Album: Tonight’s the Night
Released: June, 1975 (2 year
delayed-release)
One of Neil Young’s most oft quoted statements is one he wrote in the
liner notes for ‘Decade’. In it he
states that ‘Heart of Gold’, the acclaimed 1972 album with his only #1 song (the
title cut) “put me in the middle of the road.
Travelling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch” (* Side
note: The term “Ditch Trilogy”, coined
by Young aficionados in reference to his subsequent 3 morose albums, is tied to
this statement). Young was alluding to the commercial soft-rock
success of ‘Heart of Gold’ and the necessity to move on in order to stay
fresh. There were a number of directions
Young could have gone, but the direction he chose (or was chosen for him) was straight
down. Down to places most musicians
don’t want to go. I’m not referring to a
dark side, as some might think. I’m
referring to facing pain and suffering head on.
And in the early years of the 1970s, Neil Young had plenty of this to
confront.
The 3rd album in the trilogy ‘Tonight’s the Night’ (which
was actually the 2nd considering when it was produced in comparison
to its release) is in the ditch alright; a ditch festooned with barbed wire and
cow manure. I already wrote a Forever
Young entry about it (# 14), but at the time, promised to come back, if only to
focus on the title track. After all, Tonight’s
the Night ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFIcQU8K4AY
) rivals a handful of songs in terms of how often I have seen it performed
live. It’s not one of my favorite tunes;
not by a long shot. But as with the
Rolling Stones Satisfaction, which I
was also apathetic to, yet ended up giving its own Stepping Stone (# 41,
September 2012), I’ve grown to respect Tonight’s
the Night, if for no other reason than the songwriter’s own fascination for
it (as is the case with Satisfaction).
I’ll try to explain why here.
‘Tonight’s the Night’ was the first of Neil Young’s compositions that
had a reprise, that being the title track, which occurs at the beginning
and end of the record (the two others that come to mind are My My, Hey Hey {Out of the Blue} / Hey Hey, My My {Into the Black} off
1979s ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ and Rockin’ in
the Free World - acoustic and electric versions - off of 1989s ‘Freedom’). This to me had always meant that there was a
storyline here. But for many years I had
thought it to simply be a loose affiliation of songs related to the decline and
eventual overdose death of two of Young’s close friends, Danny Whitten and
Bruce Berry, sung from the songwriter’s point of view (with most songs put to
tape during one late hazy night jam session in August of 1973, giving the whole
product a cohesive sound and feel).
Fine enough. That works as a
storyline. But after doing some more
reading on the subject, it was Young himself who raised the bar a few notches
for me, setting the record straight (no pun intended) by hinting in an interview
with Rolling Stone Magazine that the song sequence may actually be a bit closer
to the fatally-flawed sources of his inspiration. In other words, the album is an attempt to
frame the story from Whitten and Berry’s point of view on their downward spiral
from troubled to “too far gone” to the grave.
Of course, few if any can self-reflect when they are in such a frame of
mind (Dylan Thomas perhaps?). And so
Neil Young and company (Ben Keith, Nils Lofgren, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina)
attempt to put themselves in the shoes of their lost friends. When you listen to it in this context,
‘Tonight’s the Night’ enters a new realm of intensity and clarity, and in the
process I believe it significantly helps to propel Young into the single-digit
pantheon of rock immortals.
I would like to think there are few in this world who would want to
achieve lofty stature upon such a tragedy as the premature loss of two close
friends to overdose (this thought brings to mind Jon Krakauer getting flack for
writing ‘Into Thin Air’ about his personal account of the 1996 Mt. Everest
Disaster). Certainly not Neil Young,
since it’s clear that for him the ramifications would be lasting in his writing
and reflections on these events throughout his career; and not in a good way
(at least for him). The pain is palpable
and it is to Young’s credit that he never really has put this behind him. Much like Pink Floyd who penned ‘Dark Side of
the Moon’, Shine on You Crazy Diamond
and ‘The Wall’ with founding member Syd Barrett in mind (after Barrett slipped
into LSD-induced madness early in the band’s career). In both cases, the musicians focused much of their
writing on trying to come to grips with what had occurred.
We the fans heard it all and felt it all, which is ultimately why this
focus paid off. It was a lesson learned
for us 2nd generation listeners growing up in the 70s. Why did I personally get caught up in it? I mean, my goodness, this material is
dour. Well, why does anyone get caught
up in artistic reflection of misstep and misfortune, be it Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare,
opera, Don Quixote, or a movie like
‘Saving Private Ryan’. It all comes down
to this: Good art is truth, no matter
the subject matter or forum, and people recognize it as such.
Over the years, Neil Young let go
of many of the songs on ‘Tonight’s the Night’ as touring staples (oh, what
a treat it would be to see him play Albuquerque,
Lookout Joe, Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown or Tired Eyes), but he never let go of the title track no matter who
he was touring with. Why? I believe it goes back to that concept of
using the song as a reprise on the album.
At the beginning of the record it feels like a living, breathing set of
three words, sung by Bruce Berry (with Young filling in) in haunting
refrain. At the end of the album the
words echo like a ghost around the band and us.
What this song means most to me is that Berry, who was the roadie for
CSNY, was working on his own music, his own songs, playing Neil Young’s guitar
late at night (“after the people were gone”) with the hope that he’d break
through a mental barrier by repeating the refrain “Tonight’s the night” again
and again. Young found Bruce Berry’s
singing “as real as the day was long”, and so lamented that this fledging
talent was never realized. Yet this song
feels like a lament for all untapped talent, all unrealized dreams, snuffed out
prematurely in one form or another.
Neil Young never tried to complete Bruce Berry’s song. He just took the “Tonight’s the Night”
refrain and built it into his own song. It’s
fascinating that for all Young has written and all he has covered it’s these 3
words, originally sung by a roadie, that may just be what he, in the end, has
repeated most in front of large crowds of people. It says a lot about the man, and about these
life-changing events and the effects they had on him.
Many of us listening were too young and naïve to truly realize the
intensity of what played out in front of us in our earliest years of attending
Neil Young concerts and hearing, Tonight’s
the Night. But life has a way of
catching up with you, eventually making such a story all too real. These are the crossroad moments. Do you face the music, as Neil Young did, or
do you find ways to move on and suppress?
I vote for facing the music (literally and figuratively), because in
the end this is what resonates and gives us pause, hopefully leading to action
and ultimately the prevention of similar Berry/Whitten-like consequences.
-
Pete
