206: EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE | NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the second studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released in May 1969 on Reprise Records. It was his first album with his longtime backing band Crazy Horse, and it marked a significant departure from his polished solo debut Neil Young, released only four months earlier. The album contains four songs that became staples of Young’s live repertoire: “Cinnamon Girl”, “Down by the River”, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, and “Cowgirl in the Sand”. All of them were written in a single day while Young had a high fever.
The album showcases Young’s distinctive guitar style and expressive voice, as well as the raw and spontaneous sound of Crazy Horse. The songs are loosely structured, with long and improvised guitar solos that contrast with the concise and catchy melodies. The lyrics are more suggestive than complete, often evoking images of nature, love, violence, and alienation. Young sings with a lower and more confident voice than on his previous album, sometimes harmonizing with guitarist Danny Whitten or singer Robin Lane.
The album was recorded in January and March 1969 at Wally Heider’s Studio 3 in Hollywood, with producer David Briggs. Young had met Crazy Horse, then known as the Rockets, at a club in Los Angeles and was impressed by their raw energy. He invited them to join him in the studio, where they quickly developed a rapport and recorded most of the songs live in one or two takes. Young later said that he felt like he had found his musical soulmates in Crazy Horse.
The album received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised Young’s songwriting and guitar playing, as well as the chemistry between him and Crazy Horse. Bruce Miroff of Rolling Stone described Young’s voice as “perpetually mournful, without being maudlin or pathetic”, and called the album “a brilliant record”4 Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave it an A- rating and wrote that it was “the most spontaneous-sounding record since the early Stones”. The album also sold well, peaking at number 34 on the US Billboard 200 chart and eventually going platinum.
The album is widely regarded as one of Young’s best and most influential works, and as a landmark of country rock and hard rock genres. It has been included in several lists of the greatest albums of all time, such as Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (number 208 in 2003 and number 407 in 2020), Pitchfork’s Top 100 Albums of the 1960s (number 14), and Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums (number 124). The album also inspired many musicians who followed Young’s example of combining catchy melodies with raw and distorted guitar sounds, such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, and My Bloody Valentine.