Music Arcades: Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Mansion on the Hill

Another anal fanboy completeness purchase (see yesterday). I stumbled on this in Brighton HMV while visiting the town on business in October 1990. Until then I hadn't known of its existence, and I don't think it was every officially released in this country.

The completeness is not down to the need to own both the single version and the album version of Mansion on the Hill, since the former is just the latter with a fade at 3 min 10 sec. Not even I'm that bad. The exclusive is another piece of Horse mythology, the dumb rambling jam that is Don't Spook the Horse. It's far from essential, but it is fun… if you enter into the Horse spirit. And it gave one of England's Neil tribute bands their name. They played the 2005 London Rust Fest; pretty good.

What is the Mansion on the Hill, anyway? I assume from the Hank Williams song that it's a kind of cipher for putting material possessions ahead of love. But I can't quite make that fit into Neil's song of the same title, or Bruce Springsteen's, or Alabama 3's. It's a right old Cable Hogue mystery to me. Perhaps if I read Fred Goodman's book of the same title, which Tim gave me a decade or so ago, I'd understand. But it's in the attic.