Neil Young Recording Guide

Useful links

The Nineties & Beyond: 1990–2006

April 1990: Plywood Digital, Woodside, CA [rehearsals]

Producer: David Briggs and Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [U] Mansion On The Hill [1]
  • [U] White Line [1]
  • [U] White Line [1 > 2]
  • [U] Love To Burn [1 > 2]
  • [U] Days that Used To Be [1 > 2]
  • [U] Love And Only Love [1 > 2]
  • [U] Don't Spooke The Horse [1]

Sources:

  • [1] The Ranch Rehearsals [bootleg CD]
  • [2] ABD.2000 [fan compilation CDR set]

These Ragged Glory rehearsals/outtakes circulate among collectors.

April 24–30 [* May 17], 1990: Plywood Digital, Woodside, CA

Producer: David Briggs and Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [O] Country Home [1]
  • [O] White Line [1]
  • [O] Fuckin' Up [1]
  • [O] Over And Over [1]
  • [O] Love To Burn [1]
  • [O] Farmer John [1]
  • [O] Mansion On The Hill [1]
  • [O] Days that Used To Be [1]
  • [O] Love And Only Love [1]
  • [O] Don't Spook The Horse [2 > 4]
  • [O] Interstate [* 3 > 4]

Sources:

  • [1] Ragged Glory (Reprise 9 26315; September 9, 1990)
  • [2] "Mansion On The Hill" b/w "Don't Spook The Horse" (Reprise 21759-2; September 4, 1990)
  • [3] "Big Time" b/W "Interstate" (Reprise 43731-2; July 2, 1996)
  • [4] Rarities [fan compilation CDR set]

The album title was come up by David Briggs. The acoustic 'Interstate' outtake was included on the vinyl pressings of the Broken Arrow LP and the German CD single of 'Big Time'.

September 20, 1991 – February 1, 1992: Redwood Digital, Woodside, CA

Producer: Neil Young & Ben Keith

Engineer: Tim Mulligan and John Nowland

Recorded:

  • [O] Unknown Legend [1]
  • [O] From Hank To Hendrix [1]
  • [O] You And Me [1]
  • [O] Harvest Moon [(Sept. 22): 1]
  • [O] War of Man [1]
  • [O] One of These Days [1]
  • [O] Such a Woman [1]
  • [O] Old King [1]
  • [O] Dreamin' Man [1]
  • [?] Depression Blues
  • [?] Silver And Gold
  • [?] Forever Young

Sources:

  • [1] Harvest Moon (Reprise 45057-4; Nov. 2, 1992)

Strings for 'Such A Woman' recorded at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA.

c. 1993: ???

Recorded:

  • [O] Philadelphia [1]

Sources:

  • [1] v/a: Philadelphia (Sony 57624; January 4, 1994 [soundtrack])

c. December 6–17, 1993 & February 1994: The Complex Studios, LA

Producer: David Briggs and Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [O] My Heart [1]
  • [O] Prime of Life [1]
  • [O] Driveby [1]
  • [O] Western Hero [1]
  • [O] Change Your Mind [1]
  • [O] Blue Eden [1]
  • [O] Safeway Cart [1]
  • [O] Train of Love [1]
  • [O] Trans Am [1]
  • [O] Piece of Crap [1]
  • [O] A Dream That Can Last [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Sleeps With Angels (Reprise 45749-2; August 6, 1994)

April 25, 1994: The Complex Studios, LA

Producer: David Briggs and Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [O] Sleeps with Angels [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Sleeps With Angels (Reprise 45749-2; August 6, 1994)

October 3, 1994: The Complex Studios, LA

Producer: David Briggs and Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [O] My Heart [1 > 2]
  • [O] Prime Of Life [1 > 2]
  • [O] Change Your Mind [1 > 2]
  • [O] Piece Of Crap [1 > 2]

Sources:

  • [1] The Complex Sessions (Reprise pro-cd-7342; December 6, 1994) [promo CD EP]
  • [2] Rarities [fan compilation CDR set]

Live in studio, filmed to promote Sleeps With Angels.

