purchase [ Old Man]
Being of age 60+ (perhaps the fall of my life) and having worked for 40 years or more, it seems natural that I consider what I have sown and what I will reap at the end of the road.
I wasn't going to do a post about Neil Young's Harvest. It seemed so trite - theme: Harvest/Album: \Old Man/Song. However, someone needed to do the post for many reasons: because (more than my previous post about John Barleycorn being the quintessential Harvest song), this is the bottom line. There is nothing more fundamental than the album with the name of the theme, No? What say about an album titled Harvest with the song Harvest? It may be Young's best.
Of the 10 tracks on the album ... 1/2 of them are pantheon classics. Need I list them? No sooner had CSNY hit the top of the charts, than they began to fall apart. And, as part of this process, Neil Young (previously of Buffalo Springfield - along with Stephen Stills) was off on his own - I guess he was the first of the CSNY group to produce his own after the success of the 4-some, and t'was the Harvest album.
From the album, Heart of Gold may be my fave, but ... we need to focus on the harvest/fall aspect: Young's song about what you sow and harvest. (Old Man) may not seem at first to fit the theme. But I would contend that the back story to the lyrics is very much one about harvest - the end of a season, the reaping of what you have sown. I think that - on examination - you would have to agree that the deeper meaning of Young's lyrics are very much about harvesting what you have sown in your life.
Even beyond that - <take at look at> the power of this performance: maybe one of the best indicators of what Neil Young is/is capable of. The lyrics - if you dig - are phenomenal. Low key but powerful. The guitar is simple/basic, but powerfully on target - half way between folk and rock, soft and yet rough. I guess this is why he is at the top of the list of "the best".
Sing: "Doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to you"