Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night – Extras

Introduction

With the release of Neil Young’s 1975 album Tonight’s The Night a flyer, entitled Welcome on Miami Beach, Ladies and Gentlemen!, was inserted in the cover. This contained a text (in Dutch) by journalist Contant Meijers. The translation of that text is listed below. The orignal translation was done by Tim Parrish, and was enriched and made more fluent by A Pop Life blog. After the flyer-text the other inlays are listed a well.

Welcome on Miami Beach, Ladies and Gentlemen!

On Monday, November 5th, Neil Young would play the Rainbow Theater in London. Of course, I wanted to meet him but people from the record company, both in England and Holland, told me I didn’t stand a chance. I wasn’t too happy about that and decided to write a letter, telling him the people of Holland feel for him, and regretting he didn’t come over to play a show in our country.
The Friday before the concert I received a phone call from the Dutch record company asking me if I could go to England, somewhat strangely requesting me to take 17 bottles of tequila – the extravagant José Cuervo Gold brand – for Neil. Apparently, the brand was unavailable in England. As it turned out, it wasn’t the easiest of tasks in Holland either. Initially, we managed to get hold of one bottle, but arriving with just one bottle wasn’t a viable option. Imagine my suprise, when I received a call from England saying that even just one bottle would be a great start, and they would even pick me up from the airport. Then again, I still didn’t have the one bottle, and even though I was asured the bottle would come my way, I still found myself calling up half of Amsterdam for José Cuervo Gold! Through courage and persistence, I finally managed to get hold of four bottles of said firewater at a company called Wolters! The only way those four bottles were going to get to Neil was through my hands.

TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT

The next step was to come up with a plan to meet Neil. The Eagles were playing as the support act, and as I knew them fairly well, I decided to accompany them to the theater. Once inside the dressing room I hoped to find some opportunity of addressing Neil without going through a thousand people first. When Neil and entourage arrived I caught a brief glimpse… White raincoat, dark flaxy hair and tinted glasses. Although I’d heard reports of moodiness he seemed to be in good spirits. My hope and confidence increased.

Once the Eagles were on stage and the dressing room was a bit less crowded, I would try my luck.
But, when that time came, I began to amble up and down the corridors, occasionally passing Neil’s dressing room. After a while Neil popped his head around the door, it was now or never. Nervously, I ran up to the door and asked if I could come in. Neil and someone else (whom I later knew to be David Briggs) stepped aside and moved towards the corridor.

“Er…could I ask you something?”, I asked Neil who was wearing sunglasses.
Somewhat unsure and dubious, he replied it depended on what it was.
“That tequila, is it a good brand?”
“What tequila?”
“Jose Cuervo”
“Oh, you must be the guy who brought me the tequila and wrote me a letter. Oh great, nice to meet you (we shake hands). Thanks very much. I think that’s really great.”
“Do you want to have the other bottles?”
“No, not now. After the concert, OK (and walking away). Thanks man. I really appreciate it.”

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A HELPLESS CHILD

The stage set was very strange. At the back a large palm tree; all sorts of women’s boots and hubcaps were hanging from the piano and loudspeakers. Neil and his band – Ben Keith, Nils Lofgren, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot – took the stage in the dark, and slowly began playing the first song ‘Tonight’s the Night.’
The sound was miserable, the band’s coordination was miserable and Neil’s piano and singing were miserable.
After this song – the title track from his new album – Neil got up from the piano, and unsteadily walked over to his guitar and mike at the front of the stage. Another new song was played and once again Neil couldn’t reach the high notes. I began to lose all hope. Was Neil truly done for, had all the magic gone? He talked a lot, drank tequila by the wine-glass in one gulp and mumbled for minutes on end about anything and everything. Jesus Christ, what a downer!
After each song he started talking about Miami Beach. Because that’s where he was. After the first song he had welcomed the audience, and got the stage manager to illuminate the palm tree. Following the audience’s applause, Neil wryly remarked “It’s all cheaper than it looks, ladies and gentlemen.”
Picking up the guitar with some difficulty he started to play the next number “From day to day”. A superb song starting with the words “You know I lose, you know I win”…
Neil desperately and helplessly struggled through his set. Although some songs indicated he was still capable of composing brilliant songs, their performance was worryingly minimalistic.
Only Nils Lofgren shone with phenomenal guitar-playing whereas the others just seemed to mess around, undisciplined.
After the truckers song “It’s too dark to put the keys in my ignition”, Neil explained that all the songs he had played so far were from his new album ‘Tonight’s the Night’.
“Making this record was a great experience for us all and I hope it’ll be that way, now and in the future.”
Someone in the audience shouts “Shut Up!” and Neil replied: “Let me just add for those people who are wondering whether I’ve come to talk or to sing, I always sing more than I talk. So the more I talk, the longer I’m going to play”. The theater erupts in relieved laughter and applause.

