After the Gold Rush (song)
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| "After the Gold Rush" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Song by Neil Young | ||
| from the album After the Gold Rush | ||
| Released | September 19, 1970 | |
| Recorded | Aug. 1969-June 1970 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 3:45 | |
| Label | Reprise | |
| Writer(s) | Neil Young | |
| After the Gold Rush track listing | ||
| "Tell Me Why" (1) |
"After the Gold Rush" (2) |
"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" (3) |
"After the Gold Rush" is the title track from Neil Young's third solo album. Released in 1970, the song features the piano of 17 year old Nils Lofgren. Lofgren would later work with Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band in the 1980s. The song itself contains lyrics often associated with the environment. The three verses are often catergorized as a movement from past, present and future. The horn solo in the middle of the song is often replaced by a harmonica solo from Young in live performances. The lines "look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s" has been amended by Young in concert over the decades. The current version is "look at mother nature on the run in the 21st century." In addition to After the Gold Rush, it also appears on Decade'," Greatest Hits and "Live Rust".
The song has been covered numerous times, best seen in the 1974 version by Prelude which was a top 40 hit all over the globe, especially the UK where it re-charted in the Top 40 in 1982. Other versions have been performed by artists such as k. d. lang, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt included it on their Trio 2 album in 1999, and during Radiohead's 2003 World Tour, Thom Yorke occasionally played this song solo, usually segueing it into "Everything in Its Right Place". The Flaming Lips also covered it. The song has also been covered in live shows by Tori Amos, and by Nana Mouskouri during her 1970s BBC show.