January 26–7 [*], February 7 & 10 [†], 1995: Bad Animals, Seattle [with Pearl Jam]

Producer: Brendan O'Brien

Recorded:

  • [O] Song X [1 *]
  • [O] Act Of Love [1 *]
  • [O] I'm The Ocean [1 †]
  • [O] Big Green Country [1 †]
  • [O] Truth Be Known [1 †]
  • [O] Downtown [1 *]
  • [O] What Happened Yesterday [1 *]
  • [O] Peace And Love [1 *]
  • [O] Throw Your Hatred Down [1 †]
  • [O] Scenery [1 *]
  • [O] Fallen Angel [1 *]
  • [O] I Got Id [2]
  • [O] Long Road [2]

Sources:

  • [1] Mirror Ball (Reprise 45934; August 7, 1995)
  • [2] Pearl Jam: "Merkinball" (Sony 78199; December 5, 1995 [CD single])

Neil plays guitar on "I Got Id" and "Long Road" which were issued on the Pearl Jam single Merkinball. For contractual reasons, Pearl Jam is not mentioned on the Mirror Ball album.

"Recording Mirror Ball was like audio verite, just a snapshot of what's happening. Sometimes I didn't know who was playing. I was just conscious of this big smouldering mass of sound. The whole record was recorded in four days and all the songs, barring 'Song X' and 'Act Of Love', were written in that four day stretch. I played 'Act Of Love' with Crazy Horse in January at The Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame. Then, the following night, I played it with Pearl Jam at a Pro-Choice benefit concert and the version was so powerful! I decided there and then to record it with them as soon as possible. On a purely musical level, this is the first time I've been in a band with three potential lead guitarists since The Buffalo Springfield. Plus there's Jack Irons, their drummer, who was just unbelievable. He just played his ass off on every take at every session. I can't say enough good things about him. I didn't even think about recording a whole album when we went in to cut 'Act Of Love'. I had two days with Pearl Jam initially. Two days and just two songs — that wasn't enough for me so I had five written by the time I went in. Recorded five of them, left one out. Then I came back for another two-day session with two more new songs. Plus I re-recorded the fifth one from the first session again. Then the day after that, I wrote another two new songs. 'Throw Your Hatred Down' — maybe. Maybe not, tho' there's a large part of making this new album that's pretty foggy..." [1]

References:

March 27, 1995: Mason Street Studios, San Francisco, CA

Recorded:

  • [U] Theme From Dead Man [1 > 3]
  • [O] [Dead Man soundtrack] [2]

Sources:

  • [1] "Theme From Dead Man" (Vapor pro-cd-8142; February 20, 1996) [promo CD single]
  • [2] Dead Man (Vapor 9 46171-2; February 27, 1996)
  • [3] Rarities [fan compilation CDR set]

The 'Dead Man Theme' track only appears (in three versions: an edit, and complete versions with and without voice-over) on a promo; it's not included on the actual Dead Man soundtrack album.

"...There are some similarities between Greendale and Dead Man because the approach that I took to the—they're kind of off-the-wall similarities, but they are nonetheless—the approach that I took to doing the score to Dead Man was I went back to—the concept was that "Dead Man" was basically a silent movie and that, you know, in the old days, in the '20s and stuff, when they had theaters, there'd be an organist or a piano player who would play along with the film, and that—and you'd get subtitles and the live music and that was it. So when I did the score for Dead Man, I had the film projected on TV screens, and I had, like, about 20 TVs all around me, big ones, little ones, tiny little portables, and wide screens and everything hanging from the ceiling in a big semicircle all the way around me. No, in full circle. And then I had my instruments inside the circle. So the instruments were always close enough for me to go from one to another, and they were all set up and the levels were all set, and everything was recording. So the film started, and I started playing the instruments. So I watched the show—I watched the film go through, and I played all the way through live. I'd put my guitar down and walk over and play the piano in the bar when there's a bar scene. I played the tack piano. Then when that scene was over, I'd walk over from the piano and go play the organ for another scene and then—a little pump organ I have, and then I'd pick up the electric guitar again and get all my distorted sounds out of that to go with the Indian drums and the things that were happening in the film. And basically, it was all a real-time experience. And so in that... I actually had two themes that I used. And one of them had to do with violence because there was a string of violence. So you kind of get the feeling that when you heard—you know, there was one theme that went with that and there was another type of subtheme that went with some of the other feelings in the film. So that's all I had... and the theme was very simple. It only had three notes in it, so I just, you know, replayed it, repeated it in different ways and explored it live during the playback of the film." [1]

