Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' (1969), the first Young album produced by David Briggs, is is first masterpiece, a complex and 'heavy' work punctuated by long sermons backed by the rhythm and the interweaving of instrumental rock band Crazy Horse and pierced by stigmata stabbing of his guitar. The guitar playing is violent and his stories a neurotic exploration of urban alienation as if glimpsed behind the scenes of the great open spaces of North America. The album also exemplifies the painful convulsions of his generation, torn apart by drugs, civil unrest and fear. Young swings his ballads between the two extremes of solemn folk and archaic gritty rock. The tone of his voice, a kind of falsetto tenor, ranges from sublime pathos to a forceful aggression. Young's art is, first and foremost, a fusion of music and words that identifies with his era's zeitgeist. Young is unique in targeting the inner chaos of the individual that followed the outer chaos of society. While an artist like Dylan "transfers" his era's events into a metaphysical universe, or an artist like Springsteen relates the epic sense of ordinary life, Young carries out a more complex psychological operation that, basically, bridges the idealism of the hippy communes and the neuroses of the urban population. His voice, his lyrics, his melodies and his guitar style compose a message of suffering and redemption that, at its best, transcends in hallucination, mystical vision, philosophical enlightenment, while still grounded in a context that is fundamentally a hell on earth.

(Edited)

Superb album. Down by the River has to be my favourite, that said the title track, Cowgirl in the Sand and Cinnamon Girl are excellent. Chilled out rock. (Edited)

From Mercury TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/19/2017 20:01 | #199776 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Sometimes I forget How HEAVY this album is, then I play it and then my ears are destroyed by the first 10 seconds of Cinnamon Girl and I remember: this thing is a freaking bloodbath of fuzzy, scuzzy, grungey, rock at its most fierce and furious!

Okay, how's that for a random way to start this review of Neil's first of many Great albums? Cool.

This album is of 2 minds, the heavy, frustrated, somehow fascinating and minimalist at the same time side is where its at its best. But there is the also great Folk/Country/Poetic/Sensitive singer-songwriter side (which is fuckind great here, but taken to its zenith on the next 2 Neil records).

I love the fact that this album doesn't split the jekyll and Hyde between night and day or side 1 and 2, which is what happens on albums like Remian In Light, Low and even Neil's Rust Never Sleeps to name a very few that do this excellently. Instead, these 2 sides of Neil are there back and forth, Once you get lulled into a chill and peaceful place with say "Round and Round" you are rudely reminded of the ugly, angry side of Young's mind with "Down By The River". There is a weird rhythm to this album. It doesn't seem like this kind of loud quiet loud sequence would make for a totally satisfying experience, but it does.

Lyrically, Neil is great throughout. He just paints vivid scenarios with few words like almost no one else in his time could do. And his voice, all quivery and lovable and classic, while not yet in peak form (again, just wait a year) is alrady just hypnotically brittle and inviting.

But really, if I'm being honest, the strangth of the album is the HEAVY parts. Specifically the far and away best song of the album (and maybe of the year) "Down By The River". Don't get me wrong "Cinnamon Girl" is crunchy excellence and a great opner. And "Cowgirl In The Sand" would be the highlight of 99.9% of all albums, with its fierce, screaming leads from Neil and its rock solid bass grooves which rattle me brain. But, BUT, Come on, "Down By The River". Down By The River!

From the first strutting, menacing, scowling strums, with the cascading slack lines from guitar two and then that bass, which leads straight into the most stunning melody on the album, from that start to the end of this 9 minute piece of art, the song has you by the throat. And its a Jam tarck. But its weirdest, most illogical jam track I've maybe ever heard. The guitar is at times right on the cusp of being laughable in its frustrated "WHY CAN'T I MAKE THIS PIECE OF SHIT SING?!? COME ON! WEEP, YOU MOTHER%$#@er!!!", but it never makes you laugh. Not me anyway. Instead I sit stunned, and yet my head bobs along with the band and the bass in particular. I am stunned because I hear something. I hear Neil in there, I hear what he is implying and what he is feeling, I am right there. I am in awe for some reason at these hypnotically ugly, ferocious at times 1 note "solos". And then it just builds and builds. And then the solo, counter-intuitively cuts off right when it may be about to soar, and then Neil sings again with the voice of a cooler than cool, nonchalant Hero. Later on he croons and really starts to emote those words. And so on and so on. The track is 9 minutes of miraculous music. How is this song so freaking good? Like, perfect?

Songs, The Losing End, and The title Track, are great folk country songs too.

Anyway, I like the whole album. It features maybe the best song of the 1960s, and only one song I'm not big on - "Running Dry". Its anchored by 2 classics and it has the greatest classic in the middle, with some delicious bread filling in the gaps. This album is like a delicious inverted sandwich! There ya go. I coulda said that and that would have summed up the excellence of this album in a few words and I could have avoided the weird impossibility of describing with words the most physical of songs.

Grade: 9.3/10

I love this album. Cinnamon Girl, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and especially Down By The River are great. The rest is good at least. Perfect album for me. (Edited)

Down by the River is one of the greatest guitar rock songs of all time. It's a classic example of understated yet skillful and soulful guitar work. Neil and Danny Whitten's point/counterpoint bits send chills every time I hear the song.

Other highlights: The Losing End is one of those unsung Neil Young classics. And of course the album has a perfect opener and a perfect closer. (Edited)