Neil Young – Self-Titled Review

Earnestness in country music is difficult to come by. The folksy tone Neil Young takes on his oft-forgotten self-titled debut is a welcome experience. Here is the genuine flourish, the shy sounds of a man whose album cover makes him look like the Cormac McCarthy character, Anton Chigurah. Earnest instrumentals, wilder flourishes which rely on strings and suggestive synthesizer additions, they make up the solid foundation Young needs for his lyrical flourishes to land. He would drift from this sound not long after, with follow-up album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere causing more of a splash. But those resplendent moments heard on The Loner are worth visiting. From the welcoming tones of instrumental thrill The Emperor of Wyoming to the early signs of Young’s rocking, wild heart on The Loner, the self-titled album is a messy but must-listen experience.  

Take those early moments and run. This debut effort from Young, which saw him support Joni Mitchell and join up with Crazy Horse not long after, is a brief and brilliant experience. This is not the Yong we know, nor heard again. Psychedelic tinged songs like If I Could Have Her Tonight are steeped in romance and bring about a sincerity to the loved-up core. A brief one, but a lovely message which precedes the best song of the album, I’ve Been Waiting for You. The instrumental efforts there, the suggestive gasps and the roaring guitar which switches from ear to ear like a pendulum, is one of the best songs Young has ever released. Whether it is having listened to albums after this release or appreciating Young still has what it takes, the sound of his self-titled album, in places, sounds on the same level as highs like On The Beach and Harvest. His vocal work is shy and quiet on songs like The Old Laughing Lady, but it adds a sincerity to his music here.  

What Young captures here is an honesty and skill in his writing. Album closer The Last Trip to Tulsa is filled with such venom, but that comes from the acoustic energy, the hammered strums and promises of dry living to vulture-like managers. This self-titled record may not be up there with Young’s best-known works, but it should be. His consistency as an instrumentalist, as a solo artist with promise ahead, is heard here. Songs questioning the life lived so far, and at such a young age. Here We Are in the Years and What Did You Do to My Life? showcases a maturity in youth which, while popular at the time through Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, was still a rarity. Young’s debut effort is, in some ways, stronger than what was to come. There is an innocence to it, a lack of expectation from the listener and the artist.  

All he does here is tell his story with an openness and honesty which has been mauled and stretched across his career. It has taken Young to some all-time highs and unenviable lows. Either way, he has made the most of his sound. Cadillacs, country tones and the folk death of middle-America at the time is charted on the last song along, a masterclass from Young which makes the most of its nine-and-a-half-minute runtime. This is not the development of a songwriter from lowly, jagged rock to pristine marble. Young already had the qualities of a special songwriter, an articulate powerhouse who only needed an acoustic guitar to note his struggles in the real world. Neil Young matches up well with Comes a Time, though the latter album does not come close to capturing the lightning strike, the intensity, of this self-titled debut.