Neil Young: American Stars 'n Bars vs. Hawks & Doves

Stars for side 2

They go together well. It's been a long time since I listened to either, but I think I'd take Hawks & Doves. I wore out "Like a Hurricane" ages ago, and from what I remember, there's nothing on Hawks as weak as "Will to Love."

Stars 'n Bars runs away with this one easy, only thing better than "Like a Hurricane" is how great of a lead "Will To Love" is

You've got me interested--like I say, I bet it's literally been 30 years since I played Star n' Bars. I know I ran "Like a Hurricane" into the ground, but I'll give "Will to Love" another listen.

The Neil Young tracks I sort of know:

1) HeyHeyMyMy/MyMyHeyHey - fron the 7" single I own
2) After the Goldrush
3) Heart of Gold
4) Like a Hurricane
5) Piece of Crap
6) Rocking in the free world

um, the rest I don't know, other than cover versions...

Not even "Cinnamon Girl"? I think that probably still gets the most airplay were I am. You're lucky in a way--if you want to start exploring, you're in for much amazement. I would start with Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and Zuma.

What are the standout tracks on these (besides 'hits' like 'Like a Hurricane' etc) ?

Not his best albums, but the former contains "Like a Hurricane", which means my vote goes there.

Not even "Cinnamon Girl"?

Not even "Cinnamon Girl". I dunno, it just seems waayyyyyyyy too obvious for someone my age to start getting into Neil Young, but I resist, I guess.

Oh, I did play "Trans" to myself, couldn't see what all the fuss was about: It's a Neil young album clearly, is it that radical?

if you're over thirty and born before 1950 you can't program synths.

Oh, I did play "Trans" to myself, couldn't see what all the fuss was about

To this day, I think it sharply divides Neil Young fans. I'm one of the stodgy Gold Rush types who was mortified by it at the time; for a lot of other people, it seems to fit comfortably into Neil's timeline. Trans is one of the reasons I still look back favorably on (and probably overrate) Hawks & Doves and Re•ac•tor--they were the two LPs that preceded Trans, the two where I can still draw a straight line back to his first.

Young chickened out; the vocoder and synth stuff on Trans is much stronger than the tried-and-true folk stuff. This time.

I love "Like An Inca" though.

X-Post I believe "Trans" was just meant to provoke, and not really meant to be something he'd ever do again. He changed genre often during the 80s.

I used to try to figure out what was behind Trans...provocation, definitely (starting with Comes a Time, he really got into this pattern of making sure his next album was always completely different than the previous one); restlessness; the residual influence of Devo (!); plus Neil's natural curiosity--he probably was genuinely excited by all the stuff you could do with the technology. But I also think that, for whatever reason, he was just lost during his Geffen period, something his next few albums would seem to underscore.

"will to love" is fucking great, one of his best songs ever imo

From Trans' Wikipedia entry:

Young chose to record songs with a vocoder both as a nod to the electronic experiments of the German band Kraftwerk, and because it distorted his speech — a reflection of his attempts to communicate with his son [who had cerebral palsy]. "At that time he was simply trying to find a way to talk, to communicate with other people. That's what Trans is all about. And that's why, on that record, you know I'm saying something but you can't understand what it is. Well, that's exactly the same feeling I was getting from my son."

As far as ASnB vs H&D, I'll go with ASnB even though side 1 of H&D is killer, especially Little Wing. Always loved that little song.

Stars N Bars but Hawks has some good songs too.

For what's worth, I still quite like Reactor: it is flawed, it sounds boxy, but it had this odd, confusingly addressed energy that I find truly moving.

"shots" off reactor is amazing IMO

going to listen to both of these this morning and report back with my decision, sit tight everyone

they're both great, but i'd probably go with Stars 'n' Bars. "will to love", the guitar sound on the crazy horse numbers, linda ronstadt, emmylou harris, nicolette larson ...

""shots" off reactor is amazing IMO"

I love it too - but hey, I even like T-Bone!

That stuff about Re•ac•tor and his son is really interesting--casts the album in a new light, and makes me wish I liked it more.