  • [1] Neil Young (Fresh Air interview by Terry Gross, March 25 2004)

March 25 – April 17, 1996: Plywood Digital, Woodside, CA

Producer: Neil Young

Recorded:

  • [O] Big Time [1]
  • [O] Loose Change [1]
  • [O] Slip Away [1]
  • [O] Changing Highways [1]
  • [O] Scattered (Let's Think About Livin') [1]
  • [O] This Town [1]
  • [O] Music Arcade [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Broken Arrow (Reprise 46291-2; July 2, 1996)

The last track on the LP, "Baby What You Want Me To Do", is a live recording. The vinyl-only/b-side "Interstate" is a Ragged Glory outtake originally written in the 80's.

"Broken Arrow was an exercise in getting through making an album without David [Briggs]." [1]

  • [1] Neil Young (SVT interview, 2005)

August 26, 1997 – November 2, 1998: Redwood Digital, Woodside, CA

Producer: Neil Young and Ben Keith

Recorded:

  • [O] Looking Forward [1]
  • [O] Slowpoke [1]
  • [O] Out Of Control [1]
  • [O] Good To See You [2]
  • [O] Silver & Gold [2]
  • [O] Daddy Went Walkin' [2]
  • [O] Horseshoe Man [2]
  • [O] Red Sun [2]
  • [O] Distant Camera [2]
  • [O] Razor Love [2]
  • [O] Without Rings [2]

Sources:

  • [1] CSNY: Looking Forward (Reprise 9 47436-2; October 26, 1999)
  • [2] Silver And Gold (Reprise 9 47742-2; April 25, 2000)

The basic tracks for the Neil songs (bar "Queen Of Them All") on The CSNY album Looking Forward were recorded in the sessions for Silver And Gold.

"Most of these songs were written in the last couple of years, maybe the last three years. And I recorded them fairly soon after I wrote them. And the guys playing on them are the same guys playing on all of them, basically... And I was into playing that way at the time and had the band come — I'd write two or three tunes and then they'd come — they'd fly in and we'd try to do those two or three tunes and the some other ones that I already had that I had tried to record before that didn't get or something. You know, I've got quite a few of them that's kind of hovering out there. So I add a couple of those into the mix so that we got a lot of songs to play. And then they'd come for three days and we'd just play all the songs and that's it. And then try again when I write some more new ones." [1]

"I wrote ['Good To See You'] one in my bus in Florida somewhere. There was a thunderstorm and the HORDE tour was playing. And, you know, we had to shut down for half an hour or something. And so I went to my bus and I was in the back. And my voice was real low 'cause I'd been playing with Crazy Horse and screaming and yelling and carrying on. So my voice was real low. And I wrote these — a couple of songs. 'Good to See You' was one of them. And 'Without Rings', I think, was one — the other one that I wrote, either that day or somewhere along in there — on a big piece of newspaper." [1]