DANNY WHITTEN

“Ladies and gentlemen. There is one band member for whom I feel a special affection. One day he came and knocked at my cellar door in Washington DC, where the US president lives – … impeach the president, and… eh… What a situation. WHAT A SITUATION, ladies and gentlemen… where’s my cigar? – I will try to play something. I won’t be seeing you again for a few years so I can do what I like! Ha ha ha”. The audience roars with laughter. “I’ve got a song about a ‘straight dog’ who took no drugs, no hard drugs, nothing at all. Believe me… – According to some rumours I’m dead already, but I’m standing here… – I believe in the organic. I’m not Catholic but I believe in some sort of confession… here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I want to sing a song for Danny Whitten who couldn’t be with us tonight – I can feel the Jose Cuervo but I think my point is getting across – I’m talking slowly about a good friend of mine and I don’t want to discredit his name. This is a song for him. Tonight I’ll sing all fifty songs about him… maybe, you’ll never know.”

The death of Neil’s discovery and friend, Danny Whitten seems to have affected him deeply. Since ‘The Needle and the damage done’ most of Neil’s songs are about Danny’s death and the guilt Neil feels. Neil seems to suffer from an increasing guilty conscience. When he does he starts drinking, becomes sentimental and generally intolerable for his surroundings. Thats’s the main reason that those around him treat him with great caution for fear of provoking him, causing him to retreat and become even more reclusive. On this Rainbow night at Neil’s regular hangout in Miami Beach, where he’s safe from external influences, such an emotional and introverted process enfolds.

“Don’t Be Denied”, the song for Danny is a genuine deep-reaching event. The playing is awful but the emotions are unpleasantly present. Neil is incapable of putting any structure into his guitar-playing, he comes across as a man possessed, hair flying, pounding his guitar, stomping and jumping: “Oh friend of mine, don’t be denied, don’t be denied, don’t be denied”… Confused, he comes up to the microphone and begins to talk gently: “You buy a newspaper on the street in the morning, and you open it at page two straightaway because you can’t read page one… photos of all the people… now I’m in the desert… The Americans are there. Let’s think about the desert this evening. In the desert there’s a lion, some people are standing on one side of the lion and some on the other. Everybody knows what I’m talking about, so draw your own conclusions… Let’s play a song, ladies and gentlemen, maybe we can cheer ourselves up. It wasn’t that good in the desert, now was it? What?… Well, I didn’t like it very much.”

Now Neil plays some old songs, accompanying himself with a guitar and harmonica. The first one is a hopelessly out of tune rendition of ‘Flying on the ground is wrong’, followed by a new song, again inspired by Danny Whitten, and containing one line laden with significance ‘Take my eyes from what they’ve seen’, and a splendid, desperate ‘Helpless’, almost every note off-key and the guitar playing abyssmal. The end of ‘Helpless’ was a duet betweem Neil and Nils who joined in on accordion half way through the song and added his melancholy voice to Neil’s. In a trance they played and sang for minutes on end ‘helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless’. And how helpless he looked sitting there, his hair covering his face, his voice suffocating, stomping and shaking on his chair, knocking the microphone in his fury and fear. Surprised and confused I just let it all pass over me. Where was I, who was sitiing there. What in the name of Jesus was going on?

NIXON

Following an ovation which lasted for several minutes, Neil comes back, very drunk by now. He thanks the audience and then begins to crack jokes about his English accent. “I was born over there, so there isn’t much I can do about it”.
Someone in the audience shouts “Nixon” probably referring to one of the two dolls on the stage. A sort of English soldier with a plastic Nixon mask.
“Nixon loves me” he says, “I’m good for the economy. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?… What else can I say?… Four dead in Ohio?… (applause)… I don’t want applause for something like that, but I know what you mean. It’s strange… Look at it from my point of view. You don’t have to, but you can try… Take Miami, there are all sorts of people there. And they get up real early ladies and gentlemen”. Neil walks away from the mike to the edge of the stage and shouts: “I can assure you that the people get up at six in the morning. For real, ladies and gentlemen!” Laughter in the audience.
Neil introduces the members of the band. “At last I’ve found some people who are alive and want to carry on living.”
A poor version of ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ closes the concert.
When the audience has left the theater, Neil comes back on stage, sits down at the piano and starts to sing and play. “Oh tell me where the answer lies. Is it in the notebook behind your eyes?” The others too have taken out their instruments and join in one by one. After a few minutes Neil stops and goes back to his dressing room.
That is where I meet him again, looking like a beaten dog, disoriented on a chair, his head hanging between his shoulders, with Nils and Briggs trying to convince him the concert had gone well. “It was better than yesterday, better than ever”, says Nils, and Briggs adds that it had all been over damn quick. “But it sounded just like the record”. I timidly bring up I liked it very much, Neil looks up and says, “I actually also enjoyed it myself. I tried to be as free as I could, you know” he adds desperately, “I tried to be honest… Once I talked to someone for an hour and a half and then I woke up one morning and realised it was time to do something else… These small theaters make me feel good. You can contact the audience.” “It was fucking sensational”, says Briggs, “And they knew it from A to Z”.
Neil gets up from his chair and I tell him that he made a credible impression on me. “Incredible?” “No, credible”, I say. “The person whom I had been hoping to see was there after all these years.”
“Good, good man”

“With all your problems and your words everything… Terribly emotional, I felt it in my heart.”
“Yeah, that’s… eh… yeah… that’s it. eh… aren’t you the dude that brought me the tequila, I recognise your face. Come on the bus with us”, says Neil in his drawling English, “don’t ask any questions, just hang around.”

