Another curated summary of some of Neil's most interesting answers to Letters to the Editor in the Times-Contrarian with occasional ‘Editor’s’ comments by me. These replies date from August 31 to October 20, 2021, and are, as always, collated by the “Neil Young Unreleased” group on Facebook.

Albums / Songs / Timeline Concerts

  • Neil confirms a hitherto unconfirmed session with Crazy Horse in 1997 with Rick Rubin producing, where he definitely recorded the so far unreleased Modern World, as well as Horseshoe Man and the older song Hard Luck Stories.
  • No plans currently for any special releases to mark the Time Fades Away 50th anniversary in 2023.
  • More film and audio of the 1976 Hammersmith Odeon shows with Crazy Horse is definitely coming with Archives Vol. 3.
  • The Noise & Flowers album with POTR from the 2019 tour is “complete. On covid hold due to schedule problems”.
  • Recordings of the 1970 CSNY Fillmore East shows are “not currently scheduled but in pre-production stage”.
  • Apart from the already announced first six in the Official Bootleg Series, “more Bootlegs will come but none are planned currently”.
  • Neil says he is not sure if he has ever played Do I Have To Come Right Out And Say It live. (Ed.: Sugarmtn.org doesn’t show any performances prior to 2004, but he played it twice at the Bridge School Benefit in 2004 solo acoustic. And in 2010-2011 with Buffalo Springfield but with Richie Furay on lead vocal.)
  • Neil denies he was using cocaine when Déjà Vu was recorded, as implied in a Graham Nash book.
  • A fan asks about the 1988-1989 version of Boxcar believed to have been planned for the unreleased album Times Square. Neil says: “I know we have worked on that recently. I think it is in (Archives) Volume 4.” (Ed.: There was originally talk of tracks from the Times Square sessions appearing on the Road Of Plenty/Amazing Freedom projects which Neil has previously talked about. It is not clear what the situation is now with those album projects and to what extent the content may now be integrated into Vol. 4. A 1990s version of Boxcar is certainly already planned for the forthcoming Ragged Glory – Spook The Horse project. Whether that too will land up on Vol. 4? Who knows?)
  • “J Hanlon is working on Ragged Glory and Weld. POTR record (Noise & Flowers) is finished and waiting.”
  • A request to hear the original recording of Will To Love from April 1976 without the later overdubs: “That could happen on Volume three… we will see.”
  • The first version of Separate Ways released on Homegrown is “basically incomplete”. “Separate Ways was written for backgrounds, but they were never recorded and added for the original version.”
  • Answering if there are recordings of Tim Drummond playing on Saddle Up The Palomino, a song Neil co-wrote with Tim and Bobby Charles, and recorded without either of these co-authors for American Stars ‘n’ Bars in 1977, Neil says: “It was written earlier and not recorded with Tim and Bobby”. (Ed.: The song title Carmelina, assumed to be an early version of Palomino, shows up as early as 1974 in plans for Homegrown. It was first performed live in 1984.)
  • Neil admits to writing the "groove" of the Let’s Roll before 9/11. The lyrics followed, he says.
  • Neil says the song Comes A Time was recorded for the very first time solo at Triiad in Fort Lauderdale in September 1977. (Ed.: This is, I believe, new information. The version used on the album was recorded in November at Woodland with the Gone With The Wind Orchestra.) The earlier Triiad version may be included on the Oceanside Countryside disc on Archives Vol. 3, says Neil.
  • Neil implies that there would be a problem providing free hi-res downloads of Archives Vol. 1 material to previous buyers now because “We don’t know who bought volume 1”. The original downloads provided were only mp3 quality.
  • Neil is already thinking about life after Barn: “Gonna try to write with the same method I used for Barn, which was slow and unhurried, but steady. Every day brings a new thought, feeling and sound. I just have to be here to pick up on it.”
  • A collection of Neil’s live appearances with Paul McCartney? “What an interesting idea!... We will… see about building something there.”
  • Neil confirms that the snippet of Guilty Train which can be heard at the end of Old Laughing Lady on Songs For Judy was indeed a separate song which was never completed and that a “similar version” will show up on Archives Vol. 3. (Ed.: Presumably from the Hammersmith Odeon section of the 1976 Crazy Horse Tour film, where it was played on 31 Mar 1976.)
  • “Hippie Dream is not about just one person… or one event…. It’s so ugly.“
  • Neil says he will think about releasing his own Bridge School Benefit performances as audio releases. Those of other BSB performers are unlikely as “record companies have to be dealt with as well”.
  • NYA does not have a copy of the St. Paul Vote For Change Rockin’ In The Free World performance with Bruce Springsteen, REM, and John Fogerty.
  • Neil says they will put up Bad Example, an unreleased song from the Americana sessions which was a cover of a Pistol Annies song, on NYA: “I think it’s a cool one.”
  • Any progress on getting the rest of the Geffen albums into the hi-res store to purchase? “Yes. We are remastering.”
  • Asked about an influence of Bert Jansch on Ambulance Blues, Neil says: “Of course I copied him!”
  • Are there enough “usable tapes of CSNY to make up an album” no matter from which time period? “Maybe” says Neil.
  • Blowing up the frequently discussed theory of what makes Broken Arrow, Down By The River and Country Girl a trilogy, as described by Neil during the Canterbury House performance, Neil says “I meant Down Down Down”. (Ed.: Down Down Down is listed on Déjà Vu anyway as forming part of that version of Country Girl.)
  • Neil says they do not have a complete recording of the 1971 Royal Festival Hall solo show in London.
  • Neil says a new version of Powderfinger is coming in Archives Vol. 3 – “I believe an acoustic version”. (Ed.: He is presumably referring to the 1976 The Boarding House live recordings, or possibly from the 1983 Solo Trans Tour. The only unreleased studio recordings from the 1970s and 1980s we know about are with Crazy Horse -- one from Billy Talbot’s house from May 1975, and one from Wally Heider’s in early 1976. Neither of those falls within the Vol. 3 timeline.)