"'Silver and Gold' I think I wrote back in — I don't know 1981 or '82. And I did record it several times... And it's always a kind of song you do it the first time, its fine, it sounds great. And then you do it the second time and it's like, you know, why are you doing it again? You just — you've already done it. It's such a simple thing that either you — I would get it right the first time and then by the time the band knew it, it sounded so contrived to me that I could never get it. So I really recorded, I think, a total of 11 times with different people in all kinds of different configurations. And we got 'em all, none of them are worth listening to. But this one here finally just got back to the roots of it and just sat down with my guitar and played it and said, 'That's it'... When I got back from the HORDE tour a couple of years ago, I went in the studio, sat down and did this one the second day after I was back, I think." [1]

References:

May 28, 1999: Arlyn Studios, Austin, TX

Producer: Neil Young and Ben Keith

Recorded:

  • [O] Buffalo Springfield Again [1]
  • [O] The Great Divide [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Silver And Gold (Reprise 9 47742-2; April 25, 2000)

c. 1999: ???

Producer: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Recorded:

  • [O] Queen Of Them All [1]

Sources:

  • [1] CSNY: Looking Forward (Reprise 9 47436-2; October 26, 1999)

Vocal overdubs were, of course, also done for "Looking Forward", "Slowpoke", and "Out Of Control".

"[Stephen Stills] played a song for me, a new song that was a great song and asked me if I wanted to play on it... when I went down to L.A. a couple of — oh, a month or so later, I played on the song and I played on a few other ones. And I just kept listening to the tapes and I played on them... then we played on some new ones where we played all at once.... finally we had what we thought was an album. But in the making of it, I — I only worked on their songs at first. I played on about 12 or 13 of their songs before I played any of my own songs.And then I just played them the 14 songs or so that I'd recorded for Silver and Gold, which had no title at the time or anything. And I said, 'Just go ahead, just take whatever ones you want. Just take however many. Just take 'em. We'll sing on 'em and we'll — you know, we'll see what else they need, if anything, and then we'll put them on this record. They'll match everything', 'cause that's the way we did this record, basically. So it'll work. So they chose the ones they chose." [1]

"[The songs] that they picked from my selection.... I had recorded for Silver and Gold, they took three of my songs. I thought they came out really well. I like the way they sang on 'em and everything. It sounds really good to me. And the funny thing is, when those songs were taken from the mix, were taken from the other songs, they — the songs that were left were — you know, there were too many songs... Originally there were too many songs for Silver and Gold. And they were all struggling and kind of holding each other down. And when CSN picked those three songs out and then I was left with the other ten or eleven, they suddenly just fell into place. It was really a great feeling, because I was struggling with trying to put it together. And when they took those three songs out, it just - everything else was left. I mean, I just wrote them out in order of what I wanted to hear and that was it. It never changed again. The running order was right." [1]

References:

February 8, 2001: Toast, San Francisco, CA

Producer: Neil Young

Engineer: John Hanlon

Recorded:

  • [O] Goin' Home [1]
  • [?] Gateway Of Love

Sources:

  • [1] Are You Passionate? (Reprise 9 48111-2; April 9, 2002)

'Gateway Of Love' is listed in the back cover of Are You Passionate?, and was possibly recorded in this aborted Crazy Horse session from which 'Goin' Home' was included on that album. Other songs played live with the Horse in 2001, like 'Standing In The Light Of Your Love' and 'Quit (Don't Say You Love Me)' — or 'I Don't Want To Be Sorry', for which see below — may also have been attempted.

May 14 – December 5, 2001: The Site, Marin County, CA

Producer: Neil Young & Booker T. Jones with Duck Dunn and Poncho Sampedro

Engineer: Tim Mulligan

Recorded:

  • [O] You're My Girl [1]
  • [O] Mr. Disappointment [1]
  • [O] Differently [1]
  • [O] Quit (Don't Say You Love Me) [1]
  • [O] Let's Roll [1]
  • [O] Are You Passionate? [1]
  • [O] When I Hold You In My Arms [1]
  • [O] Two Old Friends [1]
  • [O] She's A Healer [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Are You Passionate? (Reprise 9 48111-2; April 9, 2002)

'Gateway Of Love' may also have been recorded here. 'Let's Roll' was taped on November 21.

