Neil Young
Illustration by Mike Faille, from Kiim Kong photo
(Click photo to enlarge)
The Loner.
Neil Young has many, many nicknames like "Shakey", "Mr. Soul", "Godfather of Grunge", etc. And then there is "The Loner".
In the film "Harvest Time" (see ANALYSIS: What "Harvest Time" Reveals About Neil Young), a side of Neil Young is seen -- yet unseen -- that many fans identify with in a comfortingly relatable manner. As in, literally, see the lonely boy out on the weekend trying to make it pay.
Neil Young's Harvest Time Film
In listening to Neil Young's extensive lyrics, the theme of "loneliness" quite often hovers about many of his songs. A theme which is very prevalent, pervasive and persistent over the decades. Thus, the TW Comment of the Moment on ANALYSIS: What "Harvest Time" Reveals About Neil Young by Dionys:
The Loner Alone, a Lonesome List
- Bad Fog Of Loneliness
- Campaigner (“I am a lonely visitor”)
- Everybody’s Alone
- Four Strong Winds (“Four strong winds that blow lonely…”)
- Give Me Strength (“The lonely man I make myself to be”)
- Hard Luck Stories (“Now she’s gone and you’re alone…”)
- Harvest (…and was some black face in a lonely place…)
- Hello, Lonely Woman
- Hold Back the Tears (Single life really has its fine points…”)
- Like An Inca (There’s a bridge I have to cross alone…”)
- Lotta Love (“Cause my heart needs relating not solitude”)
- Mellow My Mind (”lonesome whistle on a railroad track”)
- Misfits (“On the Needles Highway there is a lone red rider…”)
- Oh, Lonesome Me
- Out on the Weekend (“See the lonely boy out on the weekend”)
- Roll Another Number (“though I long to see that lonesome hippie smile”)
- Sample and Hold (“But not the lonely one…”)
- Sunny Inside (From now on I ain’t scared of lonely nights...”)
- Tell Me Why (”I am lonely but you can free me)
- The Loner
- The Losing End (When You’re On) (“Before I wandered off alone”)
- There Goes My Babe
- The Wayward Wind (“In a lonely shack by the railroad track…”)
- Too Lonely
- When You Dance I Can Really Love (While the lonely mingle with circumstance”)
- When Your Lonely Heart Breaks
- Will to Love (“But I won’t turn back with this lonely tide)
- Wonderin’ (I am wondering if I’ll be alone”)
Sure I missed out on a few songlines
UPDATE:
+ Down By The River ("It's so hard for me staying here all alone..") (Thanks Abner!) + Old Man (live alone in a paradise) and (but I'm all alone at last) (Thanks Nobody knows!)
+ Last Trip to Tulsa (Sure it's not a case of being lonely we have here...)
+Music Arcade - ("Have you ever felt all alone") (Thanks Sancho!)
Thanks Dionys, Abner, Nobody Knows, Sancho & Still Young and everyone on the thread.
Step aside, open wide.
And the ultimate irony here is that watching Neil in "Harvest Time" write the song “Out on the Weekend” -- apparently spontaneously -- while happily laughing away and surrounded by friends and lovers is most incongruously surreal.
You folks out there make us feel never alone as long we have friends digging the music.
More on ANALYSIS: What "Harvest Time" Reveals About Neil Young.
Neil Young Gets Back “Out on the Weekend”
Labels: alabama, analysis, ditch trilogy, film, harvest, harvest time, neil young, review, southern man