NEIL YOUNG - Oceanside Countryside

On one side the ocean, on the other the countryside. In between, him, the Canadian Loner, turning 80 this year, tireless even as his own archivist, with his constant work of exhuming lost records, between outtakes, alternate versions and unreleased tracks dug out of the drawer. In this case, we even have to turn the clock back almost 50 years. "Oceanside Countryside" collects a series of songs recorded between May and December 1977, shortly after the release of "American Stars 'n Bars", together with old companions such as multi-instrumentalist Ben Keith. That album, like others from the same period ("Homegrown", "Hitchhiker", "Chrome Dreams" etc.), remained unreleased for over four decades. Even though most of the songs later resurfaced in other versions on works like "Rust Never Sleeps", "Hawks & Doves" and "Comes A Time", the 1978 album that officially took the place of "Oceanside Countryside" in Young's discography. Now, just like those LPs abandoned in the '70s, the lost album "Oceanside Countryside" sees the light again in its original form, after already having been included in the 2024 box set "Archives Vol. III (1976-1987)", but with different versions and a revised tracklist. The current edition of the album — officially added to the Neil Young Archives, within the Analog Original series — instead restores the format originally planned in 1977.

Ocean and countryside, as mentioned, like two sides of the same coin. Following the blueprint of "Rust Never Sleeps" (1979), "Oceanside Countryside" has a two-part structure: the first half, "Oceanside", contains acoustic songs recorded solo, voice and guitar, along the coasts of Florida and Malibu, while the second, "Countryside", gathers tracks cut in Nashville with the help of trusted musicians (Joe Osborne on bass, Rufus Thibodeaux on violin, Ben Keith on dobro and Karl Himmel on drums), for a sound closer to the folk-rock of the masterpiece "Harvest" (1972).

The curtain rises on the Ocean side with the dreamy arpeggios of "Sail Away", a delicate ballad cradled by soft melodies and evocative lyrics, which later appeared on "Rust Never Sleeps". And that harmonica solo, let's be honest, hits straight to the heart. Immersed in a timeless, bucolic scenario, we come across the bare intimacy of "Lost in Space" and the brackish country of "Captain Kennedy" (two tracks later revisited on 1980's "Hawks And Doves").

The magical "Goin' Back" — here in an even more slender, hushed version — is instead the famous opening track of "Comes A Time", from which "Human Highway" is also drawn, the missing title track of another album that never came to be, this time credited to the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, which was meant to follow their epic 1970 "Déjà Vu": many years have passed, but that heartrending lament of Young, asking himself (and us) in a thin voice "how could people get so unkind?", remains dramatically alive and relevant.

Flip the side, and we find ourselves wandering through the fields of Tennessee (cit.) amid the country-rock fragrances, driven by fiddle, of the playful "Field Of Opportunity" (without the vocal harmonies of sweet Nicolette Larson added for "Comes A Time") and of a rousing version of "Dance Dance Dance", which Young had first recorded in 1969 with Crazy Horse for another album that never saw the light of day, before the band included it on their self-titled 1971 debut.

Other, more reflective tracks include the contrite "The Old Homestead", already released on "Hawks & Doves" (2003), with its (self-)prophetic line "Why do you ride that crazy horse?", and the melancholy ballad "It Might Have Been", chiseled with the bare minimum of ornamentation, in service of the fragile — and always damnably emotional — voice of the singer-songwriter from Toronto.

The album closes with "Pocahontas" — a song already familiar to fans but presented here in a sparer, more intimate guise — with a poetic reflection on historical injustices, built on a surreal, evocative narrative.

It's a dive into the past, yes, but "Oceanside Countryside", beyond offering a fresh perspective on the work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time, radiates an authenticity and purity that can't leave you indifferent. And indeed fans have given it a more than worthy welcome, pushing it into the top 20 best-selling vinyl albums on both sides of the Ocean (to stay on theme).

Neil Young, in short, confirms himself as a bastion of more than just music. And even though the Ukraine concert fell through, the nobility of the gesture remains. Keep on rockin’, Neil.

P.S. The album, number 7 in the Special Release Series devoted to unreleased records, comes out on the new AOS (Analog Original Series) line, which involves transferring the analog masters directly to vinyl without going through any digital version. The CD edition has nonetheless been announced for next April 25th.

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22/03/2025