, but I had no other credible explanation for the enduring power of After the Gold Rush, which still tops most of the Best of Neil Young lists thirty-four albums later. It’s the dividing line between the 60’s and the 70’s.” I know you’re going to tell me I’m idealizing and simplifying, but the 60’s were light, the 70’s were darkness, and I think Neil Young sensed that. Even with all the shit that went down in the 60’s, there was still hope. I would have thought you’d pick Lennon’s ‘God’ as the 60’s death knell.” I thought the best way to keep his spirits up would be to listen to his thoughts on the music of his time, so I brought my laptop along and together we worked down the list of 60’s-70’s albums on my to-do spreadsheet. My dad shared those thoughts when I visited him in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. No, I knew the 60’s were over and done the first time I heard After the Gold Rush.” “It wasn’t The Beatles breaking up and it wasn’t Kent State.
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