There is little better than music on a rainy, storm-ridden day. Some of the magic of this sentiment may be lost when so many accounts on YouTube, Twitter and wherever else is repeating it verbatim. But some artists can overcome the relentless copy and paste message. To listen to Young in any capacity, such as the forgotten Heart of Gold EP release before Harvest hit shelves, is to feel the warmth of swinging country grooves. To feel the power of his observations, often freestyled or made up on the fly. While this EP may not reinvent the context or beauty of these classic tracks, it offers a neat taster plate for those unsure whether to listen in. But those who were uncertain of whether to try out Harvest are better off just sucking up whatever imperfections they feel they may find and heading into the album instead of this, Heart of Gold. Forgotten more because nobody listens to EPs anymore, but still a rewarding listen.
A few songs from other moments in the discography of Young can be heard on this. Heart of Gold pushing into Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a bold move, a new and powerful tone to take with the loved-up but disconnected style Young brought to his lyrics. A song about being unlucky with love followed up by a track detailing a man whose head is permanently in the clouds is a telling blow, a brutal piece from Young that still lingers as one of the deeper pairings from album to album. Harvest and After the Gold Rush tell two different stories and yet the intertextuality, the weaving notion between the two pieces, is there for all to see. A mini project like Heart of Gold, which steadies returning listeners of the time with recognisable material mixed in with upcoming, fresh sound, is a masterstroke.
The only song from Harvest here is the opener. Pair it with the B-Sides here, After the Gold Rush rips of When You Dance I Can Really Love and Southern Man, and Heart of Gold feels as complete an EP experience as it gets. Similarly toned songs are pieced together for the sake of preparing a listener. Harvest was not miles off of After the Gold Rush in either context or quality. But those flickers of the previous project, hearing how they work with the songs to come, is a masterstroke in how singles and future releases can be handled when there is enough of a similarity between them. Harvest had its inner workings and self-doubts to play with but Heart of Gold fits in very nicely with the preceding works from Young.
A pivot to acoustic work was a necessity for Young at the time of this release, his back surgery meaning he could not stand for electric sessions. Heart of Gold then becomes a breach of what an audience may be expecting. Where his contemporaries were floating around the electric additions of their material with an almost hellbent desire to include it everywhere, Young was forced to strip back his sound. He pairs it well with After the Gold Rush, an EP made more as a way of assuring listeners there was more of his tender and often open charm on the way, but in a form they may not have been expecting. Heart of Gold does not temper expectations, of course not, but it does feel like an EP trying to make the most of a difficult set of circumstances.
