Created by fate, destined to crash\u2019n\u2019burn, Young\u2019s first major band was a collection of \u201cgeniuses\u201d who mixed up country, rock and pop \u2013 and launched two its members skywards.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-main” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]
Words: SYLVIE SIMMONS<\/span><\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-main” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] RELEASED: September 19, 1970<\/strong> \/ LABEL: Reprise<\/strong> \/ CHART: 7 (UK) | 8 (US)\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/09\/1-1.jpg” title_text=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Panning for gold: Neil Young & Crazy Horse rock out, 1970.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] IN A REMARKABLY SHORT PERIOD Neil Young had released a debut solo album, an album as Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and another as a card-carrying member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Now here he was with a new solo album. A fan might have been forgiven for thinking that post-Buffalo Springfield Neil was still trying to work out who he was and what he wanted to do. The truth was he already knew \u2013 he was going to do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted to do it, a rule he\u2019s lived by ever since.<\/p>\n After The Gold Rush<\/i> is a beauty. A strange beauty, its songs largely dreamlike, pensive, downright mournful on Neil\u2019s lugubriously slow cover of Don Gibson\u2019s 1957 country hit Oh, Lonesome Me. Yet Southern Man, the song considered its highlight, is Young at his most ferocious \u2013 an excoriating rock song performed with Crazy Horse attacking the racism of the American South. <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/09\/2-1.jpg” title_text=”2″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] These were strange times. In 1969 Young played at both Woodstock, the hippy dream, and at Altamont, its dark apocalypse. Ever an outsider, he had eschewed the hippy paradise of Laurel Canyon and bought a house in Topanga Canyon, a more secluded environment, which suited him fine. It also attracted the likes of Charles Manson, whom Neil had met and jammed with. The Topangan who became a very close friend, though, was David Briggs, a record producer who, like him, preferred records with a raw live sound.<\/p>\n A newer acquaintance was Dean Stockwell, a former TV child star who\u2019d dropped out in the \u201960s and moved into the hills. Encouraged by actor Dennis Hopper, he\u2019d co-written a screenplay for a disaster movie called After The Gold Rush. Hopper assured him one of his movie connections would bite, but so far nothing. Neil\u2019s wife Susan suggested he show it to the songwriter.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] An ecological story about an innocent folk singer and a Biblical flood that ends human life on Earth? Of course Young loved it. He told Stockwell he wanted to direct it, act it, write the soundtrack, everything. The two of them did the rounds of the LA film studios to no avail. With the project shelved and his record label pressuring him for a new LP, Neil decided to borrow the title for his third solo album.<\/p>\n After The Gold Rush<\/i> is not the soundtrack of an unmade movie; it\u2019s not a Greendale<\/i>. It\u2019s not even a concept album. There were songs on it that Young had premiered on-stage with CSNY, including Southern Man, which he wrote in the basement of his Topanga house, and Don\u2019t Let It Bring You Down, written on the first CSNY transatlantic tour. Graham Nash has said that Young wrote the sweet, sad Only Love Can Break Your Heart as a response to Nash\u2019s break-up with Joni Mitchell.<\/p> Other songs \u201cwere written on the spot\u201d the album\u2019s producer Briggs told this writer decades later. Among them was the title track, which Briggs said took only half an hour to write.<\/p> Helping capture such moments of inspiration, Young had built a home studio in the basement, where most of this album was recorded. \u201cNeil would sit upstairs in the living room and then we\u2019d all go down to the basement, turn on the tapes, and away we\u2019d go,\u201d recalled Briggs. <\/p> Among the musicians in the studio were pals Stephen Stills, Nils Lofgren, Danny Whitten, Ralph Molina, Greg Reeves, Billy Talbot and Jack Nitzsche. Young said the album captured \u201cthe spirit of Topanga Canyon\u201d, and, according to Briggs, if you listen closely, you can hear dogs barking outside.<\/p> The song that contained the spirit of the screenplay was the title track. A melancholic beauty, it told a surreal, dreamlike story set in the past \u2013 knights, peasants, archers; the present \u2013 a man getting high in a burned-out basement; and the future \u2013 aliens coming to Earth after its destruction to try to save what was left. \u201cLook at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s\u2026\u201d<\/p> In the 55 years since he sang those words, Young has returned to the subject in his music and movies over and over again.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”] Fragile and tempestuous in turns, the After The Gold Rush was inspired by an unfilmed movie script and recorded without any frills in his Topanga basement. Hail a masterpiece\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2985,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions\/2985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“Some songs were written on the spot. The title track was finished in half an hour.”<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]
TRACKS<\/span><\/span><\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]SIDE 1<\/strong>
Tell Me Why<\/b>
After The Goldrush <\/b>
Only Love Can Break Your Heart <\/b>
Southern Man <\/b>
Till The Morning Comes <\/b>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]SIDE 2<\/strong>
Powderfinger<\/b>
Oh, Lonesome Me<\/b>
Don\u2019t Let It Bring You Down <\/b>
Birds<\/b>
When You Dance I Can Really Love <\/b>
I Believe In You <\/b>
Cripple Creek Ferry <\/b>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"