everybody knows this is nowhere

Neil Young and Crazy Horse went chasing the moonlight over the rainbow to create the ragged glory and feverish feedback of this loose and heavy ruby in the dust.  Young had left Buffalo Springfield and recorded his eponymous debut with a motley crew of producers and session players to create a country rock sound.  After jamming with The Rockets at the Whiskey a Go-Go, Young decided to record his next album with them.  

 Bassist Billy Talbot recalls:   "The first meeting was at my house. He came because of this friend of ours, Autumn. She brought him over and Danny [Whitten] and I were in this back room, playing some guitar. He played "Mr. Soul" for us, but not the way it was recorded by Buffalo Springfield. It was in a different key, in B, and he just strummed the guitar. I thought it was a cool song.   Then I went to see him another time when he lived in Laurel Canyon. I took a walk up to where he lived, and he had just recorded something with Buffalo Springfield. He showed me how he used this sustain pedal that would make this note last through the whole song. Then another girl, Robin Lane, brought him back to our house, and we just got together and talked and stuff. We probably played a bit, too.   I forget exactly what happened, but around then we recorded the [pre-Crazy Horse] Rockets album, and he was then living in Topanga Canyon. We brought the record out to play for him, and he wanted to sit in with us while we were playing at the Whisky. Then he called [drummer] Ralph [Molina], Danny and I up to his house in Topanga to try playing "Down By the River." He wanted to record right away...We just went up to his house and he said, 'Let's go into the studio and record some of these songs. Maybe we'll call the band Crazy Horse.' He didn't talk about us being a backing band or anything. He just said it was Crazy Horse. The four of us went in and recorded. At the end, though I don't remember exactly when, he mentioned that his managers and everyone wanted it to be called Neil Young with Crazy Horse. He was kind of embarrassed, but we were fine with it...I think ['Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' is] really good. I think it's also a reflection of the Rockets. I have to mention all these years later that Danny and I and Ralph and the Whitsell brothers and Bobby Notkoff would play two-chord, three-chord, one-chord jams for a long time. Sometimes an hour. We just naturally did that. Bobby would solo on the violin and George Whitsell would play the heck out of the guitar. So would George Leroy. Danny, Ralph and I would keep the rhythm going.  When Neil called us in to to do "Down By the River," we just went into the instrumental. We just naturally did what we do, and it went for a long time because Danny, Ralph and I would do our natural dynamics. Neil is a very emotional player, like Bobby was and we were, so it really fit together. We all did it together." 


'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' was produced by Young and David Briggs (one of the producers from his debut) for Reprise Records at Wally Heider Recording, Hollywood, California with Neil Young on guitar and lead vocals;  Danny Whitten on guitar and vocals;  Billy Talbot on bass guitar;  and Ralph Molina on drums and vocals;  with Bobby Notkoff on violin for "Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)"; and Robin Lane providing harmony vocal on "Round and Round".

Young reveals:  "I just couldn`t handle it [with Buffalo Springfield] towards the end. It wasn't me scheming on a solo career, it wasn`t anything but my nerves. Everything started to go to fucking fast. It was going crazy, joining and quitting, joining and quitting again. I began to feel like I didn`t have to answer or obey anyone. I needed more space. That was the big problem in my head. So I`d quit, then I`d come back 'cos it sounded so good. It was a constant problem. I just wasn`t mature enough to deal with it. I was very young. We were getting the shaft from every angle, and it seemed like we were trying to make it so bad and getting nowhere ... With Crazy Horse it’s such a special thing, because none of us can really play. We know we aren’t any good. Fuck, we’d get it in the first take every time, and it was never right — but we could never do it better ... Nobody cares if you know how to play scales. Nobody gives a shit if you have good technique or not. It's whether you have feelings that you want to express with music, that's what counts, really. When you are able to express yourself and feel good, then you know why you're playing. The technical aspect is absolute hogwash as far as I'm concerned. It bores me to tears. I can't play fast. I don't even know my scales. I know that most of the notes I play aren't where I play them. They're simply not there. So you can play any note you like. I think about it on another level, I don't care about that sort of shit. On the other hand, I appreciate really great guitarists, and I'm very impressed by those metal groups with their scale guitarists...But it does't really grab me. One note will do...[Cinnamon Girl has] two chords. The same note on two chords. The vibrato makes each note sound different. People say it's a 'one-note solo', but in my mind, every one of those notes is different. The further you go into it, the more you can hear the differences...[In a solo I go for] transcendance. It's a feel. That's what I hope to get to. And you can blame me for not caring about off-notes, but in my solos, I listen to the whole group. You call that a solo, but for me it's an instrumental. The whole group takes part. Billy Talbot is an excellent bassist, yet he only plays two or three notes. People always asks if he plays like that because those are the only notes he knows, or the only ones he feels like playing. (laughs). But when he lets go a note, it speaks to you. It's a fucking huge note. Even the soft notes sound enormous."

'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'  was credited to Neil Young With Crazy Horse.  It went to number thirty-four in the US and thirty-two in Canada.  It would eventually be certified platinum.  The story goes that Young wrote three of the album's most prominent songs ("Cinnamon Girl", "Cowgirl in the Sand", and "Down by the River") in one day while sick in bed with a fever of 103 °F.  






http://www.neilyoung.com/






Cinnamon Girl seasoned the charts at number fifty five in the US and twenty five in Canada.  



Down By the River



Cowgirl in the Sand





'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' 
full album:




All tracks written by Neil Young.
"Cinnamon Girl" – 2:58
"Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" – 2:26
"Round & Round (It Won't Be Long)" – 5:49
"Down by the River" – 9:13
"The Losing End (When You're On)" – 4:03
"Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)" – 5:30
"Cowgirl in the Sand" – 10:06