Complex Sessions: Neil Young & Crazy Horse "Change Your Mind", Director Jonathan Demme

Neil Young and Crazy Horse's "Change Your Mind" from the Complex Sessions masterfully captures the group in all their power and beauty.

Recorded at the Complex Studios in Los Angeles, where Neil Young and Crazy Horse had recorded Sleeps With Angels, director Jonathan Demme filmed them performing four songs from the album. Shot over two nights on Oct. 3-4, 1994, the 30-minute video contains "My Heart," "Prime Of Life," "Change Your Mind," and "Piece Of Crap."

In this 15-minute "Change Your Mind," with its lengthy instrumental passages, Demme varies the lighting from near darkness to excessive brightness.

(Thanks Keith W!)

From NEIL YOUNG'S - and Rock n' Roll's - Finest Moment (Fi - The Magazine of Music & Sound, June, 1996) by Paul Williams:

At my local record store, I recently came across a videocassette which apparently had been available for a year, but which I'd never heard about, called Neil Young and Crazy Horse: The Complex Sessions. Bought it, brought it home, watched and listened and was absolutely astonished.

Don't fall into the trap of believing that the great moments in rock and roll history are all in the past. This twenty-seven minute performance by one of rock's greatest and most enduring artists and bands is headline news. What rock and roll has always tried to achieve has never come any closer than this, or Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," or Janis and Big Brother live in 1967, or Springsteen and E Street in 1975.

You shoulda been there.

And in this case, thanks to the miracle of recording technology, you can be. This videotape will wear out no faster than your all-time favorite 45, it is just as deserving of repeated plays, just as possibly able to continue to deepen its resonance through the rest of your lifetime. The best argument I've ever heard for owning a "home theater" setup with superior audio capabilities.

The mix on this tape is so brilliant it even sounds good on a damn TV set, but I keep wanting to turn it up louder than the TV will go.

The Complex Sessions seems to me to represent a pivotal moment in rock history (as, say, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" did), not only because it's so good but also because it is a breakthrough in the creative use of a medium (the long-form rock video as a work of art) that has defeated most supplicants, including Neil as often as not. On the other hand, it isn't selling many copies, and in our increasingly corrupt pop culture, that and inches of press coverage are the only measurements of "significance." Oh well. Great music is still great music.

If a tree falls in the forest but nobody writes a review, did it make a sound?

Complete article on Complex Sessions NEIL YOUNG'S - and Rock n' Roll's - Finest Moment (Fi - The Magazine of Music & Sound, June, 1996) by Paul Williams.

More Jonathan Demme and Neil Young, Sleeps With Angels reviews, and "Change Your Mind" lyrics analysis.

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