A look further back at some of Neil’s answers in Letters to the Editor. Please see the note at the foot of the text for more details.
Albums/Films etc.
– There are no good usable Buffalo Springfield live recordings available, according to Neil.
– Asked about making the CSG-version of his first album available on XStream for download, Neil says: “We have been working on that CSG master tape trying to reverse the process to bring back the original tones. We may have succeeded but we are still in the middle of it.”
– Early Daze with Crazy Horse is coming “in 2022”, though this was said in March 2021. The vinyl log jam was not really a major issue at that point.
– Neil was asked if he could show the complete BBC live TV recording from 1971 with the “two” songs missing from the televised version. (According to SugarMtn.org no less than five songs from the performance have never been shown: Cowgirl In The Sand, I Am A Child, There’s A World, The Needle And The Damage Done and Tell Me Why.) Neil seems to think the film has been shown on NYA already, which it has not, and says: “There may be a couple of songs missing because that is all we could get from BBC.” Neil has also raised the idea of releasing the BBC TV live recording as part of the Official Bootleg Series and asked a fan to send him his “rare” copy since “most versions… are incomplete audio”. Not sure exactly what Neil means, as the bootleg is not exactly rare, I believe.
– The unreleased Homefires album (basically additional recordings from the same era as Homegrown), “may yet see a vinyl release”.
– Regarding more Odeon-Budokan performances: “We are currently… working on a Odeon/Budokan movie and record. There is a lot of footage.“ This is apparently planned in the meantime for Archives Vol. 3.
– Boarding House “film and record” will be on Archives Vol. 3.
– Solo Trans (DVD and album), Crazy Horse Garage (album), Live Freedom (album), Noise & Flowers (film and album) “are in production now”. (Neil does not mention Chrome Dreams. Is that because it is finished perhaps?)
– Interstate will be included on the Ragged Glory – Smell The Horse album, together with three other extra tracks: Born To Run, Boxcar, Don’t Spook The Horse.
– “The Weld DVD is scheduled to be released at the same time as the Weld vinyl.”
– The first, and subsequently abandoned, ‘live’ recording made for MTV Unplugged on 16 Dec 1992 will not apparently ever get released. “It sucked” says Neil. The set was rerecorded on 7 Feb 1993 for the final broadcast.
– Neil says Toast should be popping out of the toaster fairly soon… buttered with at least three so far unreleased songs – Timberline, Gateway Of Love and Standing In The Light Of Love.
– Neil was asked about a show in Germany, presumably Rock am Ring 18 May 2002, which was televised: “We will be showing the Booker T. show with Goin’ Home very soon… That was a great show.”
– Asked if he could make available a recording of the non-Greendale songs played after the live performances of Greendale at Fox Theater in Detroit in March 2004, Neil said he will review it.
– Alchemy is still scheduled for release in the near future: “It’s a big one with many tracks and a movie!!!… Last one with Poncho in Crazy Horse.”
Original Release Series (ORS) Box Sets
– Neil: “Geffen would not allow” the release of the Geffen years albums as Volume 4 of the Original Release Series, so they will be missed out for the time being. “Maybe next time” says Neil laconically. The full extent to which Geffen-years material will appear on Archives Vol. 3 has still not been disclosed.
– Neil is still working on improving the quality of the Landing On Water recording: “It is on Geffen/Universal… Niko (Bolas) is working on it now, which seems to involve a lot of delays at Universal. We will not give up.”
– “Weld will be released as a 3-vinyl version in ORS Box Set #5”. That means not as a double LP as originally released.
– Arc will also be released on vinyl in ORS Box Set #5.
– “Individual (ORS) albums will be available shortly after the box set releases”.
– Asked about re-pressings of the previous Original Release Series box sets, Neil answers: “Maybe some of the original records individually. I will ask about a repressing of the box sets.”
Films
– “We have our 4 camera versions of CSNY at the Fillmore East (1970) and will be presenting within a year I hope.”
– Will we ever see Journey Through The Past as an official CD issue? Neil: “We are looking at Journey.”
– Neil says there is no chance of releasing the CSNY Wembley show from 1974 on DVD. “No can do.”
– Rusted Out Garage is coming to the Movietone section for Rust tier subscribers “soon” and will be in Archives Vol. 3.
– A reader queried the quality of the audio mix in the excerpts of the Crazy Horse Buffalo film/album project which have already been shown on NYA from the Weld series. Neil answers: “We will be remixing the audio before we do the Weld series release.”
– Why did the video with Pearl Jam in Dublin 1995 get pulled from Hearse Theater? “We finally found the real audio and the film is being cut by the original team. It is coming to NYA and the world. What a band!”
