Decade is a triple album compilation by Neil Young, released in 1977, now available
on two compact discs. It contains 35 of Young's songs recorded between 1966 and 1976,
among them five tracks that had been unreleased up to that point.
It peaked at #43 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart.
History
Compiled by Young himself, with his hand-written notes about each track, Decade represents
every album from his career and various affiliations through 1977 with the exception of
Four Way Street and Time Fades Away. Of the previously unreleased songs, "Down to the Wire"
features the New Orleans pianist Dr. John with Buffalo Springfield on an item from their
shelved Stampede album; "Love Is a Rose" was a minor hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1975;
"Winterlong" received a cover by Pixies on the Neil Young tribute album from 1989, The
Bridge; and "Campaigner" is a Young song critical of Richard Nixon. The track "Long May
You Run" is a different mix to that found on the album of the same name, featuring the
harmonies of the full Crosby Stills & Nash before David Crosby and Graham Nash left the
recording sessions.
The album has been lauded in many quarters as one of the best examples of a career retrospective
for a rock artist, and as a template for the box set collections that would follow in the 1980s
and beyond. However, in the original article on Young from the first edition of the Rolling Stone
Illustrated History of Rock and Roll and a subsequent article in the 1983 Rolling Stone Record
Guide, critic Dave Marsh used this album to accuse Young of deliberately manufacturing a
self-mythology, arguing that while his highlights could be seen to place him on a level with
other artists from his generation like Bob Dylan or The Beatles, the particulars of his catalogue
did not bear this out. The magazine has since excised the article from subsequent editions of the
Illustrated History book; a transcription of it can be found at the link below (despite his scathing
view of Young's career, Marsh gave the album the highest possible rating).
For many years, Decade was the only Neil Young compilation album available. A 1993 compilation called
Lucky Thirteen was released, but it only covered Young's 1982-1988 output. It was not until 2004 that
Reprise Records released a single-disc retrospective of his best-known tracks, titled Greatest Hits.
Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Young promised fans a follow-up to the original Decade collection,
provisionally titled Decade II; eventually, this idea was scrapped in favor of a much more comprehensive
anthology to be titled Archives, spanning his entire career and ranging in size from a box set to an entire
series of audio and/or video releases. The first release of archival material since Decade and Lucky Thirteen
would appear in 2006, Live at the Fillmore East, a recording from a 1970 concert featuring Crazy Horse
with Danny Whitten. Several other archival live releases followed, and in 2009 the first of several
planned multi-disc box sets, The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972, was issued.
[edit] Alternate early version
Initially, Decade was to be released in 1976, but was pulled at the last minute by Young. It was
shelved until the following year, where it appeared with two songs removed from the original
tracklist (a live version of "Don't Cry No Tears" recorded in Japan in 1976, and a live version
of "Pushed it Over The End" recorded in 1974). Also removed were the following comments on those
two songs and Time Fades Away, from Young's handwritten liner notes[1]:
“ Time Fades Away. No songs from this album are included here. It was recorded on my biggest tour
ever, 65 shows in 90 days. Money hassles among everyone concerned ruined this tour and record for
me but I released it anyway so you folks could see what could happen if you lose it for a while.
I was becoming more interested in an audio verite approach than satistfying [sic] the public demands
for a repition of Harvest.
Don't Cry No Tears. Initially titled 'I Wonder,' this song was written in 1964. One of my first songs.
This is a live recording from Japan with Crazy Horse.
Pushed It over the End. Recorded live on the road in Chicago, 1974. Thanks to Crosby & Nash's help on
the overdubbed chorus, I was able to complete this work. I wrote it for Patty Hearst and her countless
brothers and sisters. Also, I wrote it for myself and the increasing distance between me and you.
CD1
01. Down to the Wire 02:28
02. Burned 02:15
03. Mr. Soul 02:50
04. Broken Arrow 06:13
05. Expecting to Fly 03:45
06. Sugar Mountain 05:41
07. I Am a Child 02:20
08. The Loner 03:50
09. The Old Laughing Lady 05:37
10. Cinnamon Girl 03:00
11. Down by the River 08:59
12. Cowgirl in the Sand 10:02
13. I Believe in You 03:27
14. After the Gold Rush 03:45
15. Southern Man 05:29
16. Helpless 03:32
CD2
01. Ohio 02:58
02. Soldier 02:28
03. Old Man 03:22
04. A Man Needs a Maid 04:00
05. Harvest 03:09
06. Heart of Gold 03:06
07. Star of Bethlehem 02:43
08. The Needle and the Damage Done 02:06
09. Tonight's the Night (Part 1) 04:41
10. Tired Eyes 04:33
11. Walk On 02:41
12. For the Turnstiles 03:01
13. Winterlong 03:08
14. Deep Forbidden Lake 03:41
15. Like a Hurricane 08:17
16. Love is a Rose 02:16
17. Cortez the Killer 07:31
18. Campaigner 03:30
19. Long May You Run 03:48
Format : MPEG Audio
File size : 5.69 MiB
Duration : 2mn 29s
Overall bit rate : 320 Kbps
Album : Decade
Track name : Down to the Wire
Track name/Position : 1
Performer : Neil Young
Genre : Folk-Rock
Recorded date : 1977
Writing library : LAME3.92
Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Format_Settings_ModeExtension : MS Stereo
Duration : 2mn 29s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 320 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Stream size : 5.69 MiB (100%)
Writing library : LAME3.92