Landing on Water is the sixteenth studio album by Neil Young. The album was released on July 21, 1986, by Geffen Records.
The album represents a return to a contemporary rock sound after the 1985 country album Old Ways and 1983 rockabilly album Everybody's Rockin'. Young's record company, Geffen famously had sued the artist for creating albums unrepresentative of his familiar style. For Landing on Water, Young employed producer Danny Kortchmar, engineer Niko Bolas and studio drummer Steve Jordan. The album is noted for its unique production and synthetic 1980s sound with prominent drums, synclavier and synthesizers, giving it a "claustrophobic" feel. According to Young in a 2009 interview, "one record company president in Europe told me it was the most claustrophobic record he had ever heard, and I thought that was pretty cool. He put it on in his Porsche and would turn it up real loud. He just felt like it was all over him."
Recording First attempts Like its predecessor, Old Ways, Landing on Water was recorded over the course of over two years. The first attempt at a commercial, non-genre album dates from late 1983 and early 1984. The backing tracks for "I Got a Problem" and "Hard Luck Stories" were both recorded at Young's home studio at Broken Arrow Ranch as solo recordings with Synclavier. "Hard Luck Stories" was recorded the same day in January 1984 as an early attempt at "Razor Love", which later appeared on 2000's Silver & Gold, and a new attempt at "If You Got Love", an outtake from Trans. Some elements of Young's original 1983-1984 recordings were used as backing tracks with new drum, guitar and synth parts added during the later Record One sessions.
Young would also attempt new material at the ranch with Crazy Horse and producer Elliot Mazer. The band struggled to achieve Young's desired commercial, synthetic sound with a strong drum sound. In interviews for Jimmy McDonough's biography Shakey, the band express their frustrations with the recording process. Mazer and Young had the band record separately in contrast to their familiar live recording style. Feedback and other equipment problems culminated in Young smashing a guitar in frustration and eventually abandoning the sessions.
The band would perform the new material in a live setting at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz across four shows on February 6 and 7, 1984. The new material included album tracks "Touch the Night", "Violent Side", and "I Got a Problem" as well as the songs "Rock, Rock, Rock", "So Tired" and "Your Love Is Good To Me". The concerts were professionally recorded and circulate as bootlegs. Young and the band would attempt additional sessions at The Power Station in New York with David Briggs as producer, but again were unsuccessful at completing an album. In a 1990 Rolling Stone interview with James Henke, Young explains: "We went to New York and tried to record these songs for three weeks, and we didn’t get one track. We just blew a whole bunch of time. That was when I first introduced the horns; we had a horn section with Crazy Horse. We just never could get it to gel."Back in the saddle again. By: Henke, J., Rolling Stone, 0035791X, 10/4/90, Issue 588 https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-back-in-saddle-again-229261/ According to a 1995 interview with Nick Kent for Mojo Magazine, an attempt was made to record the album with the band R.E.M., but efforts were scuttled when Geffen threatened to sue Young for recording with the group. Young's experiences with Geffen would result in the band signing with Warner instead of Geffen in their own negotiations for a major label contract that decade. Eventually, Young would place his attempts on recording a rock album on hold and go on tour for the next year with a country band instead. Young would reflect on the difficulties of recording a commercial sounding album for Geffen in early 1984 during interviews for Shakey:
Record One Sessions In late 1985 and early 1986, Young would make a new attempt at recording a more commercial sounding album at Record One Studios in Los Angeles. This time, Young would hire producer Danny Kortchmar, who had recently seen success with Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast. Young, Kortchmar and studio drummer Steve Jordan play all the instruments on the album, including Synclavier, synth bass and other synthesizers. Young would later play with Jordan again during his SNL performance of "Rockin' in the Free World" in 1989. Jordan would also later go on to join the Rolling Stones. Kortchmar would bring in engineer Niko Bolas, launching a long term working relationship. Bolas would go on to produce several of Young's subsequent albums.
Kortchmar recalled his experiences making the album in a 2019 interview with Dale Kawashima:
The album's distinctive production and mix were the result of Young's desire to create a unique sound. Additionally, he insisted on a recording process where layers of instruments were overdubbed onto the original demos. Young explained in interviews for Shakey:
The decision to add a boy's choir to the tracks "Violent Side" and "Touch the Night" was the result of meeting the San Francisco Boys Choir at an event that Young and his wife attended. The couple were asked to speak at a parents event about their experiences raising a child with cerebral palsy, and Young was asked to introduce the choir. He later asked them to perform for the album.
Songs The lyrics of several of the songs reflect the personal pressure Young was facing from his record company and the need to care for his family at the time. Additionally, Young took up weight-lifting during the recording of the album, which he credits in making the music more aggressive.