"I thought to myself, 'Well, there's gonna be ten songs called 'Let's roll' within the next week.' So I said, 'Nah, I'm gonna let somebody else do this. I don't wanna be opportunistic about it, I'm sure there will be three or four country songs called 'Let's Roll' immediately.' Because it's just such a great image — the whole story about the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93. I think it's a legendary story that's gonna go down through the ages — it'll never be forgotten. So I was very surprised that I didn't hear any songs. And I'm thinking, 'I can hear this song in my head, nobody else has written it when I thought everybody was gonna write it.' So I just wrote it. I couldn't stop it anymore." [1]

"I really like the way everything sounds. But actually, I started writing these songs during the Crazy Horse sessions which preceded this record. Four or five of the songs were written during the Crazy Horse sessions, and they just evolved. And then when I started recording with Booker and Duck and Steve and Poncho, everything just kept evolving, and the songs came back and they were where they need to be to really happen. So it all just fell together as easily as you could imagine — I just let it go, I just let it happen. I knew what was making me feel good, and I knew that I wanted to play my guitar more like a saxophone this time. And I felt more like a horn player while I was playing my guitar." [1]

References:

July 11 – September 19, 2002: Plywood Analog, Woodside, CA

Producer: Neil Young & L. A. Johnson

Engineer: John Hausmann

Recorded:

  • [X] I Don't Want To Be Sorry
  • [O] Devil's Sidewalk [1]
  • [O] Falling From Above [1]
  • [O] Double E [1]
  • [O] Leave The Driving [1]
  • [O] Carmichael [1]
  • [O] Bandit [1]
  • [O] Grandpa's Interview [1]
  • [O] Bringing' Down Dinner [1]
  • [O] Sun Green [1]
  • [O] Be The Rain [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Greendale (Reprise 48533-2; August 19, 2003 [with live bonus-DVD]) / (Reprise 48699-2; February 24, 2004 [with in-studio bonus-DVD])

"It started off just by kind of clearing the slate and trying to do something real simply and we didn't even know what the music was going to be about, so when I started writing the story and the songs with the characters in them and everything, we saw it unfolding and we kept following the story as we were recording it — until finally it was finished. And then — and only then — did we really understand what we had accomplished and what we'd created." [2]

"'Devil's Sidewalk' was the first lyric. You could tell it was describing a place. As the songs started to unravel, I saw the story, what happened next. I wrote the songs one at a time and recorded each one before I'd write the next one." [1]

"The songs just happened. First thing in the morning, I'd pick up a guitar, play two or three chords and go, 'That's the blueprint. That's what my soul told me, so that's what it is.' Then I'd go to the studio. I would write the words, without guitar, in my car. I'd keep stopping on the way — write two verses, go a hundred yards, stop, write some more. I kept moving, and writing, until I got to the studio. Whatever I had then, that was the song. 'Devil's Sidewalk' — the recording is the first time I sang it, the first time the band had ever heard it." [1]

"There was a song at the beginning of Greendale, a hangover from Are You Passionate?, called 'I Don't Want to Be Sorry'." It's a cool song – me and the Horse. But I didn't use it. It was a transition song." [1]

"During the recording, I was shooting with video all the time with multiple cameras and green screen windows in the studio, so that I could put anything in the windows that I wanted to. And so we started filming some things to use in the windows. I did some stuff down in South Africa and some stuff here in the US and at different locations." [2]

References:

March 17 – late March, 2005: Master-Link, Nashville, TN

Producer: Ben Keith and Neil Young

Recorded:

  • [O] The Painter [1]
  • [O] No Wonder [1]
  • [O] Falling Off The Face Of Earth [1]
  • [O] Far From Home [1]
  • [O] It's A Dream [1]
  • [O] Prairie Wind [1]
  • [O] Here For You [1]
  • [O] This Old Guitar [1]
  • [O] He Was The King [1]
  • [O] When God Made Me [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Prairie Wind (Reprise 49494-2; September 27, 2005 [with in-studio bonus-DVD])

All of the songs were recorded (beginning on March 17) in the order they appear on the album.

