“It’s all one song,” Neil Young famously said, and, well, it’s true: Crazy Horse’s thump-thump-thump rhythm section has remained steady for decades while Young and Old Black peel off staggering solo after solo. The koan-worthy wisdom of his lyrics represents the best example of hippie values adapted to contemporary standards. An equally weird presence as acoustic troubadour as he is a sui generis noisemaker, Young has wrung more changes out of what looks on paper like brain-dead arrangements than any other songwriter I can think of. He reminds me of what Orson Welles said about Luis Bunuel: “What a superb person he must be. Everyone loves him.” I love Zuma best because it’s loud, the songcraft is excellent, and that weirdness remains one of a kind.
I belong to the generation that I had to burn Time Fades Away and On the Beach on CD-Rs before the latter was available. So here’s Lucky Thirteen!
1. Zuma
2. Rust Never Sleeps
3. On the Beach
4. Tonight’s the Night
5. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
6. Time Fades Away
7. Comes a Time
8. Ragged Glory
9. After the Gold Rush
10. Live at Massey Hall 1971
11. Harvest
12. Freedom
13. Sleeps with Angels
Humanizing The Vacuum 
All good! Tonight’s the Night is my favourite because pain and heartbreak never sounded so real and unadorned. On the Beach and Zuma are the ones when Crazy Horse zap along in songs that sometimes meander a little but I don’t care as long as Poncho Sampedro’s guitar guide the proceedings. Even at 7 minutes plus, Neil is tenth. zillion times more tolerable than the whole 70s bloated scene (punk, for a reason, came to the rescue with songs clocking at no more than 2,30 min.)
Footnote: I had a traumatic event long time ago when I was down and I couldn’t cry, I put “Tonight’s the Night” to hear Neil’s voice crack, then its “cousin”, Lucinda Williams’ “Essence” (whose voice also exquisitely cracks down) and started crying. Finally, R.E.M’s AFTP to dry my tearducts and cleanse the whole thing out and find the river. Music as therapy for free. It worked!