This and Tonight's The Night are my favourite Neil Young albums, and two of my favourite albums by anyone. I love the air of disillusionment, bitterness and gloom of Ambulance Blues, Vampire Blues and Revolution Blues. It's the distilled sound of the end of the 60s hippy dream (though I acknowledge that, ostensibly, Young himself had little to be bitter or disillusioned about as he was massively personally successful. However, there's no doubt that he was battling his own issues and demons at this point).
Although this was *officially* unavailable on cd for years, I have a bootleg copy that had a 1970 solo concert for the BBC tacked onto the end. That's also class.
A commenter above indicated that this was unavailable on cd for so long because Young was embarrassed by the lyrics. I don't think that's the case at all. The lyrics are good (and god knows he has some clunkers elsewhere in his back catalogue). My own view is that it's a combination of the disconcertingly bleak worldview on display on the album, and Young's own random idiosyncratic personality, that caused it to be out of print for so long.
I will never tire of this album.
Although this was *officially* unavailable on cd for years, I have a bootleg copy that had a 1970 solo concert for the BBC tacked onto the end. That's also class.
A commenter above indicated that this was unavailable on cd for so long because Young was embarrassed by the lyrics. I don't think that's the case at all. The lyrics are good (and god knows he has some clunkers elsewhere in his back catalogue). My own view is that it's a combination of the disconcertingly bleak worldview on display on the album, and Young's own random idiosyncratic personality, that caused it to be out of print for so long.
I will never tire of this album.