Transition is not for the faint of heart. For artists who had made their name three decades before the turn of the century, breaching the pop-heavy tones of the charts must have felt like running the gauntlet. It is all too easy to be swept up in what is popular, its lights shine the brightest, after all. Something for everyone, indeed. There is no bad year for music – not least when Neil Young is entering into the new decade not with a confident, roaring scatter of wild-eyed and big-hearted material, but with a tenderness he had previously found on Harvest and expanded on with Harvest Moon. Silver & Gold is not the third of anything, it is a country rock charmer featuring tones and instrumentals Young had made good on, time and again. Silver & Gold is proof of his longevity. It still stands as such even twenty-five years on from its release.
Lush country twangs and romanticised lyrics on opener Good to See You prove as much. Young observes the difference between the heartwarming and genuine here, with Silver & Gold’s opener a timeless offering from a star of the stage hoping to make up for lost time. It is a welcomingly earnest song; a tone Young has offered plenty of times before. Knowing how to continue it with a sense of both change and familiarity, that is the battle playing out on Silver & Gold. There is a preciousness to Silver & Gold, embodied by its cover image. Clear text, a pixellated person in the distance, it could be anyone. Such is the point. These songs may be personal, may feel for the highs and lows of intense and still burning moments in Young’s life, but they can be adapted. We are welcome to them, such is the tone of Silver & Gold, a warm embrace of an album with all the hallmarks of steady country tones.
From the finger-plucked guitar work heard throughout to the thrills of the harmonica on the title track, the longevity of work like this comes from the act of blurring personable experiences with a longer-reaching generality, disguised as a coy tone. Even pieces like the nostalgic-sounding Daddy Went Walkin’ have a flourish of romanticised momentum. It is not Young as the protagonist but narrator, looking in on the loves not just in his life, but the ones he observed from a young age. That disconnect opens him up to a stylish, arguably stronger writing than previous country efforts like Comes a Time. Memories form the core of Silver & Gold, even some of the songs, irrespective of their meaning, feel like moments to remember in of themselves. The title track was written nearly twenty years before its release.
Crucially, though, the songs written in the 1980s and 1990s have not lost their meaning, and in such rapid, changing times, that is a success in of itself. Do not mistake reflection and memories as exoneration of the past, though. Where Young may hope to fix what went wrong in those early days with Horseshoe Man, there is an acceptance heard on The Great Divide which contrasts those desires to make things right with everyone. Nothing of the sort is possible, and Silver & Gold becomes a lament, almost an apology, to the strangers, former allies and closest of friends, who were let down somewhere along the road. A softer tone pushes Young away from his usual sound, and into a place where a lower octave and instrumental style present moments of sincere reflection.
Horseshoe Man stands tall as one of the best-written Young tracks, no doubt about it. Put the pieces in the hands of another and hope for the best. There is something so satisfying, so telling, about the fleeting hopes and desperation heard in those piano notes from Spooner Oldham. He adds such a necessary tenderness to Silver & Gold, a continued hope which defies the reality Young manages to push off until the very end. What comes through Silver & Gold is a sense of regret, particularly on Buffalo Springfield Again, what with so many cancelled or rejected reunion plans of past groups. But there is much to be learned from Young, who glides through the past with a large enough distance from the bruising, the sore spots, of his past.
Young does well to blur the contrasting stances heard on Silver & Gold. Distant Camera offers the ever-changing style of being on the road, the tours and tense relationships which ebb and flow. Young manages to maintain a strong display of his feelings without letting a listener know the specifics which affected them. This is the real strength of Silver & Gold, those soft country rock tones masquerading as detailed accounts. But listen in to a song like Distant Camera, so touching and one of the best moments heard on this album, and yet devoid of details of who the other lover is, of when it took place. That is not a shortcoming but a brilliant example of hope as a tool used to learn from heartbreak. Young has touched on that before with Harvest and Harvest Moon, but he finds new life for it on Silver & Gold.
Beautifully played, confidently approached, you could not ask for much more from Young. To expect an openness in detail is to intrude on a life rarely shared on tape. We do not need the specifics. What we get is what we need, and that is intimate accounts with the details removed yet the emotional volatility, the experience which shaped Young’s worldview, intact. It is a fine line Young walks but, above all, it shows the risk which comes from writing so personably. He opens himself up for interpretation and, like the great artists of the same cut of cloth, refuses to acknowledge the conclusions. Only he will know the truth and lies spread across Silver & Gold, a criminally underrated part of his discography and a strong step into the new century which, with Big Change and his contemporary works set to be heard on the Glastonbury Festival stage, continues from strength to strength.
