Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night, 50 Years Later｜Vinyl Monday
I’m climbing this ladder, my head’s in the clouds. I hope that it matters.
Welcome (or welcome back) to Vinyl Monday! This is my series where I give the who/what/when/where/why and how I feel about classic albums in my collection. This week, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the conclusion to Neil Young’s “ditch trilogy,” Tonight’s The Night. Subscribe for more Vinyl Monday!
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Timestamps:
intro – 0:00
art/packaging/personnel – 1:43
the ditch – 5:12
recording – 10:53
more from the ditch – 13:13
release – 16:39
my thoughts – 20:03
thanks for watching! – 38:39
Music:
Intro Music: Yeah Yeah Yeah (Long) by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Artist: http://audionautix.com/
Outtro Music: Ticket To Nowhere Man by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Artist: http://audionautix.com/
Vinyl Monday logo by Callum: https://www.youtube.com/@clynaack
#vinyl #vinylcommunity #neilyoung
@abigaildevoe
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
what’s your favorite “ditch trilogy” song? comment below!
@howieb2001
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
New here. Amazing that someone your age can echo the sentiments of someone my age (72) who bought the record the day it came out in the UK. Subscribed.
@laurenceconstable7618
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Love your work, but I have a question… Why bleep out swear words, as opposed to either keeping them in or just not using them? As a listener, covering them up with other sounds is like hitting an audio 'speed bump' without slowing down. If the words are worth saying out loud, why not keep them in? The again, if they're not worth being heard, then why not just not say them? I guess this is in part one listener's constructive criticism, but also genuine curiosity.
@Lambert1386
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Love that album, especially the tribute to Bruce Berry, Jan Berry's (Jan & Dean) brother. Neil used to close every show with that song. My favorite Neil Young albums are Trans and Landing On Water. My favorite show was the 1980s "Life" tour where the stage was a big garage, complete with mechanical rats. My first wife and I got his autograph after the show. He had a beautiful antique Buffalo Springfield tour bus parked outside the venue.
@charlesclinton3305
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Honestly I feel like people either gravitate towards quiet Neil or loud Neil. I'm definitely in the loud Neil camp, the electric side of Rust, Freedom and Ragged Glory are my faves.
@astorreherrera6346
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
That cat Bruce was fired for stealing a guitar own by David Crosby to fuel his habit. Funny edit to leave that out.
@shaynewest8757
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
This pretty young lady has just given the greatest review of this gem of an album Ive ever heard. I love all Neils 60s and 70s output (Time Fades Away is still my personal fav). Well done young lady youve got a real gift for this.
@jeffwinter216
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Maybe my favorite Vinyl Monday episode. Great job! 🌞
@phil4208
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
The 1st Neil Young album I bought was decade , I then went to back albums
@ChrissHill
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Bruce Berry was a working man ..he used to love that Econoline van. A sparkle was in his eyes but his life was in his hands..
@bglrj
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Time Fades Away is his best album. It certainly doesn't lack grittiness.
@gazmix589
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
wow what a vinyl. I have his visit to Manchester where many were annoyed as he played Tonight's the n Night instead of Harvest & Goldrush stuff, people having a go etc.. If they knew then what the know now.. On The beach, Time fades away, Everybody knows too etc..
@nobbynoris
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
These guys all look ancient and they can't even have been that old in 1974. What the hell kind of drugs were they doing?
@NowhereFast2025
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Good vid, I'd not thought of Homgrown as part of the ditch albums before.
@BillAdams-fb3jm
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
"It's shaky…" Maybe THAT'S why Neil Young named his film production company (while he was signed to Sanctuary Records) Shakey….
What do I think of Neil (because you asked)… after first hearing my uncle's copy of After The Gold Rush when I was a kid and being won by it, I'm always (almost) over-critical of a Neil Young album (new or old), when I first hear it. Sometimes, that stance is deserved (like on Greendale and Living With War), sometimes it isn't (like on Mirrorball and Sleeps With Angels).
@singhj21
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Love your channel
@TheGlotz69
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Everyone loves this album. The times with Viet Nam, gas crisis and Nixon still lingering on kept unrest to created all of the harder albums of the mid-70s'. Lester was brilliant, but only when he wasn't being an ass on purpose. Read any of his Lou Reed comments. Kill you? No. But slight annoyance- It's a 'silence between the notes' blues – Stones or Neil- Neil's intent was different. Stones were focused on the blues there. I wouldn't try to draw too many correlations between artists.. They may or may not be there- But I find it unimportant- all music is derived from the past.
@lionstandingII
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Your bipedal friend read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy……
@gregmcgarvey
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Love having that fun, fuzzy original LP. I find I'm playing the Live at the Roxy album much more lately, having played the "studio" LP a thousand times.
@Baloneycake4114
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Ttn will only be understood after three days of drinking
@derfgerps4016
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
On the beach is my personal fav from Neil
@derfgerps4016
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
It’s wild because the bootleg series of the stray gators live is amazing
@frugalseverin2282
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Rather than an indulgent, drunken, off-key caterwauling album I'd have preferred to hear about that lost "Human Highway" album CSNY were set to make but the group self-destructed instead. Crosby & Nash were touring and didn't have time to be in the studio so Stills wiped their background vocals on some songs which infuriated that pair.
We then got the Stills-Young Band doing their thing while Crosby & Nash made their albums.
