Neil Young released Sleeps With Angels in 1994 In the middle of a purple patch that started with Freedom and Ragged Glory and then included Harvest Moon and (maybe) Mirror Ball and Broken Arrow.
However I really like this album - it's certainly up there with anything he did in the 70's and along with On The Beach and Rust Never Sleeps in my top 3 Neil Young albums. Perhaps the quietest of his Crazy Horse albums but maybe the most challenging in terms of atmosphere, lyrical content and theme.
To me the album has an overall theme of the breakdown of the American Dream. It opens with My Heart and closes with A Dream That Can Last. Pretty much the same song with different arrangements but different - with the former showing the heart of the American Dream and the latter seems to be saying that after all the problems and issues of the intervening songs there is still the dream to cling to.
The songs in between deal with death (Sleeps with Angels and Change Your Mind - addressed to Kurt Cobain, violence (Drive-by) and the image of a ghost city (Blue Eden and Safeway Cart). The latter with its image of "Like a safeway cart rolling down street, like a sandlemark on the Saviour's feet, just keep rolling on, it's a ghetto dawn "
He plays the same song twice with different title and lyrics does this again but even more so with Western Hero and Train of Love. The former shows the change in heroes from those of the west chasing manifest destiny, through someone in a world war and finally to a big business tycoon.
Then there is the false ode to consumerism Piece of Crap. The weakest song on the album but still a bit of a laugh and I remember Chris and his school mates miming to it at school camp.
However I really like this album - it's certainly up there with anything he did in the 70's and along with On The Beach and Rust Never Sleeps in my top 3 Neil Young albums. Perhaps the quietest of his Crazy Horse albums but maybe the most challenging in terms of atmosphere, lyrical content and theme.
To me the album has an overall theme of the breakdown of the American Dream. It opens with My Heart and closes with A Dream That Can Last. Pretty much the same song with different arrangements but different - with the former showing the heart of the American Dream and the latter seems to be saying that after all the problems and issues of the intervening songs there is still the dream to cling to.The songs in between deal with death (Sleeps with Angels and Change Your Mind - addressed to Kurt Cobain, violence (Drive-by) and the image of a ghost city (Blue Eden and Safeway Cart). The latter with its image of "Like a safeway cart rolling down street, like a sandlemark on the Saviour's feet, just keep rolling on, it's a ghetto dawn "
He plays the same song twice with different title and lyrics does this again but even more so with Western Hero and Train of Love. The former shows the change in heroes from those of the west chasing manifest destiny, through someone in a world war and finally to a big business tycoon.
Then there is the false ode to consumerism Piece of Crap. The weakest song on the album but still a bit of a laugh and I remember Chris and his school mates miming to it at school camp.
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