02/02/2014 – Neil Young-Pocahontas (1997)
Welcome in the Year of the Horse by playing Year of the Horse
I love Neil Young. I am unashamed to admit this. For months now I’ve been thinking about having a Neil Young song of the day. I could never think of the right occasion (not that there needs to be one to play a bit of Neil) or the song. As it’s Chinese New Year this weekend I thought why not use a track from Year of the Horse, as it is officially the Year of the Horse!
The track I have chosen is Pocahontas. There is a good story to this song, I won’t go into all the details, but I will mention some of the. Pocahontas was recorded in between 1975-1977 and was originally meant to be included on the Chrome Dreams albums. Unfortunately this album never saw the light of day. I can’t find out why this album was never released, but it is a shame that it wasn’t as it is one of this strongest albums. Over the years the tracks found themselves on live and bootleg albums. It is fantastic and I recommend you to listen to it even if you are not a massive Neil Young fan.
Anyway back to today’s track. Pocahontas is a weird song, as it jumps backwards and forwards in time. It’s basically a ballad about a massacre, but the song ends with Neil Young hanging out with Pocahontas and Marlon Brando at the Houston Astrodome. The version I picked today is from the Year of the Horse live album. I thought it was fitting to listen to this album today as its Chinese New Year is this weekend (and this year is the year of the horse). This was one of the first Neil Young albums I got when I started to get into him. At first I didn’t like it. It sounded really muddy and I wasn’t familiar with the songs so it took a while to get into it. After I had got the albums (and knew the songs better) I gave it another try and I loved it. Pocahontas is my favourite track on this album. It’s not as good as the version Rust Never Sleeps or MTV Unplugged, but it’s still great.
Right, I’m off out now for some Sunday lunch, but while I walk to the pub I think I have time to listen to it one more time…
Neil Young – Pocahontas – Live
thisyearinmusic 
As a Neil Young fan you might like the video at the end of this post – http://joeinfocus.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/theres-something-happening-here/
Yes that is a good video. Have you seen the Tom Jones video?
No
You have to!