Music Arcades: Neil Young: Dead Man (soundtrack)

I'll never be able to separate this album from the time I bought it, 27 March 1996, at Manchester Airport. Dropping M there for her to return to Ireland for, well, the rest of her life — so far — to the best of my knowledge. In hindsight, it seems an odd time to drop into a record shop, but that's what I did. I got home, early afternoon, put the CD on the stereo, flopped on the sofa, and sobbed — for about 48 hours.

I don't think Dead Man, the film, was distributed in the UK until some months later. It looked amazing on paper — the cast and the concept — but I was underwhelmed at the cinema, and haven't seen it again since. Hence the personal associations with the soundtrack being much stronger than the public, cultural ones.

From what I understand, Neil's approach to the soundtrack was similar to Miles Davis's in Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud — with the music largely improvised while sequences of the film were projected on to the wall — except that Miles had a band, while Neil was solo.

That Dead Man features mainly Neil playing solo electric guitar has gathered the album a little more attention recently, since it's the sole precedent to the solo electric stylings of Le Noise. I don't know about that: I suspect that this album is even more of a one-off than the new one. And for that — even though years pass between listens — I value it. It's certainly worth two or three Forks in the Road.

Neil's made one-offs something of a habit, but I, for one, would be happy if he did even more.

And the sobbing stopped as suddenly and uncontrollably as it had started.