35 Years Ago Today – Neil Young’s Mid Career Revival Arrives With Hard Hitting ‘Freedom’

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to find a more resounding return to form in the annals of contemporary rock than Neil Young’s 1989 Freedom (released 10/2/89). Following one digression after another throughout the Eighties, the inscrutable songwriter and musician brought the decade to a close with an artistic statement even more emphatic than his contemporaries, The Rolling Stones (Steel Wheels). And it’s comparable to Bob Dylan’s (Oh Mercy).

The album title might refer to Young’s liberation from his ill-fated and regularly embattled tenure at Geffen Records beginning with 1983’s Trans (the first of five widely divergent efforts). Or it might denote his willingness to follow his inspiration again and bookend these dozen tracks with two versions of the same song, “Rockin’ in the Free World.” 

The acoustic and electric arrangements hint at the contrasts within the album, a dichotomy that Young has used effectively since the late Sixties and early Seventies. His caustic reference to ‘a thousand points of light’ (from a speech by the elder George Bush) stands as a topical/political allusion the likes of which became a more direct sentiment aimed at ‘Dubya’ in 2006: Neil not only released a song called “Let’s Impeach the President,” but also convened a reunion with Crosby Stills & Nash for the ‘Freedom Of Speech Tour’ (selections from which appear on the 2008 album Déjà Vu Live). 

Based on the tune’s general premise of defiance, “Rockin’ In The Free World” has become an anthem in more than a few contexts since this release. Neil actually signaled its purposeful standing as such by performing it on SNL on September 30th just prior to the LP’s release (with bassist Charlie Drayton, drummer Steve Jordan, and Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Poncho’ Sampedro).

Regardless of whether either or both versions of the song are meant ironically (or even sarcastically), the first sets a tone of contemporaneity on Freedom with an urban snapshot called “Crime In The City (Sixty to Zero Part 1).” The sound of  Steve Lawrence’s lead tenor sax deepens an already noir air that sets the stage for insights arising from “On Broadway:” The result of a meeting of great songwriting minds– Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in collaboration with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller–arrives with no little undercurrent of derision for its romanticized vision of the legendary New York nexus of art and commerce.

Having proved that effective means of compilation exist, both live and studio takes of material (first introduced on Tonight’s The Night, then perfected on Rust Never Sleeps), Young continues with this approach. Most of the dozen tracks were recorded by his companion producer in ‘The Volume Dealers’ enterprise, Niko Bolas, but a select few were captured at various locations, almost as numerous as the number of musicians employed during the sessions.

All such credits appear on a twelve-panel enclosure within the CD jewel box. Variations on the album cover images are tellingly juxtaposed on one side, with lyrics to all the songs printed in a standard font (not his stylized handwriting as in later years). On the reverse, there’s a full-page photo of Neil with a beaming smile, as if he knows full well what he’s got in this collection. 

The disparate stylistic elements at work on this nineteenth studio effort of Young’s–fragmented in the years just prior–suggest a renewal of creative spirit in the man’s musical personality: their coalescence back into recognizable style begins on Freedom. And notwithstanding the inclusion of “Eldorado”–the title of an EP that was initially only ever officially released in Japan and Australia but later enclosed as one of four items in 2022’s Official Release Series #4–most of these songs provide fresh listening three and a half decades after the fact. 

Apart from the jagged electric crescendos reminding us how much this man savors noise, that latter number, like “Hangin’ On A Limb”—with Linda Ronstadt on vocal harmony as Young’s only accompanist—is vintage acoustic stuff reminiscent of Neil’s records nearly twenty years prior (see After The Gold Rush). As the sixty-one minutes progress at an unhurried pace, there’s ample chance to absorb what’s unfolding. 

“The Ways of Love,” for instance, almost sounds like a nonsequitur with its pedal steel from Ben Keith and minor touches of strings—that is, until it sinks in as a hearkening to Harvest and Comes A Time. The gentle horns wafting through “Someday” confirm Young’s work with the Blue Notes was the means to a greater end.

 Irrespective of the varied arrangements, what’s also noteworthy about this album is hearing Neil Young sing in such intimate and direct tones of voice. It’s as if each song, “Wrecking Ball” or “Too Far Gone,” has its specific audience. Likewise,”No More” resembles nothing so much as an excerpt from a personal journal, so it doesn’t seem merely to luck. Its melody clearly recalls (perhaps too much?) one of Neil Young’s final contributions to the fabled Buffalo Springfield, not coincidentally a number titled “On The Way Home.”

Such a distinct path back and forth in time would certainly apply to the Canadian rock icon’s work in the years following Freedom. Indeed, it’s reasonable to posit those years as a template for a career arc leading right up to the present day’s amalgam of archival and newly recorded releases. 

Not surprisingly, the very next project of Young’s in the Nineties was a reunion with his all-time favorite group of accompanists, Crazy Horse. 1990’s Ragged Glory is now rightfully considered one of the pinnacles of Neil Young’s discography and, as if to simultaneously predict and cement its worth, the live album Weld, taken from the tour supporting the studio above set, was the very next entry in his oeuvre. 

Naturally, it’s not like Neil to continue too far in one direction for too long, so 1992 saw him taking care of the unfinished business of a sequel to the 1972 blockbuster, as mentioned in the earlier album. Harvest Moon satiated that demographic of his audience, at least temporarily, as it no doubt did the Warner Brothers record label to which he had recently returned (with the purposeful contrarian, out-of-left-field R&B slant of 1988’s This Note’s For You). 

The remainder of the following decade saw one-offs like the tension-fraught Unplugged for MTV and a union with Pearl Jam, Mirror Ball (reaffirming the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ appellation bestowed upon Neil a few years prior). All of this instinctual artistry was interwoven through additional work with The Horse like 1996’s Broken Arrow;  the unpredictable likes of the latter, Silver and Gold, as well as ’94’s Sleeps With Angels (ostensible eulogy to Kurt Cobain), suggest an ongoing reaffirmation of Young’s loyalty to his creative muse. 

That arc of virtually unfettered invention might well be summarized in a paraphrase of Neil’s exchange with an audience member near the beginning of the 1997 live release Year of the Horse. Much like perceptions of Freedom from the vantage point of thirty-five years, Young’s music certainly doesn’t all sound the same, but it is, in a very real sense, all one song.