NEIL YOUNG: The 2nd Album

Original Released on LP Reprise,
K 44073 (UK) / MSK 2282 (US)
1969, May 14

Todos sabem que foi este o album que deu a conhecer Neil Young: o segundo na sua discografia e o primeiro onde conta com o suporte musical dos Crazy Horse, um grupo descoberto (e rebaptizado – chamavam-se The Rockets) por Young logo no início de 1969. À semelhança de Bob Dylan, que encontrou no grupo The Band o seu suporte ideal, também Neil Young e os Crazy Horse foram-se revelando, ao longo dos anos, como que as faces de uma mesma moeda, dada a cumplicidade existente, sobretudo a nível musical. No campo interpretativo o coro levemente desafinado dos Crazy Horse viria a ser reconhecido como uma das características mais marcantes do grupo. Classificado em 2003 pela revista Rolling Stone em 208º lugar na lista dos melhores albuns de sempre, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" contém três dos temas mais memoráveis de Young, “Cinnamon Girl” logo a abrir o lado A, com aquele riff fabuloso e os longuissimos “Down By The River” e “Cowgirl In The Sand” (a fechar cada um dos lados do LP original) e que ao longo dos anos seriam presenças constantes nos espectáculos ao vivo, quer em versão acústica quer em versão eléctrica. Segundo o próprio Neil Young, “Cowgirl In The Sand” foi composta em circunstâncias invulgares: «...escrevi isto com 40 graus de febre em Topanga. Deitado, a transpirar, com bocados de papel espalhados pela cama.»

Hello cowgirl in the sand
Is this place at your command
Can I stay here for a while
Can I see your sweet sweet smile
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same?
It's the woman in you that makes
you want to play this game.

Hello ruby in the dust
Has your band begun to rust
After all the sin we've had
I was hopin' that we turn back
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same
It's the woman in you that makes
you want to play this game.

Hello woman of my dreams
This is not the way it seems
Purple words on a grey background
To be a woman and to be turned down
Old enough now to change your name
When so many love you is it the same
It's the woman in you that makes
you want to play this game.

O que a princípio não passava dum estado febril, acabou por se transformar no grande tema do album. Estruturalmente, “Cowgirl In The Sand” é semelhante a “Down By The River”, com longos solos de guitarra crescendo gradualmente em intensidade até o eclodir da parte vocal que alivia um pouco o ambiente até começar a secção seguinte. Na realidade, Young gravou esta faixa com o máximo cuidado, de forma a conseguir uma sincronização perfeita entre as partes vocais e o trabalho de guitarras durante os coros. Em “Round & Round” Neil tem também a colaboração de Robin Lane (a sua companheira na altura), numa excelente harmonia vocal. “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” foi um album gravado em apenas duas semanas, sendo dos primeiros a introduzir o conceito “country-rock”, aqui na sua vertente muito mais rock do que country, com as guitarras a tomarem conta do barco, num caudal eléctrico onde sobressai a espontaneidade da voz de Young. Relativamente ao início da colaboração com os Crazy Horse, Young recorda: «... conheciamo-nos mal, mas sentiamo-nos excitadissimos com o que estava a acontecer. Por isso quis gravar esse ambiente que nunca é captado nas gravações. E o album é isto, um documento dos nossos começos.»

Neil Young's second solo album, released only four months after his first, was nearly a total rejection of that polished effort. Though a couple of songs, "Round Round (It Won't Be Long)" and "The Losing End (When You're On)," shared that album's country-folk style, they were altogether livelier and more assured. The difference was that, while "Neil Young" was a solo effort, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" marked the beginning of Young's recording association with Crazy Horse, the trio of Danny Whitten (guitar), Ralph Molina (drums), and Billy Talbot (bass) that Young had drawn from the struggling local Los Angeles group the Rockets. With them, Young quickly cut a set of loose, guitar-heavy rock songs - "Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," and "Cowgirl in the Sand" - that redefined him as a rock & roll artist. The songs were deliberately underwritten and sketchy as compositions, their lyrics more suggestive than complete, but that made them useful as frames on which to hang the extended improvisations ("River" and "Cowgirl" were each in the nine-to-ten-minute range) Young played with Crazy Horse and to reflect the ominous tone of his singing. Young lowered his voice from the near-falsetto employed on his debut to a more expressive range, and he sang with greater confidence, accompanied by Whitten and, on "Round Round," by Robin Lane. "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" was breathtakingly different when it appeared in May 1969, both for Young and for rock in general, and it reversed his commercial fortunes, becoming a moderate hit. (Young's joining Crosby, Stills & Nash the month after its release didn't hurt his profile, of course.) A year and a half after its release, it became a gold album, and it has since gone platinum. And it set a musical pattern Young and his many musical descendants have followed ever since; almost 50 years later, he was still playing this sort of music with Crazy Horse, and a lot of contemporary bands were playing music clearly influenced by it. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)