This past Tuesday, May 14th, marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Neil Young's second album, and first with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. He reflected on the milestone by writing a short essay on his website. Here are some excerpts:
"First, here’s a fact on the cover. It was originally shot for my first reprise album,Neil Young. I used a painting for my first cover instead. Then we didEverybody Knowsand that cover was already there. I wanted to release the album so we just used the old unused cover art with added shots from inside my house in the foldout...
"Everybody Knows This Is Nowheremarked a change for me at the time. I wanted to play and jam, do more of what I loved with Buffalo Springfield and the Squires...
"I sure remember those sessions well. I still see [drummer]Ralphie[Molina] glance at me during playing the recording of ‘Down By the River’ or maybe ‘Running Dry’ with a look of pure joy on his face. This was the beginning of something that really had it. All the songs were written fairly quickly and before long they were all recorded...
"There were only seven songs because there was a limit to how much a vinyl record could hold and still sound great. We had reached the limit. We would not edit the instrumentals to be shorter. We would not change anything. We were done..."
Neil Young and Crazy Horse just finished a new album, Pink Moon, that will be out this year.