"Lost In Space" is a bizarre song.

still trying to decide how to vote in this poll.

yeah i love reactor too. so much good stuff. dude really didn't make a "bad" album til ... everybody's rockin'?
you guys heard the acoustic version of shots?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMnljgJRiz8&feature=related
it's great

weird that Neil's motivations for Trans are still so misunderstood. Alfred's estimation of it is correct imho

I've never heard Hawks and Doves but have a hard time believing it's better than Stars and Bars, which is one of my favorites and also has an awesome sleeve by Dean Stockwell

always wondered whether hawks and dove's cover was a rejected cover for stars n bars?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KXBSZ56%2BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
http://www.coversdaddy.com/backcovers/neil-young-hawks-and-doves-1980-music-back-cover-1861.jpg

wow tyler, that acoustic "shots" is giving me irl goosebumps, even better than the record version which has always been one of my fav neil deep cutz

The ambiguity of the song "Hawks and Doves" is really something. He sounds at points like he's making fun of middle America: "I ain't tongue-tied, just don't got nothin' to say", but then in the choruses, playing & singing about country music, it's "if you hate us, you just don't know what you're sayin". Something is riding there on "sayin", on inarticulacy, but I can't say what. As the song goes on, you watch the irony slip away. Hawks and doves, I guess!

xpost yeah and the acoustic shots has that beautiful bridge towards the end that's not on the reactor version ... i assume at some point Neil will put out some of those solo 1978 shows as part of the archives.

yeah i'm just to the bridge now and i was just gonna post it

man i want all of the archives NOW

me too.

tyler, that version of shots is great: where is it possible to find it?

i've got it on a bootleg from the boarding house in san fran 1978 ... can't seem to find a link online though after a quick google search. i can upload it this weekend if there's interest. some great stuff on there.

One thing I remember about "Shots" is that had a lot of resonance coming right after Hinckley and Mark David Chapman; I would have guessed it came directly out of those two events, but I guess not.

Okay, its definitely American Stars n Bars for that killer run of "Will To Love" > "Like A Hurricane" > "Homegrown".

^Agreed completely.

a lot of love for "the old country waltz" -- "ain't got no excuses!" one of those neil songs that is so effortlessly great.

Side 1 of Hawks and Doves wins this for me.

The Golden Palomino = also classic, Neil the lech

lecher? philanderer? eh youknowhutimean

Mea culpa on "Will to Love"--listened to it a couple times, and it's much better than I remembered. I can't go back and figure out why I didn't like it as a 17-year-old, but my guess is that it was just too spacey and weird for me at the time. It's a little like "On the Beach," but I like it better. It sort of points the way to something like Beck's "Jackass."

there's nothing on Hawks as weak as "Will to Love."

is it the same as the version that's on Chrome Dreams? That's the only version I've heard, and it's probably in my top 10 Neil songs.

I just retracted!

"Lost In Space" from Hawks n Doves is one of my all time fave Neil weirdo jams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ZBWDk9eFA

live versions misses the weird tape effects, but still, love this song.

I always dug "Will to Love" as it is the Neil Young song that sounds like it should be on Sebadoh III.

Outside of "Like a Hurricane", I think the second best tune on these two albums is "Captain Kennedy", which thematically seems like it would have really fit well on Rust Never Sleeps.

Glad you mentioned Sebadoh. In my post above--I retracted! I retracted!--I was going to say "Will to Love" pointed the way to Sebadoh, but it occurred to me I hadn't listened to them in ages either, and I didn't want to compound one misguided statement with another.

Stars and Bars. Both albums amazing.

tylerw can we hold you to that upload?

bummer about american stars n bars is it's just a worse version of chrome dreams :/

haha, deep neil young nerd opinions.

it is though! i have what i *think* is a legit version of chrome dreams and it's soooo good, i'd honestly put that top 6-7 neil record had it been released

neil is going to announce the real chrome dreams someday and it'll all be stills-young band outtakes.

"i don't know what chrome dreams you guys are talking about, but my chrome dreams is all conga jams!"

The Young-Lala Band

Hawks & Doves is the tale of two sides

side 1 is fucking great, side 2 suuuucks

― My Little Pono (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, September 13, 2013 4:15 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. first time i listened to hawks and doves i was like holy shit this is fucking awesome, has that dark "will to love" fireside vibe. "little wing" especially is amazing. this feeling past halfway through the album once i got to "staying power"

xps mississippi what's the tracklist you have for your legit chrome dreams? (just want to match it against the one i hastily downloaded a few years ago)

i dunno, i enjoy the second side of H&D, even if it's pretty light.
there's a youtube upthread to the electric, ducks version of "little wing" -- here's a better quality SBD version
http://www.bigozine2.com/TRKSA2/DKS2scruz/DKS2scruz108.mp3
it is great.

http://www.geetarz.org/reviews/neilyoung/chrome-dreams-rust-insert.jpg

^ yea that's what i have

i kind of believe that's real, though on wiki, it says that joel bernstein says it's a forgery.

It's reported as being a fake in Shakey too. Neil says something to the effect of there was never a Chrome Dreams album or concept other than a David Briggs drawing with that title.

side 2 of H&D is definitely goofier than side 1, seems deliberate, doesn't bother me

on to Landing on Water...

