Neil Young’s New Album, FU##IN’ UP, Has A Fitting Title As Its Release Is A Little FU##ED Up!

Celebrating old albums with a live performance of its tracklist seems to be all the rage these days. The trend is so hot that not even Canadian icon and anti-establishment advocate Neil Young is immune. This time, the album in celebration is my favourite by him and Crazy Horse, 1990’s Ragged Glory.

Keeping up with Neil’s catalogue has lately become a full-time job, with yearly releases of new material, side projects, and archived tapes, but my ears perk up whenever Ragged Glory is mentioned.

Last November, Neil, along with all three members of Crazy Horse—Billy Talbot on bass, Ralph Molina on drums, and Nils Lofgren on guitar—performed most of Ragged Glory’s tracklist at a small venue in Toronto, The Rivoli. Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) was left off of the setlist, likely because it is filler.

The show is now packaged as an official live recording titled FU##IN’ UP, and will be available tomorrow (Apr 20th) on clear vinyl as a Record Store Day exclusive. Black vinyl, CD, and digital versions will be widely released on April 26th.

The messed up thing about FU##IN’UP is the song titles. All nine tracks are the same, performed in the order they appear on Ragged Glory, but the titles (Save or the Don and Dewey cover Farmer John) were changed with a snippet of lyrics from the song. Check it out:

City Life (Country Home)
Feels Like a Railroad (River of Pride)[White Live]
Heart of Steel (Fu##in’ Up)
Broken Circle (Over and Over)
Valley of Hearts (Love to Burn)
Farmer John
Walk’ In My Place (Road of Tears)[Mansion On the Hill]
To Follow One’s Own Dream (Days That Used to Be)
A Chance on Love (Love and Only Love)

Neil just ain’t gonna play by your rules, man.

Anyway, Neil wrote about this release on his blog back in January, revealing how he is suffering from arthritis in his hand but has found “a way around the pain with no drugs.” He called the show a “lifetime experience” as it was “Just my old songs and the Horse… I can’t remember a night like that in decades.”

I’m looking forward to this album, as the two tracks already released to stream, Broken Circle (Over and Over) and To Follow One’s Dream (Days That Used to Be), sound fantastic without any frills. I will try, but I’m not expecting to find the clear vinyl tomorrow. I’ll update this post if I do. I’ll likely acquire a peasent black vinyl or CD copy sometime next week.