Friday, October 19, 2007

Bring Neil Young's "Time Fades Away" to Disc

Now, this is a petition I can get behind. It's an online petition trying to get Young's classic 1973 live album Time Fades Away. Up to now, it's only been available in bootleg form. I happen to have a bootleg, and it's some of the best live stuff Young ever did. Touring in the wake of both Harvest and Danny Whitten's death (the death that, together with Bruce Berry's, spawned the immortal Tonight's the Night and On the Beach). Allegedly, fans who paid for the shows at the time were expecting to hear "Heart of Gold" and "A Man Needs a Maid". Instead, they got loud, rocking songs like the title track, "The Bridge", and "Last Dance". Additionally, the death of Whitten (who overdosed after the band fired him rehearsing for the tour, allegedly with the money Young gave him personally to clean himself up paying for the heroin that would kill Whitten) gives an emotional force not like that in any other Young album - yes, Tonight's the Night has the depressing abandon of the event, and On the Beach has the cold isolation and fear of the outside world, but they were still in the studio. Time Fades Away has Young & company dumping it all out on the stage to very confused crowds.

Young has his detractors who say his stuff is too spotty and that you just gotta let Neil do what Neil does (I'm not one of those detractors, but I do agree that not all of his stuff is not for everybody). However, Time Fades Away is, simply one the best and most important live albums that nobody's heard, and the importance of its release is astronomical, so it can reach a broad generation of casual Young fans and music-lovers alike. So please, take the 30 seconds it takes (with no spam e-mails to follow), and sign this petition.