"Weight of the World" The bookends of the album, "Weight of the World" and "Drifter," both consider the impact of relationship in confronting the world's challenges. In "Weight of the World," he praises his relationship for helping him rise above his challenges, while in "Drifter," he reexamines the benefits of partnership and whether he'd prefer to escape his troubles instead.
"Violent Side" "Violent Side" was one of the first songs written for the album, from the period when Young's relationship with Geffen was at a nadir and he was struggling to prioritize both his family's needs and his waning rock career. Its lyrics describe insomnia and the inability to sleep due to inner struggle and processing emotion.
"Hippie Dream" The song "Hippie Dream" revisits and laments the apparent failure of 60s idealism. The opening lines Take my advice / Don't listen to me mirror the opening line Please take my advice of "Tired Eyes" from 1975's Tonight's the Night. Its lyrics reference creative partner David Crosby's "Wooden Ships" at a time when Crosby was facing significant personal challenges. Young explained to Rolling Stone's James Henke in June 1988: "I wrote that one for Crosby. But I guess it could have been for me, or for anybody. It's really about the excesses of our whole generation. From hippie to yuppie – I mean, it's been quite an evolution."Henke, James. 1988. "Interview: Neil Young." Rolling Stone. June 2, 1988. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/interview-neil-young-79380/. Crosby had long been associated with the hippie movement and had performed with Young at Woodstock. In the early 1980s, Crosby had an ongoing addiction to freebase cocaine and started carrying a gun in paranoia after the assassination of John Lennon. Crosby was arrested several times on gun, drug and drunk-driving charges and ultimately spent 9 months in a Texas jail in 1985. In light of Crosby's difficulties, the lyrics of "Hippie Dream" find Young reflecting on whether the ideals of the Woodstock generation were now dead: And the Wooden Ships / Are a hippie dream / Capsized in excess / If you know what I mean. Young seems to argue that hippie idealism isn't dead, and that music will help it overcome its current challenges: Just because it's over for you / Don't mean it's over for me / It's a victory for the heart / Every time the music starts / So please don't kill the machine. Archivist Joel Bernstein and mutual friend of both artists who had attempted to help Crosby with his addictions stated for Shakey "I got chills when I heard it. 'Hippie Dream' is a great portrait of David. So cutting." In a Rockline interview, Young recalls writing the song and reaching out to Crosby: According to an October 1983 Rockline interview, Young promised Crosby at the height of his problems that if Crosby got sober and overcame his addictions, Young would once again collaborate with CSNY. After coming clean during his time in prison, Crosby held Young to the promise, resulting in 1988's American Dream.
"Bad News Beat" "Bad News Beat" finds Young taking the perspective of someone who uses surveillance to discover their partner has left them.
"Touch the Night" "Touch the Night" is the most guitar driven song on the album. Its lyrics consider the sudden loss of a partner. Biographer Jimmy McDonough compares it to its predecessor "Like a Hurricane."
"People on the Street" "People on the Street" empathizes with the experience of the homeless.
"Hard Luck Stories" One of the earliest songs written for the record, the song dates from the timeframe when Young's relationship with his record company turned sour and Geffen sued him for putting out uncommercial albums. In Shakey, Young describes dealing with a lawsuit stemming from the production of his movie Human Highway plus his struggles with Geffen while trying to maintain his flailing rock music career and tending to his family needs. He would often find himself spending his days torn between acrimonious business calls and trying to maintain creativity and productivity in recording sessions.
"I Got a Problem" The lyrics to "I Got a Problem" deal with addiction. In a post on the Neil Young Archives website, Young stated "Addiction is hell. You got to get over it. It doesn’t have to be."
"Pressure" The song "Pressure" was the last song recorded for the album, and deals with the pressure of keeping up a public persona with lyrics that poke fun at television figures and reference Max Headroom. It is also likely influenced by Geffen's decision to cut off funding for the album sessions, leaving Young to finish the album out of pocket. It features a processed scream by drummer Jordan at the end. Young intended to release the song as a single, but the idea was rejected by Geffen
"Drifter" The closing track does little to relieve the tension built by the preceding songs. "Drifter" appears to echo some of the sentiments of Young's previous songs "The Loner" and "Sail Away," and the feeling of release that comes with being able to escape one's situation and shift gears to a new setting. Young addresses these themes in a 1990 interview with Vox's Nick Kent:
Title and album cover The album cover shows an excerpt of an airplane seat pocket guide with instructions on how to evacuate the plane in event of an emergency landing on a body of water. The cover represents an apparent criticism of Geffen's efforts to encourage Young to produce an album that caters to commercial tastes rather than his artistic motives. In a 1986 Rockline interview, Young explains the origin: In a 1994 interview with ''Spins Greil Marcus, Young further explains:
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