Consequence‘s review series Dusting ‘Em Off examines classic albums that have established an enduring place in pop culture. Today, Neil Young leaves the “middle of the road” with the “Ditch Trilogy.”
In 1972, Neil Young released Harvest: a commercial titan that launched his solo career and provided him with enough cultural cachet to be able to tell his old CSN buddies to “eat a peach.” Even 50 years later, thanks to the staying power of songs like “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold,” it stands as his best-known work. Which is all well and good — unless you’re Neil Young in 1973, doped-up, rebellious, and looking for excitement anywhere that wasn’t the mainstream.
“[Heart of Gold] put me in the middle of the road,” he wrote of the sweet-as-honey acoustic tune in the liner notes for the 1977 compilation Decade. “Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch.”
And head for the ditch he did, following the soft, folky, best-selling Harvest with a run of three increasingly dark albums that, while now canonized, failed to move nearly as many units as Harvest: Time Fades Away, On the Beach, and Tonight’s the Night. Recorded and released between 1973 and 1975, the trilogy of records finds Young at his emotional lowest and artistic peak, grappling with inner turmoil, his extravagant (and dangerous) lifestyle, and his role as a burgeoning rock star. Ultimately, it’d be the run of albums that defined Young’s uncompromising and revolutionary artistic spirit.
Time Fades Away, released in October 1973, was the first of the so-called “Ditch Trilogy.” In retrospect, it serves as the jarring bridge between Young as the traveling, Dylan-eqsue folk hero and Young as the sprawling, boundary-pushing rock ‘n’ roller. A live album documenting his post-Harvest tour, it’s also, as it turns out, an effort Young isn’t particularly proud of.
“I think it’s the worst record I ever made,” he said in a 1987 radio interview with Dave Ferrin. “But as a documentary of what was happening to me, it was a great record. I was onstage, and I was playing all these songs that nobody had heard before, recording them, and I didn’t have the right band. It was just an uncomfortable tour. It was supposed to be this big deal — I just had Harvest out, and they booked me into ninety cities. I felt like a product, and I had this band of all-star musicians that couldn’t even look at each other. It was a total joke.”
