Tonight's the Night (Neil Young album)

Tonight's the Night
Studio album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Released June 20, 1975
Recorded August–September 1973 at Studio Instrument Rentals, Hollywood, CA (except "Come On Baby": Fillmore East, NYC, March 1970; "Lookout Joe": Broken Arrow Ranch, December 1972 and "Borrowed Tune": Broken Arrow Ranch, December 1973)
Genre Folk rock, blues rock
Length 44:52
Label Reprise
Producer David Briggs and Neil Young
with Tim Mulligan
Elliot Mazer on "Lookout Joe"
Neil Young and Crazy Horse chronology
On the Beach
(1974)		 Tonight's the Night
(1975)		 Zuma
(1975)

Tonight's the Night is the sixth studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released in 1975 on Reprise Records, catalogue MS 2221. It was recorded in 1973 (most of it on a single day, August 26[1]), its release delayed for two years. It peaked at #25 on the Billboard 200.[2] In 2003, the album was ranked number 331[3] on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Content

Tonight's the Night is a direct expression of grief. Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and Young's friend and roadie Bruce Berry had both died of drug overdoses in the months before the songs were written. The title track mentions Berry by name, while Whitten's guitar and vocal work highlight "Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown"; the latter was recorded live in 1970. The song would later appear, unedited, on a live album from the same concerts, Live at the Fillmore East, with Whitten credited as the sole author.

Fans have long speculated that an alternate version of Tonight's the Night exists. Neil Young's father, Scott Young, wrote of it in his memoir, Neil and Me:

Ten years after the original recording, David Briggs and I talked about Tonight's the Night, on which he had shared the producer credit with Neil. At home a couple of weeks earlier he had come across the original tape, the one that wasn't put out. "I want to tell you, it is a handful. It is unrelenting. There is no relief in it at all. It does not release you for one second. It's like some guy having you by the throat from the first note, and all the way to the end." After all the real smooth stuff Neil had been doing, David felt most critics and others simply failed to read what they should have into Tonight's the Night -- that it was an artist making a giant growth step. Neil came in during this conversation, which was in his living room. When David stopped Neil said, "You've got that original? I thought it was lost. I've never been able to find it. We'll bring it out someday, that original."

The band assembled for the album was known as the Santa Monica Flyers consisting of Young, Ben Keith, Nils Lofgren, and the Crazy Horse rhythm section of Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina. One track as stated above was taken from recordings of an earlier tour with Crazy Horse, and another from an earlier session with his band for Harvest, The Stray Gators.

Liner notes

Included with the early original vinyl releases of Tonight's the Night is a cryptic message written by Young: "I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you."

On the front of the insert is a letter to a character called "Waterface". No explanation is given to this person's identity, although in Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Young says that "Waterface is the person writing the letter. When I read the letter, I'm Waterface. It's just a stupid thing—a suicide note without the suicide."[4]

The back of the insert has some text superimposed over the credits to Young's On the Beach album, released a year earlier. This text is reportedly the lyrics to an unreleased song titled "Florida", referred to in Shakey as "A cockamamie spoken-word dream, set to the shrieking accompaniment of either Young or [Ben] Keith drawing a wet finger around the rim of a glass."[4]

When unfolded, a whole side of the insert features a lengthy article printed entirely in Dutch. It is a review of a Tonight's the Night live show by Dutch journalist Constant Meijers for the Dutch rock music magazine Muziekkrant OOR. In 1976 Young said he chose to print it "Because I didn't understand any of it myself, and when someone is so sickened and fucked up as I was then, everything's in Dutch anyway." Meijers later spent a week at Young's ranch in California: during this visit, Young explained that he chose the article after some Dutch girls who were visiting him translated the story and made him aware of the fact "that someone on the other end of the world exactly understood what he was trying to say."

The Reprise Records label on the vinyl copy was printed in black and white rather than the standard orange color, a process Young undertook again on the CD label art for 1994's Sleeps with Angels. Early editions of the sleeve were made on blotter paper.

Scratched into the run-out grooves on Side One is the message "Hello Waterface" while the run-out grooves on Side Two read "Goodbye Waterface". The picture of Roy Orbison is taken from a bootleg tape Young came across and, feeling bad that Orbison most likely did not know the bootleg existed, printed it in the insert for him to see.

In Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Young maintains that along with the inserts there was a small package of glitter inside the sleeve that was meant to fall out ("Our Bowie statement."), spilling when the listener took the record out. However, neither McDonough nor Joel Bernstein (Young's archivist) have yet found a copy of Tonight's the Night featuring the glitter package.[4]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[5]
Robert ChristgauA[6]
Pitchfork10/10[7]
Rolling Stone[8]
Rolling Stone Album Guide[9]

Dave Marsh wrote in the original Rolling Stone review:

"The music has a feeling of offhand, first-take crudity matched recently only by Blood on the Tracks, almost as though Young wanted us to miss its ultimate majesty in order to emphasize its ragged edge of desolation. [...] More than any of Young's earlier songs and albums—even the despondent On the Beach and the mordant, rancorous Time Fades Away—Tonight's the Night is preoccupied with death and disaster. [...] There is no sense of retreat, no apology, no excuses offered and no quarter given. If anything, these are the old ideas with a new sense of aggressiveness. The jitteriness of the music, its sloppy, unarranged (but decidedly structured) feeling is clearly calculated."[10]

In a follow-up review published in the 1983 edition of The New Rolling Stone Record Guide, Marsh wrote:

"The record chronicles the post-hippie, post-Vietnam demise of counterculture idealism, and a generation's long, slow trickle down the drain through drugs, violence, and twisted sexuality. This is Young's only conceptually cohesive record, and it's a great one."

And as the reviewer notes in PopMatters: "Tonight’s the Night is that one rare record I will never tire of."[11]

Track listing

All songs written by Neil Young, except where noted.

Side one

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Tonight's the Night" (with the Santa Monica Flyers) 4:39
2."Speakin' Out" (with the Santa Monica Flyers) 4:56
3."World on a String" (with the Santa Monica Flyers) 2:27
4."Borrowed Tune"   3:26
5."Come on Baby Let's Go Downtown" (live from the 1970 tour with Crazy Horse)Neil Young, Danny Whitten3:35
6."Mellow My Mind" (with the Santa Monica Flyers) 3:07

Side two

No.TitleLength
1."Roll Another Number" (with the Santa Monica Flyers)3:02
2."Albuquerque" (with the Santa Monica Flyers)4:02
3."New Mama" (with the Santa Monica Flyers)2:11
4."Lookout Joe" (with The Stray Gators)3:57
5."Tired Eyes" (with the Santa Monica Flyers)4:38
6."Tonight's the Night" (with the Santa Monica Flyers)4:52

Personnel

Charts

Album

Billboard (North America)[2]

Year Chart Position
1975 Pop Albums 25

References

  1. ↑ Barker, Hugh; Taylor, Yuval (2007-02-17). Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music. Norton. p. 211. ISBN 9780393060782. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  2. 1 2 Tonight's the Night - Neil Young > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums at AllMusic. Retrieved 8 November 2005.
  3. ↑ Levy, Joe; Steven Van Zandt (2006) [2005]. "331 | Tonight's the Night - Neil Young". Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (3rd ed.). London: Turnaround. ISBN 1-932958-61-4. OCLC 70672814. Retrieved 26 February 2006.
  4. 1 2 3 McDonough, Jimmy. Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. New York: Random House Inc., 2002
  5. ↑ Ruhlmann, William. Neil Young: Tonight's the Night > Review at AllMusic. Retrieved 6 November 2005.
  6. ↑ Christgau, Robert. "Neil Young: Tonight's the Night > Review". Robert Christgau. Retrieved 26 February 2006.
  7. ↑ Richardson, Mark (25 June 2016). "Neil Young: Tonight's the Night". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
  8. ↑ Hoard, Christian (June 16, 2005). "Neil Young: Tonight's the Night > Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 26 July 2006.
  9. ↑ Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). "Neil Young". The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. London: Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Portions posted at "Neil Young > Album Guide". rollingstone.com. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  10. ↑ Marsh, Dave (August 28, 1975). "Neil Young: Tonight's the Night Music Review". Rolling Stone (194). Archived from the original on 4 November 2007. Retrieved 6 November 2005.
  11. ↑ Fallon, Chris (23 October 2003). "Neil Young (with Crazy Horse): Tonight's the Night > Review". PopMatters. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
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