Neil Young performed a number of songs around 1982 that never made their way to any of his albums.
Young was notorious for road-testing new music, trying out his latest creations of fans at this concerts. Some songs didn’t surface for years on albums. For example, at Neil Young’s concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 1985 he performed ‘Let Your Fingers Do The Walking’. The track did not surface on an album until ‘A Treasure’, released as part of the ‘Archives’ series in 2011.
‘Violent Side’ and ‘Touch The Night’ performed at that same Sydney concert did not surface until 18 months later on the ‘Landing On Water’ album.
In 1982 Young was deep into ‘Trans’, his techno-rock album inspired by Devo. That year he performed ‘After Berlin’, a song intended but left off for the ‘Trans’ album. It made its way to video at one stage but that video never evolved to DVD or Blu-Ray and has long been forgotten.
This song was only ever performed once in concert by Neil and never heard again.
‘Love Hotel’ is another Neil Young song performed only ever once. It has never been released but somehow this guy Dan LaFortune found a recording of the track and made his own version. After a year on YouTube it has generated just 85 views. It could have been a great Neil Young song.
‘If You Got Love’ is even rarer. Young performed it on the ‘Trans’ tour. The song was released to media on the original promo pressing of ‘Trans’ but was removed from the final release. According to YouTube, it has had 18 views.
‘Soul Of A Woman’ isn’t so rare now. It was occasionally performed around 1982 and did eventually surface, 30 years later on the Archives release ‘A Treasure’.
Neil Young will pay homage to his influences when he releases his 35th album ‘A Letter Home’ this week through Warner Music.