@joshsmusiclibrary
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Walmart George and Pattie took me OUT – I'd love to see that collab one day!
While I'm still yet to really feel the "greatness" of the Ditch Trilogy (it just hasn't resonated with me as much as Harvest, Rust Never Sleeps or even Time Fades Away and Zuma!) I'll be damned if this album didn't have some stellar songs (Albuquerque!) along with that dark hopeless vibe that really gets to you on repeat listens!! Amazing review as always 🙂
@bobbyz-z2s
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Ive been a Neil fan since I 1st heard his voice on "Broken Arrow" in the early 70s. This Album has remained my all-time favorite since 75. You nailed it, great review.
@whocaresboutdat3972
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Bravo!!!!!
@whocaresboutdat3972
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Tonight's The Night is a Masterpiece!
@JSH-z8j
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
"On the Beach" was always my favorite Neil record growing up, but "Tonight's the Night" may have overtaken it more recently. I always heard that "Lookout Joe" was about a Vietnam vet ("Joe" as in "G.I. Joe") coming home from the war, with Neil basically warning that what he will face back home is in some ways worse than what he faced "over there". But it could be interpreted the way you put it, I suppose.
@angusgillett1631
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
I love your New England rants- I identify! Especially when they set the scene for an album like this
@ashleyupshall7641
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Borrowed Tune is fantastic.
@jimmarshall3066
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
'75 was also the year Dylans "Desire" was released .My "on again-off again " all time fave of his ! But hell, i was 14, what the F could i have possibly known ! ?
@jimmarshall3066
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Gotta go with "Tonight's the Night " . I could wax poetic, or even philosophical, but it would no doubt come across as redundant and trite. What can be said about the man that hasn't already been repeated ad infinitum….? I really dig the way his psychedelic, borderline beautifully autistic mind seems laser-focused on music, and has very little patience for anything non-musical . AWESOME as usual, Abbey ❤ thank you
@raderke
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
I'm not very into "favorites" but I admit to being totally obsessed with Albuquerque. I got to see Neil 3 times. Once for Harvest tour second time right before Neil started hanging with Pearl Jam and and once with CSNY when they did the reunion thing and living with war came out. He is just unique.
@kenjohnston1257
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Patrick Vecchio, TTN is totally the disc to throw into the car to listen to on a road trip
@michaelhodge6779
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
One of the most underrated albums. As a former Neil Young cover band member, I absolutely treasured this.
@Gerry-p9r
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
ooh, I’ve been waiting a long time for you to do b.s.a.,the best album of 1967 imho. the next two weeks will pass by slowly. I hope you’ll also do after the gold rush as soon as possible. us oldies are getting up there. time fades away, y,know.
@simonKagree
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Well, I think you nailed it very nicely. Actually, you nail them all — this channel is like a Masters or PhD presentation on our beloved Rock'n'Roll — sometimes I have trouble watching these things because they get so intense.
I do like Tonight's The Night. I bought it when it was released, and remember the feeling of the album cover, like twilltone mimeograph paper. But there are related albums I love more: On The Beach and Zuma; the first Crazy Horse record; Nils Lofgren's first solo album (a masterpiece released that same spring). I hated Harvest — On The Beach was sweet release from that nonsense, but the "fans" disagreed, and that pissed off Neil. I really don't like Neil's crappy drawing and lettering, though.
@johnL-d8q
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
I'm seeing Neil in August, with some trepidation. His audience can be quite the mixed bag, shouting "Neil!" during ballads and relentlessly requesting songs he had no intention of doing. I saw him on the Le Noise tour, with the great Bert Jansch opening, and the audience would not shut up during Jansch's set. I had to tell the people sitting behind me to shut the F up. Not a fan of huge venues, but I was gifted the ticket, so fingers crossed that the crowd will be respectful.
@richardelliott8352
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
interesting that our host seems to have a belief in astrology. She seems intelligent, and I admittedly don't know what a 12ther is, but it really does seem that we can push the stars around as easily as they can push us, if one wants to get all cosmic about it. I enjoyed the insight contained in the review of an album I enjoy owning, but don't play very much.
@seijunsejuki
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
Your comment about your dad "up and moving again" and you not knowing where he is, really reminds me of my own dad. My dad used to do that all the time, sometimes moving across country multiple times a year. He was an addict, and this is actually common amongst addicts, there's even a term for it if you didn't know: a "geographic," someone who's constantly moving, trying to find something, or trying to escape themselves. I don't know the full story of you and your dad obviously, beyond what you've alluded to, but if it's anything like my own dad, I feel for you.
@TheStrongBoyz19
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
As a massive fan of Neil's work, Tonight's the Night is the darkest rock album ever made, in my opinion. The bleakness is heavy on the whole duration of the songs. The production is muddy, raw and not polished, but it adds more of the atmosphere while the band is playing along. I would always listen to this album over Harvest as it's one of my most favourites. A lot of beauty but with sadness and vulnerability all at once. A masterpiece with some of his greatest songs and Neil has been one of those musicians and inspirations to hear actual human expression as well. Fantastic video, Abby and it is a pleasure.
@seed_drill7135
September 21, 2025 at 6:13 am
I’ve seen Neil twice with Crazy Horse, once solo/acoustic and once with CSN&Y. And, yes, I did see them at the 1991 tour with Sonic Youth and Social Distortion opening. Though I preferred getting to see Bert Jansch shortly before he passed open in the intimate Spartanburg Auditorium.
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