– Asked if he could make the soundtrack from the Jonathan Demme film Heart Of Gold available as a virtual album on NYA, Neil said: “I will see. I think it can be done.”
– Neil is going to try to get CSNY Déjà Vu, the Living With War tour documentary film, released on DVD for sale on NYA.
– Neil says he will try to get the rights for the 2009 Glastonbury Festival BBC broadcast for NYA.
– The Timeless Orpheum film is going to be available on DVD for sale via NYA “and other outlets. It will be available on select streaming outlets as well.”
– A fan wrote hoping for a HD upgrade for the 2018 and 2019 live show movies currently showing only in 360/540p on Movietone. Neil says “We will review this. Thanks for the heads up.”
– Neil says they are at work on preparing some of the livestreams from the last couple of years for rebroadcast on NYA.
Archives Vol.2 Stuff
– Asked about releasing the individual discs from Archives Vol. 2 separately at some point, Neil answers: “We are in discussions with Reprise about that.” In another answer he says: “There may be individual vinyl records made of select discs.”
– Dume from Archives Vol. 2 may be released on vinyl as a double LP at some point.
– Neil is trying to find an elegant way to have the individual albums from Archives Vol. 2 back up on the NYA Timeline, where they seem to have been removed for lack of space. Only the image of the full Box Set is still there.
Songs
– The alternate vocal take of Down By The River by Crazy Horse from 1969 will be on the Crazy Horse Early Daze album release “next year”.
– Asked if there was ever a song called I Need Her Love To Get By, Neil answers that it “sounds familiar”. He has perhaps forgotten that it was listed in the recordings listed in the book accompanying Archives Vol. 1 but marked there as “not recorded”. He has also previously said that, together with Big Waves, both were only ever “ideas”. Clearly that was not true at least of Big Waves, which as we know eventually became Powderfinger.
– Asked why Sad Movies and Barefoot Floors did not make Archives Vol. 2, Neil replies: “We have very few recordings of those songs and they’re not quite at the level we like, although we continue to search.” In the meantime, Neil has found and posted a lovely version of Barefoot Floors on NYA.
– Neil said he was not too sure about an acoustic guitar version of Like A Hurricane: “It must have happened.” Well, it did, but presumably not in the studio. According to SugarMtn.org seven times, once each in 1976, 1992, and 2012 and three times in 2019.
– Bright Sunny Day (live, Pine Knob, 19 Sep 1978) “is on our search list for Archives 3. It is listed as a poor quality cassette from Pine Knob rehearsal of the Rust show”.
– Asked about putting the unreleased Digging My Bad Self, a bit of studio fun from 1988-89, up on NYA, Neil says “we will do that soon”.
– The 1990 version of Interstate with Crazy Horse, released as an extra track/side on the vinyl release of Broken Arrow in 1996 is still not available on NYA. Neil said it will be included in Archives Vol. 3, but as AV3 now seems only to be going as far as 1987, that now seems unlikely. Could Neil also be confusing this with the version with The International Harvesters from 1985 which he says in another reply is being considered for the A Treasure disc on Archives Vol. 3?
– Request for Neil and Pearl Jam’s Rockin’ In The Free World from the MTV Music Awards in 1993. Neil: “We will find that one.”
– Philadelphia is still not on NYA: “We are working on it. There is a problem with the master.”
Outtakes
– Neil did not seem to know much about the 1969 recording of Country Girl on acoustic guitar which has been circulating for years and can be found on YouTube. In the meantime, he has been pointed to the 18 Dec 1969 CSNY show at the University of Houston, so maybe we’ll get lucky and hear it on NYA one day.
– A new outtake of Frozen Man was mentioned briefly in the Times-Contrarian and appeared on NYA but the link led to the one already released on Archives Vol. 2 and was subsequently removed. (Unfortunately, the Dec 1974 version with the Stray Gators has not been released so far.)
– Referring to Sedan Delivery with Crazy Horse from the 1975 timeframe: “I don’t like that take. It will be on NYA as a Zuma outtake and a Dume outtake.”
– Asked if he could add Country Home from Budokan as an official outtake to NYA, Neil answers “Great idea! We will do it.” And to someone else asking if there is another 1976 Crazy Horse version: “I will look”.
– Down By The River with The International Harvesters is being considered as an outtake of A Treasure.
