From a Box to a Stocking

My family always exchanges gifts on Christmas Eve. This this years evening of giving and receiving was a very musical one for me. Not only did I receive a flashy new record player (bright blue LED lights included) from my parents, I got to rummage through boxes of old records my parents listened to before and after I was born. Classics upon classics stacked in these things; The Beach Boys "Endless Summer Nights", Simon & Garfunkel "Bookends", James Taylor "Gorilla", The Jimi Hendrix Experience "Are You Experienced"... many more, but you get the idea. There was great music in here!

One that I was immediately drawn to was, coincidentally, the same album I yanked from my stocking in CD form the next morning! So, without further ado, I give you:

Neil Young's "Harvest"



Everyone can agree, here we have one of the "founding fathers" of the singer/songwriter genre. A man with such an honest career of well-written and well-known material, it would be strenuous to try and convince yourself that you're "not interested".

This album contains some of his most loved songs. "Heart Of Gold", "Old Man", "The Needle And The Damage Done", among other greats. The opener, "Out On The Weekend", is such a great recording. A simple but infectious beat that has you swaying in your seat from the beginning to the end. Listening to this song, you can't help picturing all the musicians hunched over their instruments, strumming and banging away as if nothing else in the world matters. This same feeling continues throughout the entirety of the record. "A Man Needs A Maid" delivers an extraordinarily intimate setting of passionate instrumentation, lyrics of a man lost to time and space, and one of the best musical build-ups I know.

If you're going to own any record by Mr. Young, I'd say you'd better make it this one. Oh, and thanks for the CD, parents!