Page Two

This really isn't the return of "Page Two" but instead is notice of a piece to be posted online this Friday; it will review two Neil Young shows last week at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, which were filmed by Jonathan Demme. After Greendale, Young had sworn off recording new material but instead was planning on concentrating on finally releasing his archives. Then, earlier this year, Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Between the time of the diagnosis and the operation, Young wrote all the songs for Prairie Wind. In Nashville, he performed it in its entirety. This was followed by a set of older material, almost entirely from Harvest and Harvest Moon, which was appropriate, as Prairie Wind very much concludes that trilogy. Featuring songs that stand up with his best material, Prairie Wind is not only a stunning work but also very much reimagines all that proceeded it.

Reminding me of nothing so much as Brian Wilson's Smile, the entire concert was of a piece; but rather than resurrecting a lost album, this was a whole new creation, in which such songs as "Old Man," "Needle and the Damage Done," and "Comes a Time" seemed finally at home: a startlingly mature work that, while denying none of life's tragedies, insisted that the direction is forward. Young has always pushed boundaries while continually reinventing himself, but given the darkness of so much of his material, the warmth and celebratory aspects of this work literally give the audience chills. Imagine "Needle and the Damage Done" not as a "Tonight's the Night"-type lament but instead a hymn of affirmation: "I've seen the needle/and the damage done/A little part of it in everyone/every junkie's/like a settin' sun."

Young seems to have achieved some kind of peace, finally accepting that the past is past. The most eloquent poetry of the evening was not in lyrics but in the ways that, while singing and playing (clearly channeling Ian & Sylvia), his wife, Pegi, and he just couldn't stop smiling at each other.