Xpost OTOH, in the little liner essay on the RNS CD, it's mentioned that some of the songs were slated for the "unreleased Chrome Dreams album".

yeah who knows. this bit from a late 70s cameron crowe thing makes it even more confusing:

Neil Young, who writes virtually all the time, can look back and find all the movements of his life and career documented in his songs, some more cryptically than others. "My songwriting process has never changed," he explains briefly, as if talking too much about it might betray the muse. "I never try to write. I know when it's there. I hear a bell ringing in my head and I just leave ... but I don't try. Sometimes three months can go by...."

Some artists, I point out, have been known to get writer's blocks that last for years.

"Well, if that happens to me," says Young, "I'll take up gardening."

One afternoon during a tour several years ago, Young sat in his manager's hotel room. The phone kept ringing, tour crew members bustled in an out... and through it all, Young sat on the bed with his son Zeke, peacefully watching the news.

The broadcast was interrupted by an emergency bulletin. Pat Nixon had suffered a stroke, an announcer said over a filmed report of the sad and beaten Richard Nixon tearily moving through the hospital's revolving doors. After a time, Young got up and disappeared into his bus in the parking lot. Onstage several hours later, Young played the song he had written:

Hospitals have made him cry
But there's always a freeway in his eye
Though his beach got too crowded for a stroll.
Roads stretch out like healthy veins
And wild gift horses strain the reins
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul

The song was a first called "Requiem for a President." Young later changed the name to "Campaigner," and placed it on his three-record retrospective album, Decade. "Guess I felt sorry for [Nixon] that night," he said of the song while traveling on his bus the next year, just as 300,000 copies of Decade were being prepared for release within the week. "That album was a chance to use some of the unreleased material. Hopefully it's a greatest-hits album that's more like an album." Young laughed. "Should be timeless."

I wondered when he'd decided his first decade was over. He thought about that.

"Well," he said, "I'm not sure it's over."

He was silent for a long while. I drifted back to a bunk to watch television. Young joined me after a few minutes and stared at the screen intently.

"Listen to me," he said, eyes revitted to the tube. "What if I just save Decade for a year, then put out a new album. The new stuff sounds so good - I've got this song called "Hurricane" that just soars - I think I'd feel better releasing something new. It's not time to look back yet.

I looked over at Young, who had obviously made up his mind and was now fully enjoying The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. A few minutes later, Young went to the front of the bus to make a call on a mobile phone. "Elliot?" I could hear him say. "Here goes another album...."

In two short days, Warner Bros. President Mo Ostin and Executive Vice-President Ed Rosenblatt had flown to the next stop along the tour to discuss delaying Decade with Young. Neil played them most of an album he'd already recorded and titled American Stars n' Bars ("because one side is about American folk heroes and the other is about getting loose in bars"). They honored his wishes to postpone Decade a year in favor of the new album.

By the time American Stars n' Bars was released four months later, Young's prolific songwriting nature had completely altered the album to include a side of new music "written fast and in the spirit of country music," performed with Crazy Horse and the Saddlebags - singers Nicolette Larson and Linda Ronstadt.

we could try to figure out the timeline of that, but i don't think it'll make sense. still, it seems like the original "american stars n bars" might be what we think of as "chrome dreams"?

the chrome dreams that i have is the same one as listed above

it kind of "sounds" like an album IMO....like it fits really well

much better than stars n bars which has a real hodge podge feel

hey babe vs. lost in space imo

you could basically make a completely alternate neil young LP discography that would be completely coherent in itself but not precisely mirror any one of his released LPs.

almost

Saddle Up The Palomino!

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61CKRvXsS7L.jpg

bought a slightly scratched copy of American Stars n Bars. really loving this album! the cover always made me want to buy it (cos of the Big Lebowski reference).

i really like side 2. "Star of Bethlehem" plugs along nicely and that final verse was so beautiful it caught me off guard. what does he mean?

"Will to Love" is fucking great. this is what i want on a NY record, give me a long psychedelic acoustic guitar trip, complete with some phasing vocals and chill vibraphones. Neil is imagining he is a fish that is imagining he is a singer. hell yeah.

"Homegrown" is such a great way to end a record. Neil's rip-roaring down home pot anthem, Crazy Horse dicing it up with that chunky metallic guitar rhythm.

Album cover by Dean Stockwell!

Never made the Big Lebowski connection

What is it?

"will to love" is one of the best

I'm not sure why anyone would ever pick hawks and doves over stars n bars since the latter is a great record... always thought of h&d as the start of Neil's low quality output period which ends with Freedom, but maybe I should revisit it

http://i.imgur.com/OtHwDUF.jpg

put em on the glass

always thought of h&d as the start of Neil's low quality output period which ends with Freedom, but maybe I should revisit it

― niels, Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:59 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm. Its only saving grace may be "Captain Kennedy," which itself isn't exactly top ten Neil

ASAB, this album is so incredible. "The Old Country Waltz" crashing in w that heartbreaking violin and lyrics I wish I had written about something I have been through.

Side 2 is still my favorite, though I like the whole record more every time I hear it. They did some magical EQ on "Will to Live" imo, it sounds like it probably was a really rough tape w vocal distortion etc. And he used it cos who cares the performance is amazing and they are throwing in the phasing effects softening some of those hard Ss anyways. The vibraphone is so sweet.

"Star of Bethlehem" a wonderful little motorik country rock tune sort of about disillusionment and finding light in the darkness. The first time I heard him sing "Maybe the star of Bethlehem wasn't a star at all" I thought he was talking about UFOs. "Silver spaceships in the sun", etc.

"Hey Babe" is a nice little tune, sort of reminds of of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"-style harmonies but w motorik country style. I love how he just sings "Hey Babe" twice, then just later keeps singing it over and over. The lyrics themselves are pretty simple ("I hope that all things pass/Let's try to make this last") so it is very plain language only with this twist. Maybe imitating a drunken stutter, the song is almost making fun of itself. Neil has a funny sense of humor and that's a big reason I keep coming back to his records.

oops - that's "I know that all things pass"

Yeah, this one is great. Lots of good info about the recording of "Will To Love" in Shakey, btw. IIRC it was just Neil and Briggs, up all night getting baked. Definitely one of my favorite Neil tunes

^^Yeah, using a home recorded demo (put down on a boombox iirc) as a basic track!

yup, that's why you hear a fire crackling

"Time Fades Away" is now the pretty much lost Neil Young LP.

That one has some good tunes too.

Side 1 is straight fire

Time Fades Away is now readily available for the first time in years!

anyone else get a T-Rex vibe from "Bite the Bullet"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqFSGTsXl5A

oops.... that's a live version, totally different feel. i think it's the backing vocals that do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTqwEEgkfJo

I just heard Hawks and Doves for the first time this weekend. I'm not sure if it's better than American Stars 'n' Bars, but I will suggest the following logical puzzle:

- "Little Wing" fits better here than on Homegrown
- "Captain Kennedy" fits better here than on Hitchhiker
- "The Old Homestead" is better than anything on Homegrown itself

On the other hand, "Star of Bethlehem" fits better on Homegrown than on Stars 'n' Bars.

- "The Old Homestead" is better than anything on Homegrown itself

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, June 28, 2021 3:44 PM

and most of neil's post-zuma catalogue. i was super bummed when it didn't even chart in the neil poll here some years back.

just chiming in as another big fan of that song, always loved the long languid vibe, reminds me of some late-80s Jandek

(or vice versa, I guess)

I've loved The Old Homestead for a long time, glad to see it getting love. I like Captain Kennedy and Little Wing a lot too. Lost in Space is good too. And I have a soft spot for Comin' Apart at Every Nail. Rest of the album is fine, doesn't bother me to the extent it seems to bother some.

“old homestead” is probably the one deep cut I wish more NY fans knew about. That riff never once wears out it’s welcome for the 7+ minutes.

ASnB really is an embarrassment of riches, and certainly one of the NY albums I'll routinely return to these days. Neil's grasp is mostly nebulous & fumbling, whether he's riding along slackly with a torpid bar band (on the country rock numbers) or haunted & introverted (as on the the wispy Will to Love). and then BOOM! Like a Hurricane cuts through with the the kind of linearity & denseness that is strangely particular of Crazy Horse in a certain frame of mind. It's a fascinating arc, always arresting & surprising due to the rareness of its sequence.

Hawks & Doves is one that I've never warmed to, partly due to how "upfront" the whole thing sounds, with loud acoustic guitar & voice denying you the space to absorb it somehow. I do keep trying though. On another note, does Little Wing remind anyone else of JJ Cale?

I've never heard the original version of "Magnolia" by J.J. Cale but I wonder if Neil Young had heard it or the Poco version before he wrote "Little Wing".

― Waterloo Subset (Tom D.), Saturday, 6 February 2021 16:20 (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

"You're best I ever had" vs. "Winter is the best time of them all". Busted Neil.

― Waterloo Subset (Tom D.), Saturday, 6 February 2021 16:25 (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Listen to the Poco version, it's Borrowed Tune No. 2 from Neil.

I'd never heard (of) the Poco version, so thanks for alerting me to it! It's very broad & arranged - as opposed to JJ's more familiar, lived-in delivery - but I think I rather like it for the point of difference it presents.

but yeah, funny how Neil slips so fluidly into that pattern/intonation on Little Wing.