November 12, 2014
Photo: NRK P3 via Flickr Creative Commons
Happy birthday Neil Young!
It’s Canadian music legend week here at JimTypeBlog. First was Joni Mitchell’s birthday last Friday, and today we celebrate Neil Young turning 69.
Rolling Stone today presented a run-down of 20 songs only hardcore Neil fans (Neilists, I call us) would know. I was glad to see “Change Your Mind” on that list, as it’s been a fave of mine since it came out on his under-appreciated 1994 album Sleeps With Angels, recorded with his stalwart backing band Crazy Horse.
Clocking in at almost 15 minutes, it immediately joined the ranks of classic Neil Young & Crazy Horse guitar workouts such as “Cortez the Killer,” “Like a Hurricane,” “Down By the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand.”
And while the guitar work on the album version is a little bit superior, I’ll present this “live” version that was filmed for a companion video release called “The Complex Sessions,” recorded at Complex Studios in LA and directed by Jonathan Demme.
Young’s meandering lead guitar breaks on this track are so inventive, visceral and lyrical that even though it’s almost 15 minutes long, every time I listen to it I find myself completely drawn in and paying rapt attention to every second.
The lyrics, which make effective use of repetition and variation, also contribute to the song’s mesmerizing quality, reportedly inspired by the fact that Young had been trying to get in touch with Kurt Cobain just before he killed himself in April 1994, but wasn’t able to make contact with the troubled grunge “godson.”
But to me, “Change Your Mind” is primarily a guitar song; it takes its place in the pantheon of the classic Neil Young & Crazy Horse jams, and it’s a fine example of some of Young’s most creative and enthralling guitar work.