Videos / Movies

  • Bridge School Benefit videos: “We have them all and they are coming.”
  • Neil confirms that In A Rusted Out Garage will definitely be part of Archives Vol. 3.
  • The film of Mirror Ball Live with Pearl Jam in Dublin is “entering the postproduction/mix stage”.

NYA Stuff

  • Neil confirms that Joel Bernstein, his friend and former archivist, is still involved with the work at NYA: “We communicate often to get his advice. He is again integral to (Archives) volume three. There is only one JB.”
  • The Live At Vicar Street DVD is not shown as a separate entry on the NYA Timeline and elsewhere “because it was part of the Greendale package” and not a separate product.
  • NYA will look at sorting Deep Search results chronologically in each section rather than by frequency of the search term.
  • When asked when he began collecting all his recordings and material in an archive, Neil just says “I am a collector. Thus, I never throw things out. I can’t.” Fortunately for us!
  • The NYA Team points out that the “alerts” on the NYA mobile app will only ever relate to material which is actually available on the app. News of Zoom calls for Patrons or for example, or new Movietone releases, will therefore not be announced that way.
  • Katie at NYA confirms that Timeline Concert requests can only be made via the special request submission form at the foot of the itinerary of one of the existing TC entries on the Timeline. “Requests included in letters… cannot be processed.”
  • Neil says that NYA will break even in terms of subscription income “pretty soon”.
  • The sticky note placeholders on the Timeline, representing yet to be released archive-type albums, “will return”, says Neil.

Archive Crawls / Requests

  • More takes of “You Never Call”, apart from the one on Journeys. (Ed: There is already one in the 2010 Atlanta Timeline Concert and another one in the Le Noise sessions video on Movietone.)
  • Neil is still looking for a solo version of Mideast Vacation but says there is no tape.
  • Helpless/Knocking On Dragon’s Door from the 1975 SNACK Benefit with Bob Dylan.
  • See The Sky About To Rain, April 1971 version with the Stray Gators at Quadrafonic.
  • Early 1969 Crazy Horse Tour recordings: Neil says, “I don’t think we have any”.
  • Last Of His Kind and Mother Earth from the 2000 Farm Aid Volume One Live album.
  • Another request for the Almost Famous soundtrack acoustic version of Cortez The Killer. Neil replies: “should be easy”. (Ed.: But he sadly still hasn’t posted it yet on NYA!)
  • The Mary Turner KMET interview promo for Rust Never Sleeps from 1979 released as an LP by Warner.
  • The non-Greendale half of the solo shows from Vicar Street, Dublin in May 2003.
  • Songs not already included on the 1969 Live At The Riverboat album.

Miscellaneous

  • Frank Gironda from Lookout, Neil’s management team, confirms that hi-res downloads are only provided free with audio releases purchased via the Greedy Hand Store. They are not provided with purchases of video products.
  • Frank also says: “Warner is working to get the European (Greedy Hand) store opened as quick as possible, and we hope that it will be fully functional by early next year.”
  • Neil on his science fiction novel Canary: “I don’t know when it will be released. I was recently asked to do some illustrations! That stopped me in my tracks!!” (Ed.: We know Neil does cars, so why not spaceships?)
  • A fan asks how come a girl in the audience shouts “How's Zeke?” in between Nowadays Clancy and Sugar Mountain on the Carnegie Hall album. Neil's answer from the stage is: “He's wonderful”. Since Zeke wasn’t born until almost 2 years later, how could that be? Neil is perplexed. (Ed.: I think the likely answer is that the girl actually asks: “How’s Steve?” meaning Stephen Stills.)
  • “How do you hit those high notes?” Neil: “I don’t. I surround them according to Leonard Bernstein.” (Ed.: Does anyone know what Bernstein quote Neil is referring to? I don’t!)
  • Neil left the stage during the performance of Southern Man at the CSNY 1973 Oakland Coliseum show “because there was a disturbance in the audience involving black and white people. It blew my mind. I left.”
  • Neil says that at a guess he owns “30 or so” guitars, and “six or seven” vintage cars, and that he loves Colorado as a permanent home, though he loves the Pacific Ocean too. (Ed.: And presumably North Ontario too!)
  • Neil confirms that he still has the right to decide what to publish and perform without getting permission from Hipgnosis, who recently bought a 50% share in his total catalogue.