"['Prairie Wind' is] the sixth song on the record... when I got finished with the fifth song... I was wondering what I was going to do next, and I had the melody — it wasn't even a melody really, it was a guitar structure that I had written during the Greendale tour and I didn't write any words for it because I wasn't mentally prepared or ready to — but I liked the guitar figure, and I liked the melody of the guitar structure. So I kept playing it over and over again for a while until I really learned it, and then I forgot about it for about a year or so. So that night it came back to me, I remembered it, so it was like an old friend coming back to me saying 'Here, I can help you, look at me and all you need is words'." [1]

References:

March 29 – April 2, 2006: Redwood Digital, Woodside, CA
April 6, 2006: Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, CA [choir overdubs]
April 8–11, 2006: Redwood Digital, Woodside, CA [mixdown]

Producer: Niko Bolas and L.A. Johnson

Engineer: John Hausmann

Recorded:

  • [O] After The Garden [(6:34 pm March 29, take 7): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Living with war [(7:39 pm March 29, take 3): 1, 2*]
  • [O] The Restless Consumer [(9:42 pm March 29, take 1): 1, 2*]
  • [X] Shock And Awe [12noon March 30, takes 1-6]
  • [O] Families [(2:20 pm March 30, take 5): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Flags Of Freedom [(1:07 pm March 31, take 4): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Let's Impeach The President [(12:15 pm April 1, take 1): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Lookin' For A Leader [(4:06 pm April 1, take 2): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Roger And Out [(9:02 pm April 1, take 1): 1, 2*]
  • [O] Shock And Awe [(1:31 pm April 2, take 8): 1, 2*]

Sources:

  • [1] Living With War (Reprise 44335-2; May 8, 2006)
  • [2] Living With War: in the Beginning (Reprise 43265-2; December 5, 2006)

[*] rough mixes without overdubs

Trumpet overdubs for 'Living With War' and 'Shock And Awe' (outtake) were done on March 31, and for 'Let's Impeach The President' on April 2. A harmonica overdub for 'Flags Of Freedom' was done on April 10 during the mixing sessions. [1]

"...this is about exchanging ideas... it's about getting a message out. It's about empowering people by giving them a voice. I know not everyone believes what I say is what they think. But like I said before.. ya know.. red and blue is not black and white. We're all together. It's a record about unification." [2]

References:

c. Summer 2007: Feelgood's Garage studio near Redwood City, CA

Producer: "The Volume Dealers" (Neil Young & Niko Bolas)

Engineer: Niko Bolas

Recorded:

  • [O] Beautiful Bluebird [1]
  • [O] Boxcar [1]
  • [O] Shining Light [1]
  • [O] The Believer [1]
  • [O] Spirit Road [1]
  • [O] Dirty Old Man [1]
  • [O] Ever After [1]
  • [O] No Hidden Path [1]
  • [O] The Way [1]

Sources:

  • [1] Chrome Dreams II (Reprise 9362-49906-4; October 16, 2007)

"[It's] an album with a form based on some of my original recordings, with a large variety of songs, rather than one specific type of song... Where Living With War and Everybody's Rockin' were albums focused on one subject or style, Chrome Dreams II is more like After The Goldrush or Freedom, with different types of songs working together to form a feeling. Now that radio formats are not as influential as they once were, it's easier to release an album that crosses all formats with a message that runs through the whole thing, regardless of the type of song or sound... Some early listeners have said that this album is positive and spiritual. I like to think it focuses on the human condition. Like many of my recordings, this one draws on earlier material here and there. I used to do that a lot back in the day. Some songs, like 'Ordinary People,' need to wait for the right time. I think now is the right time for that song and it lives well with the new songs I have written in the past few months. I had a blast making this music." [1]

"There’s a lot of thinking going on in the record, pondering and kind of searching for the experience that enlightens you in some way." [2]

References: