There’s really nothing like a mature love song — not some adult contemporary crooner, but mature. Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Eternity” is such a song, a slow-moving, honeyed track about an easy love that lasts and lasts.
In it, a couple (likely Young and actress Daryl Hannah) wake up, take a drive, then pause to wait for a train to pass. So enamored are they that the roadblock isn’t an annoyance, it’s a “train of love,” and its motion becomes part of the song — a quirky vocalization, “click, clack, clickity-clack.”
“Eternity” comes off of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s October album, Colorado, Young’s first with Crazy Horse since 2012. It’s an exquisitely ramshackle record that sounds like everyone’s playing broken instruments on the back of a rusted truck in a way that’s vibrant, raw and enchanting. The album was accompanied by the release of a documentary film, Mountaintop.
“We’re all on the same page and doing it for the same reason — to serve the music,” Young told the AARP of working with Crazy Horse again. “We’re not going to make a crappy record after being together for 50 years. This record is not that different from what we sounded like 50 years ago. There’s still that spark of youth.”
2020 looks to be a jam-packed year for Young. He’s asking fans to choose which music he should release via his archives in the coming years, offering up 29 possibilities. This proposed glut of content is likely tied to a fan’s 76-year-old Uncle Eddie, who told Young that Eddie was worried he would die before hearing all of the musician’s work.
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“It will have everything I’ve done at the highest level possible in chronological order,” Young told the AARP. “I’m making it for myself, number one, and for anyone else who cares. I love protecting the music and I don’t care if I make money. There’s so much material. Between the Ragged Glory and Weld albums, I did a one-off show with Crazy Horse in Santa Cruz, recorded it with six cameras and the best digital available at that time. We did three sets and an encore. It may be the best live performance of Crazy Horse ever captured, and I just found it. We’re going to try to make a record of it.”