In the bus, Neil is still very shaken and Nils and Briggs are trying to restore his self confidence.
“I was shocked they didn’t ask for more,” he says from the bottom of his heart. “We had another number ready. I would have played anything they wanted to hear, even if I had to play all night. I only come here once every three years and I give them whatever they want. I was really shocked.”
I try to explain why the audience didn’t ask for more, that the concert had various climaxes and that the audience didn’t expect any more encores at half past eleven, etc…
Nils tries to explain to Neil that his playing and his singing are two separate things.
I say I don’t agree. “You’re showing two facets of your personality, which make you very credible”.
Then Briggs makes a joke, “Carry on talking, whine some more, create problems. I’ll pay for your psychiatrists, as long as you carry on making music.” This clears the air a bit and Neil starts to talk and joke with Briggs.
I tell a long story about the problems which some people in Holland have with his music; about Wim Van der Linden’s film. Neil: “A great guy” – Neil appears in a scene speaking to an old man, where he comes across as totally serious and himself for a few seconds. Neil remembers the scene and says the old man is no longer living with him on his ranch. I refer to the emotion and melancholy in his music, the sadness of autumn and the appearance of his new record at this time; the feeling of not being completely alone. Neil listens in silence.

FILM

In the Speakeasy, the happy atmosphere returns. Neil starts talking about his new album. “The album ‘Tonight’s the Night’ is the best I have ever made. It’s recorded live. On one side there are four songs recorded in one take. In some small room owned by Studio Instrument Rentals in LA. The owner, Ken Berry, is the brother of a former roadie, Bruce, and he let me use that hall. The mood was so relaxed that we began recording immediately. And it’s the most honest thing I have ever done. The guys I’m playing with at the moment make me feel relaxed, they make me feel at ease and I can be as honest as I possibly can. But I think the public thinks I’m playing a trick on them.”
Nils enters the conversation, which then (re)turns to the talking-music ratio. “I have the impression that they understand the first half better than the second”, remarks Neil. I say it’s not that strange, since they were playing a lot of new songs, which the audience didn’t expect and couldn’t absorb all at once. Spoken words are easier to grasp.
Neil changes the subject and says, “I’m looking for a good theater for the premier of my film, do you know one in Holland?” “In Amsterdam there is a great old theater in 1930’s style. If you saw it I’m sure you’d want to play there. Why haven’t you come over to Holland?”
Neil: “I actually don’t know… But I’d like to bring my movie to Holland”.

When he leaves at 3 AM, Neil turns to me again and says “Thanks again for the letter and everything. It was real. Say ‘Hi!’ to your friends in Holland and tell them I’ll do my best for the film.”
Moving slowly the slightly stooping figure disappears out of my view leaving me with this final wisecrack:
“My style is not so good, as a matter of fact it’s minimal”.

Liner notes Tonight’s the Night

It’s quite remarkable Young enclosed this piece in the Tonight’s The Night album, as it doesn’t paint a positive picture of the music and the person Young was at the time. In 1976 Young said he decided to print the story “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.” When journalist Meijers stayed a week at Young’s ranch in California sometime later, Young explained he heard the translation of the piece and that he was struck “that someone on the other end of the world exactly understood what he was trying to say.”

Inlays

Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night – Inlays

Inlays (2)

Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night – Inlays (2)

The image above contains the rtextrlisted below, which was printed over the liner notes to the previously released On The Beach album.

It was a town like florida in the fifties, buildings eight stories high, except for a few ten stories and one fifteen right in the center of town. The whole place sparkled with clarity. Everyone Was wearing colorful clothes. People drank coca colas through straws on the street corners. Men were gliding in gliders above the streets, turning corners between the buildings and soaring up alleyways. It was unbelievable. I said “Hey, how do those guys soar around the city like that. It all looks too good. Why don’t they crash into the buildings?” Just then one of the gliders crashed into the fifteen story building in the center of town. The man came tumbling head over heels throughtheair like some sort of a wounded superman. He tumbled xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx dead towards me. With me on the parking lot were a young couple. They were walking xxxxxxx together in conversation. Looking up, they noticed the tumbling man. He fell on top of them making a sluggish sound on the pavement. Off to the side of the three dead bodies I noticed a baby wrapped in a pretty red blanket. I picked up the child and put it (I don’t remember if it was a boy or girl) in a car parked on the street. A crowd was gathering around the parking lot. A beautiful lady came towards me on the street. She looked into the parked car. “That’s my baby in there” she said. “No” I said ” This baby belongs to that dead couple on the parking lot.” “No, You’re wrong” she said, “What happened to them?”