Neil Young Harvest - Setting Standards for Singer-Songwriters

This really is one of the greatest records ever made. Neil Young - a God amongst musicians - at his very brilliant best. It is a record that I discovered as my own guitar playing started becoming more than just a hobby; in that sense it has been instrumental in my own development as a musician. Young's wonderful sense for melody is the key to these ten beautiful songs. His voice, added to that, is like nothing before it, or anything come since. Also, the melancholy themes adopted by Young on Harvest inject such force into the texture of the music. It is one of those records that is impossible to cut short - it demands to be heard from beginning to end.

Released in 1972, Harvest shot to the top of the American charts and captured the imagination of the nation. It outsold any other record that year, and produced the massive hit single Heart Of Gold, which to this day remains Neil Young's most recognisable tune. I personally found the album after a friend of mine who I used to share acoustic stages with put me onto the song Old Man, a fabulous yet somewhat tragic tale of alienation and recognition. We used to perform it with three part harmony, and it would stop people in their tracks. It was a song that I became obsessed with, particularly the words; "It doesn't mean that much to me/To mean that much to you." Some of his lines are so biting that they reach the bone. Their truth is often terrifying. Old Man was the perfect acoustic song for me; simple, direct, but moving. The strength of that one song put me in no doubt that I had to have the album.

Out On The Weekend, driven by Tim Drummond's solid bass line, is a tumbling statement, leading coolly into the enthralling title track, Harvest. A Man Needs A Maid is a sombre but alluring tale of how love can destroy us; Young suggests that a man needs nothing more than a maid from the female race. It is controversial, but typical of Young's blunt approach to lyric writing. Heart Of Gold, defined by its recognisable harmonica parts, speaks volumes for itself. Are You Ready For The Country and There's A World show Young's ability to open the blinds and show the sun; genuine lessons in acoustic songwriting. Alabama on the other hand has its own sound - dominated by a raw and chunky electric guitar, it hints at a Neil Young we would see in the future - potent with the electric guitar at hand. It is a classic track in every sense; a great sound with a dramatic political lyric - one which can boast Lynryd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama as a scathing response. No sooner had Young criticised Alabama's credentials had Skynyrd blasted their rose-tinted view of their birthplace into public conscience, which, in my opinion, was nothing but a great thing. They do say, after all, that art inspires art.

The Needle And The Damage Done is the sort of song that should remain a staple for acoustic songwriters should there be a textbook. It is provocative, robust, subtle and sympathetic. A damning insight into the sordid music industry, and the rife drug problems shadowing it. "I've seen the needle and the damage done/A little part of it in everyone," remains for me one of the most important lyrics in the history of music. It exposes the weakness of the human condition; shows that we are fallible, immortal, and at times stupid. For such a young man to have written with such virtue is astounding.

The album concludes with an inspired, electric jam: Words (Between The Lines Of Age). Its shift in tempo is executed with finesse, and Young's guitar playing is rugged but warm. It leaves you in no doubt that you have just heard something very, very special indeed. Something pretty much untouchable. So, for me and fellow Neil Young nut Walker, it was the chance of a lifetime to head down to London to watch the man perform at the Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in 2008. It was a show that had everything I could have possibly wished for, beginning with a fantastic solo acoustic set encompassing his earlier recordings such as Heart Of Gold, Old Man, Needle And The Damage Done and Don't Let It Bring You Down. In the second half of the show Young brought his full band to the stage to thrill a packed house with his just-as-relevant and inspiring electric hits, such as Down By The River, Hey Hey My My, and Like A Hurricane. The great man continued to return to the stage for more, eventually finishing with a fourth encore - a fact that left Walker and myself sprinting through the streets of London to catch the tube with seconds to spare. A night roughing it in a shop doorway wouldn't have been punishment for what we saw anyway, it really wouldn't.

I'd be lucky enough to get back down to London to see Neil Young again a year later in the summer of 2009 at the massive Hyde Park Calling Festival, in which he played an equally blinding set. It also included the sort of moment that will go down in folklore - a drunk-as-a-skunk Paul McCartney joining Young on stage for his encore of The Beatles' Day In The Life. Initially, when Lenny screamed "Oh my God, that's Macca!" I thought the sun must have got to her. It was a thrilling thing to see - these two giants of popular culture having a wail of a time on stage deep into their 60's, not giving a shit and letting it all hang out. One of the defining moments of my gig-going career.

Young's records don't begin and end with Harvest. I'm sure that in the not too distant future I shall get round to talking about several of his other records and their impact on my life. Until then, take a look at Harvest - an education by a classic tune smith.