Neil Young "Prairie Wind" (Reprise)
By Dave Schutz
Monday. Dec 05, 12:16 AM
Harvest Moon part deux.

If Neil Young’s latest is the third part of a loosely speculated trilogy also including 1972’s Harvest and 1992’s Harvest Moon, then said trilogy seems to take the form of an isosceles triangle. Remember geometry class? Two equal angles (Prairie Wind and Harvest Moon) pointing to a different – and in this case very distant and acute – angle (Harvest). If you’re still with me, you might see what I’m getting at. Prairie Wind and Harvest Moon, in their distinct similarity, seem to describe a model of necessary reflection and orientation after a great push forward (in this case, 2003’s politically charged and adventurous Greendale), ultimately pointing all the way back to 1972 and Harvest, Young’s first great (and perhaps greatest) breakthrough.

And the two are almost formulaic in their similarities. Like “Unknown Legend” from Harvest Moon, “The Painter” opens Prairie Wind with themes of longing and lost direction with the rueful line “if you follow every dream, you might get lost” with all the quavering of Young’s aging tenor. The greeting-card simplicity of “Falling Off the Face of the Earth” echoes “Such a Woman” and, on “This Old Guitar,” he recalls the same axe mentioned in “From Hank to Hendrix.”

If these parallels seem superficial, they’re at least illustrative. The low-key and lonesome vibe of Harvest Moon also predominates here as well. Similarly, Prairie Wind does not approximate the angsty tension of Harvest (nor would we expect it to). Instead, the reflection is bittersweet, carried most effectively by the nuanced guitar work of Ben Keith, the only Stray Gator to have played on all three albums. His work, especially on the pedal steel guitar, gives the greatest sense of continuity to the trilogy and highlights the feelings of loss on “It’s a Dream” and “Here For You.”

This isn’t to say that this is a complete rehash of Harvest Moon, which was a relatively stripped-down affair. Prairie Wind is complemented in places with horn arrangements by the unmistakable Wayne Jackson (of the Memphis Horns) and on “It’s a Dream” by surprisingly lush strings. “No Wonder,” which recalls the anxious thump of Young’s early work than anything on Harvest Moon contains similarly huge vocal harmonies that tonally resemble Crosby Stills Nash & Young. The songs carry a greater sense of internal resolution, if not overall confidence, than those on Harvest Moon.

And even though Prairie Wind fits rather squarely in the middle of Young’s –oeuvre_ – that is, it’s neither a breakthrough nor a bomb – there’s a sense of security that, amid the fits of experimentation or heavy-handed activism of other efforts, a good old, down-to-earth effort like this one is never far away.
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Dave Schutz

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