Neil Young: Tonight's The Night 50th Anniversary Deluxe

Given the checkered history behind Neil Young's Tonight's The Night (Reprise, 1975), the 50th Anniversary Deluxe might well have been issued as a multi-disc package. An expanded collection of this third entry in 'the Ditch Trilogy'—along with Time Fades Away (Reprise, 1973) and On The Beach (Reprise, 1974)— would accommodate the original recordings of 1973, the subsequent additions from different sources (overseen by Young's now-deceased manager Elliot Roberts), plus the (multiple and) final (sic) resequencing of the dozen cuts during the two-year delay prior to its release. 

Instead, the milestone limited-edition release falls somewhere between the lavish likes of the Harvest (Reprise, 1972) box and the comparatively skeletal likes of its counterpart After The Gold Rush (Reprise, 1971), which on CD includes two takes of the same song (and which, in vinyl box set form, contained a 7-inch single with those cuts along with the 12-inch LP).

As it turns out, the 66+ minutes of this Tonight's The Night 50th Anniversary Deluxe offering are available on a limited basis in both vinyl and CD formats with six additional cuts, plus one more previously-unreleased number, integrated into the twelve tracks proper. Had some of the counterparts to the halting and disoriented "Lookout Joe [New 1973 version]" been interwoven with the likes of "Borrowed Tune" and "Mellow My Mind," the record would take on a tone markedly different from the abjectly morose air that permeates it in its original form.

For instance, ragged but good-natured as it is (rather than defensive), "Walk On" proffers a patiently philosophical attitude instead of the existential frustration that otherwise permeates the album released a half-century ago. Similarly, the inherently hopeful "Wonderin'"—in yet another take different from its aforementioned counterparts—conjures a tangibly optimistic air, which becomes especially resonant through the harmony vocals near the end.

 And on "Everybody's Alone," the author sounds more accepting of his solitude rather than isolated in it and resentful of it.  Likewise, primarily because of the forthright observations grounded in its title, the relatively sweet arrangement of that number benefits from its bright pedal steel.  

Along similar lines, this rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Raised On Robbery" (with the author leading the way) finds Young and the band subsequently dubbed 'the Santa Monica Flyers' playing tight and to-the-point, an impression clarified by its immediate juxtaposition with a mostly-instrumental and much-looser performance titled "Speakin' Out Jam." 

The quietly gleeful but nonetheless loopy air of that track recalls the live shows of the period, which have been documented quite graphically elsewhere on Tonight's The Night: Live at The Roxy (Reprise, 2018) and even more fully on the two CDs that comprise Somewhere Under The Rainbow (Reprise, 2023). 

Over the more than 50 years since the beginning of a project conceived and executed as homage to late guitarist- vocalist-songwriter Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse (as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young roadie Bruce Berry, who also passed under tragic circumstances), multiple running orders of Tonight's The Night have surfaced. 

To that end, there might well have been (and could subsequently be) more expansive versions of the effort. But the former Buffalo Springfielder has always operated with a decidedly idiosyncratic sense of logic and never more so when it comes to exhumations from his vault. So, except for the generic stamp denoting 'Mastered from Original Analog Tapes' on the back cover of 50th Anniversary Deluxe, there are no updated production annotations on its two-sided 11'' by 14'' insert, much less inside or outside the covers of the double-sleeve (now in a bright psychedelic color scheme instead of the funereal black and white design of '75).

As a result, this milestone release, like so many of Young's records, poses almost as many questions as it answers. The most pertinent here would be, "Are all the recordings from the original sessions now available?" The inquiry hangs in the air after the music concludes. 

As a result, given the haunting sense of comfort in its hypothetical rendering that so vividly contrasts with the dark air of its forebear, this vault title begs the further question of whether there is or will ever be—or even can be—a definitive version of Tonight's The Night. In the end, though, such conundrums are what makes following Young so inordinately fascinating.

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