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Tyler: I discovered tonight’s album in a dollar bin, many years ago. I had little knowledge of which early Neil Young LPs are “essential,” but the cover of this one alone is iconic, and I knew I was getting a bargain. Harvest.

I’m still not a student of Young. His catalog is vast and ever-expanding, and I own a paltry five of his albums. I can’t speak to the considerable mythology around the man.

All that said? I know something hits me when I return to it regularly. That one-buck copy has served me well over the years. Harvest might be imperfect, but it contains its share of perfection.

Travis, you’re new to this one. What impressions did you have heading into a listen?

Travis: Not new, but it’s been a while–at least twenty, probably twenty-five years since I listened to this album. In late high school and early college I was expanding my taste beyond punk and metal into more classic rock, and Neil Young seemed like someone I needed to know about. Harvest is the only CD of his I ever had. I liked it at the time, but further explorations into the, as you say, “vast and ever-expanding” catalogue never really stuck. 

Listening to it again after so much time was pretty fun. My memory of it was that it was much more cohesive and less varied than the reality. Frankly, this album is kind of a mess, at least in terms of being a unified work rather than a collection of songs, some of which sort of sound like each other and others that really really don’t. In addition to offering quite a range of different sounds, it also offers a very wide range of quality, to my ears. I count three great songs, true first-ballot hall-of-famers, a couple pretty good ambling country rock songs, a couple of rockers that make me go “meh,” and two of the worst pieces of music I’ve ever heard.

Should we start with the great, the good, the meh, or the truly repugnant?

Tyler: Let’s see what meh has to offer. “Alabama” and “Words?”

Travis: Bingo. Also “Are You Ready for the Country?” which at least has the benefit of some nice harmonies from his sometime bandmates Crosby and Nash, but mostly just makes me giggle thinking about the Neil Young impression from that one Dana Carvey standup special that aired four thousand times on Comedy Central back in the day.

Tyler: “Dead dog lying in a ditch/Cigarette smoker has an itch.”

Travis: That’s the one!

Tyler: Fun memories. What even is on Comedy Central these days? I shudder in wondering.

Travis: I don’t know. I think The Daily Show still exists?

Tyler: Oh yeah! Jon Stewart does it on Mondays. That was a big thing.

Anyway. “Alabama” gets points from me for effort, but it can’t touch Young’s earlier “Southern Man.” “Words” is abrasive.

Travis: Lynyrd Skynyrd wins the beef round on “Alabama.” Weak sauce.

Tyler: I have a fondness for “Are You Ready For The Country?”. Makes me think of the McCartneys’ “Heart Of The Country” from Ram.

Incidentally, I think there’s an air of those early solo Paul releases here in Harvest. Home-spun work dressed up with a handful of classics.

Speaking of, let’s move to those. I’ll guess again. “Heart Of Gold,” “Old Man,” and “The Needle And The Damage Done.”

Travis: You got ’em. Whatever my feelings about the rest of Neil Young’s catalog, he wrote what is possibly the definitive anti-heroin song. Delivered in a hushed live recording, “The Needle and the Damage Done” is chillingly iconic listening to it even now. “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold” don’t rank quite as highly for me–they are objectively awesome, but are just in a vein that I don’t much vibe with, that being the vibe of the early-70s MOR singer-songwriter that helped turn hippie rebellion into relationship music for educated adults. Still, in that vein, these songs are at the tippy-top. James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt could never (except for singing harmony on these songs).

Tyler: “Every junkie’s like a setting sun.”

Damn remarkable lyric, that, in “Needle And The Damage Done.” It strikes me.

Travis: It’s simple yet incredibly powerful.

Tyler: I love all three of these. Timeless recordings.

I think I can continue my streak and guess the songs you consider horrendous.

“A Man Needs A Maid” and “There’s A World.”

Travis: Oh yeah.

Tyler: See, I hate the bombast. The big booming orchestration. It has no place on this album.

Travis: Yeah. I think for “There’s a World,” that is sufficient. Also, that Neil Young doesn’t have a good voice. He has a good-bad voice. He can harmonize well, and on both hushed country-rock and the heavy proto-grunge he made with Crazy Horse his style of singing works well. It does not, however, work well with piano and full orchestra. Song is butt. On most albums throughout recorded history, it would be easily the worst song.

But here? Here we have “A Man Needs a Maid.”

I had totally forgotten about “A Sad Divorcee Needs a Submissive Virgin,” likely because when I used to drive around listening to this album in high school, I’d hit skip on the CD as soon as it started. Listening to this again for the first time in more than two decades, the hate poured through me. This song is truly awful, a gigantic misstep that has no place on this or any album. To paraphrase Roger Ebert talking about Rob Reiner’s massive bomb North, I hate hate hate hate this song. The lyrics are garbage, the arrangement is something Sinatra or Tom Jones might find lacking subtlety, the vocals are strangled-cat horseshit, the sentiment is complete boomer misogyny. Fucking putrid.

I don’t understand how the same man who wrote “The Needle and the Damage Done” also wrote this.

And put it on the same album.

Tyler: At least they’re not back-to-back…?

I almost feel like I should apologize for suggesting this album, considering how hot that got you. Whoops!

Travis: Oh no, not at all. 2024 needs people speaking out against “A Man Needs a Maid.”

Tyler: Fair. I’m not a fan of either song, as became much clearer to me over these last couple weeks. “Man Needs A Maid” is obviously nonsense. It and “There’s A World” both derail what, at its best, is a fine, low-key, low-stress country-rock mood. They ain’t great!

Travis: Speaking of low-key, low-stress country-rock, we are left with “Out on the Weekend” and “Harvest.” They are good. I like them. Not as great as “Needle,” “Old Man,’ or “Heart of Gold,” but amiable tunes with some nice playing. Lots of people would kill to write such well-crafted seeming toss-offs.

Tyler: I especially dig “Out On The Weekend,” gentle, melancholy album intro that it is. Suits the mood, or at least the high points.

Well, we’ve covered it all. Neil Young’s Harvest: an uneven patchwork early-‘70s touchstone that soothes some listeners more than others.