Neil Young: Tonight's The Night

Proof of purchase.  I purchased the t-shirt when I saw Neil live in 2010.

Back in 1975 Neil Young made a decision.  He decided to shelve the album he’d been working on for weeks, Homegrown, and release an album he had recorded two years earlier but had chosen not to release at that time.  Tonight’s The Night is considered by some to be "arguably unmatched in the entire history of rock 'n' roll."  Not a bad second choice, apparently.  Commercially, it sold just so-so, topping out at number 25 on the charts that year.

The original cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Street Survivors record features lead singer Ronnie Van Zant wearing a Tonight’s the Night t-shirt.  I won’t go into the “feud” between Neil and that classic southern rock band, you can find out more about it here and here.  Instead, I will just state that those who knew rock best in 1975 considered Tonight’s the Night a "dark masterpiece."  It ranks in the lower half of Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all time.

It is a strange record.  It was mostly recorded after Neil and the band got totally screwed up on a mix of cocaine, pot, and tequila at about 2 o’clock in the morning.  Roughly half of the album was knocked out in one long night session.  It is the final record in Neil’s “ditch trilogy.”  Several of the songs are downers but a surprising number are upbeat or at least laid back.  Everything features a sharp-edged angst to it, however.  This project is a lament for two friends who died of heroin overdoses.  The liner notes read: “This album was made for Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry who lived and died for rock and roll.”  

Tonight’s The Night is not the most accessible version of Neil to listen to.  It can sound a lot sloppier than it really is.  I remember being disappointed by it initially but (as so often with Neil) repeat listenings changed my mind.  Once I understood Neil wanted to make these songs as ‘raw’ as possible, to convey personal pain and anguish, then I was able to get my mind aligned in the “glow” that’s required to appreciate it. 

Knowing now that Homegrown was not released because it was too painful for Neil, it is ironic that he replaced it with an earlier album about a different sort of grief.  This somewhat obtuse album became revered among rock media.  More successful critically than at the record stores, the Neil Young brand was in one of its many heydays in 1975.

“Tonight’s The Night” starts the record.  You hear the band barely present, kinda stumbling into the song.  Fantastic bass and piano on this one.  This sets the authentic “raw” tone for the album, the lyrics are a fair well to Berry but the music is a nice mini-jam session.

Nils Lofgrin’s guitar and Neil’s piano are terrific on “Speakin’ Out.”  There is a fantastic chord shift part-way through each verse which just sounds so nice.  When Neil says “Alright Nils, alright…” we hear Lofgrin rip through a bluesy rift as the piano meanders on the keyboard.  The band drifts dreamily through this number.

“World On A String” starts as if it’s going to be a hard rocker but it never gets out of second gear.  That used to irritate me.  Now I am fine with it.  It has a honky-tonk feel to it, as does most of the album.  Whereas, “Borrowed Time” is pristine acoustic Neil.  So gentle compared to the preceding song, very lyrical, simple, beautiful.

Then we come to a recording of Neil and Crazy Horse performing live at Fillmore East in 1970.  “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown” was written and sung by Danny Whitten, the guy who later OD’ed and inspired the drunken record we are now listening to.  It is strange and rather distinctive to think about that.  How many records have you listened to that were inspired by a dead man who sings a song on the album? 

At any rate, this song shows how tight Crazy Horse was early on and what an incredible talent Whitten could have become.  A tremendously smooth energy to this song.  (This track is included along with the rest of the performance on Neil’s archive release DVD in 2006.  The band performs a version of “Cowgirl in the Sand” on that archive release that is the best I’ve ever heard.)

“Mellow My Mind” might be the most representative track on the album.  The band is all unified, each instrument is easily detectable.  This forms a solid foundation upon which Neil can proceed into, as the lyrics go, “a situation that can causalize your mind.”  Neil’s voice strains its way through this one but it all works because the band is holding the song together no matter how Neil tries to rip it apart.  One of my all-time favorite Neil Young songs.

“Roll Another Number For The Road” is probably the only song on the whole album I truly connected with hearing all this for the first time.  I love the opening lyric: “It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition and the morning sun is yet to climb my hood ornament.”  An anthem to late-night partying, getting high, finding your third wind of the evening and smiling so deeply that everything is just fine.  Great piano by Nils on this one. 

“Albuquerque” features some fine ethereal playing by Ben Keith and is one of Neil’s great “deep cut” songs.  This is a good one to crank up while driving down the road.  Just an easy song with a twang.  “New Mama” is a wonderful tune that shifts time in between the chorus which opens a closes the song.  Beautiful vocal harmonies effortlessly carry the weight of the lyrics. 

“Lookout Joe” is another solid rocking track that sort of takes off now and then.  Again, Neil is reckless with the tune and tries outlandish things while the band remains steady.  But I like “Tried Eyes” better.  It is a half-spoken song that sounds as if Neil and the band are trying to push through everything and bring back the dead.  One of the album's strongest tracks.

“Tonight’s The Night - Part II” just gets right to it.  The vibe is already there and we pick up the song where we left off on track one.  This is a refrain of the album's central theme, only this time the jamming gets pushed a bit further, angrier, giving death the finger.  The album ends on a defiant note.

There really isn’t a weak song on Tonight’s the Night, though sometimes the material isn’t easy to listen to.  It is difficult for me to see why Neil didn’t put this out immediately in 1973 but, by waiting, he replaced a weaker album in Homegrown with this gloriously used-up and unrefined ode to grief.  Furthermore, it is Neil’s personal, private-made-public grief that gets full exposure here.  On the inner circle of the original vinyl record a note was pressed: “I’m sorry.  You don’t know these people.  This means nothing to you.”

In 1975 Neil couldn’t get over his recently lost lover but apparently he had come to terms with the deaths of two friends.  The results are dark and brooding, strange timeless songs laced with an honest escape from the pain through simple numbness and aimless wandering that sounds remarkably prescient in today’s pandemic world.