– A number of outtakes were requested: Campaigner (Weld 1991)/Shots (Acoustic 1986)/LA (Acoustic)/Little Wing (Electric Ducks version)/Misfits (Live electric, Australian tour)/Little Blind Fish (1974 electric with CSNY)/Bright Sunny Day (live Pine Knob, 19 Sep 1978). Neil says he is working on “some of these now. Volume three has much of this in it”.
– Neil says he will look and see if he can get hold of the Sample And Hold outtake from the MTV Unplugged recordings for NYA.
– Request for a full version of the 1999 Cortez The Killer live acoustic version used in the Almost Famous soundtrack which appeared briefly as a Sneak Preview: “I will investigate and put it in the cabinet for you… look for it as a sneak again very soon.”
– Two unreleased songs, Sea Change and Get Around from the Fork In The Road sessions will be released as outtakes on NYA, “coming soon as we can. I’ll put them on the request list.”
Archives Vol. 3
– Neil says that additional tour footage of the 1976 Crazy Horse tour, in particular London and Japan, will “probably be in NYA Volume three box set”.
– Asked about recordings from the Stills-Young Band 1976 tour which did not make it onto Archives Vol. 2: “We will be looking for STILLS YOUNG but not sure. Could be (an official NYA) bootleg.”
– Saddle Up The Palomino: Neil does not answer if it is the same song as Carmelina mentioned in the Archives Vol.2 book but says an “earlier” version will be on Archives Vol.3, presumably then prior to the April 1977 version on American Stars ‘N’ Bars.
– “The best version” of Barefoot Floors is coming on Vol. 3, Neil says, in the so-called “Snapshot In Time” section, which he describes as “a documentary tape of me playing the songs on stars n bars for Nicolette Larson, Linda Ronstadt and David Briggs before we went into the studio. I think it’s the best recording. It may have been done separately in the studio.”
– “Johnny’s Island is on Volume three… seven tracks have never been heard. The three that have been hard were on Trans (acoustic ones).” “I love listening to it! Like a breath of fresh air.” Bruce Palmer plays bass on 9 of the 10 tracks. Elsewhere Neil confirms that Johnny’s Island is not the same thing as the original Island In The Sun album project. Looking forward to finding out more.
– “I am working on getting a box set of the Geffen years. We were able to get them and outtakes in NYA Volume lll.”
NYA Stuff
– Timeline Concerts: No plans to offer them for download purchase. “Do you want fans who attended the shows to send you any photography, ticket stubs or local newspaper reviews?” Neil: “Yes… We can always use that.”
– Answering a suggestion to offer free hi-res downloads of Archives Vol. 1 material, at least to higher tier subscribers of NYA, since the original downloads were not hi-res, Neil says: “We will take a look”.
– Asked about releasing the special videos used to “illustrate” many of the tracks on Archives Vol. 1 on NYA, Neil replies: “If we have them, they will go up and I think we DO have them”.
– Asked if it would be possible to have a bit more information about songs on the file cards, “like you did on Decade”. Neil replies: “We can do that… I might just start doing that here and there.” Elsewhere he said he might be adding some more post-it notes to songs on NYA in order to add some occasional personal comments.
– Neil didn’t have an answer as to why none of the tours after 2016 are shown on the timeline.
Miscellaneous
– Asked about the possibility of providing audio downloads of the song content together with DVD film orders, Neil answers: “I’ll look into the hi res download to go with the DVDs at Greedy hand. Sounds reasonable to me.”
– Neil seems to be getting interested in the idea of producing a book containing “all” his lyrics in one volume. Sure is going to be a big book…
Key Archive Crawls
– Long version of Bluebird by Buffalo Springfield
– Borrowed Tune, live 1973
– Vacancy, Crazy Horse Chess Studios version
– Mediterranean without overdubs
– Greek Theater, Berkeley, Bread And Roses Festival, 3 Oct 1980, with Hawks And Doves
– Mr. Soul from the Berlin video performance, not included in the released film
– Someday with the “Wake up all you sleeping beauties” intro
Note from the author: NYA said they liked the way Neil Young Unreleased – NYU Facebook group puts together the highlights from Neil’s answers in Letters to the Editor. (See also the previous NYU Answer to Answers article on this page.) So, we had a look a little further back – from December 2020 to May 2021 – and the result you see here. Information prior to December 2020 seems generally to have been overtaken by events, and we have of course left out those things which have already happened. Nevertheless, some things mentioned here may now be out of date for other reasons or plans may have changed in the meantime.
The selection here is mine, with all that means in terms of subjectivity. Apologies if I have missed something important to you. There is no real substitute for reading all of Neil’s answers yourselves, so take another look! The new powerful Deep Search function on NYA is a great help if you are looking for something specific.