Defining Neil Young is a fool’s task. Whatever Young you choose to describe only hints at the mercurial musician who has recorded everything from the gentlest of acoustic music to the almost unlistenable sounds residing on ARC. The 10 recordings that comprise Oceanside Countryside capture a largely acoustic artist playing with both pleasure and passion in 1977 just as the outside world was beginning to head into the muddy, muddled ditch of punk.
Finally released some 48 years after the fact, these compositions provide glimpses into the psyche of an artist who tends to listen most closely to the beat of his own heart. That these songs, for the most part, were finally released over the years in somewhat different versions only adds to the mystery of why this album sat unreleased for decades. Instead of electric turns with incendiary solos, the Young emerging here is a more satisfied acoustic artist.
Amidst material recorded, then released over the years, ‘It Might Have Been’, with Ben Keith on pedal steel, Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, bassist Joe Osborn and Karl T. Himmel on drums is the one “new” track. Thibodeaux’s fiddle plays a delightful country solo as Young sings. “Instead of tearing our romance to pieces/ Why don’t we try to right what we’ve done wrong/ it’s not too late to set things straight/ Let’s never say it might have been.” As a plea to a lover on her way out the door, it seems as if Young is holding his breath awaiting her responses.
‘The Old Homestead’ feels completely different outside of the context of Hawks and Doves. Tom Scribner’s fiddled saw is louder, more importantly the eight-minute track never seems to drag. Going back through time, ‘Pocahontas’ – well known from the version on Rust Never Sleeps – references American history while bringing up to date for that particular time by mentioning Marlon Brando who won the 1973 Academy Award and had Sacheen Littlefeather refuse the award due to the treatment of indigenous peoples in film and on television.
Softly, like a lullaby, ‘Goin’ Back’, with just Young and his acoustic guitar, plays in a way that we haven’t heard in a long time, fragile and gentle. It’s wish for a simpler days, remembering what might have been with an ache that doesn’t seem to go away. When Young sings “How could people get so unkind” on ‘Human Highway’ one begins to wonder what he thinks of the world he’s living in today.
Looking back, even Neil Young can’t seem to understand why he didn’t release Oceanside Countryside at the time. More than a footnote in the history of an artist who never stands still, it is a moment recaptured of a time and place that will never be the same. The days left no longer equal the days passed, yet spending a few moments with the enigmatic Neil Young usually tends to be time well spent.
