#at this point i have more outtakes than i do pictures i'm actually going to use for this edit

[raiiny-bay]

another outtake

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Tuesday, 8 August 2023:

Harvest (50th Anniversary Edition) Neil Young (Reprise) (released December 2022)

Never one of my favorite Neil Young albums. I remember in music class when we were given assigned days to bring in our favorite album to play for the class, Martha Black brought in Harvest and I found it so stupefyingly boring that I couldn't stand it. I'd love to say I didn't bother owning it until the late 1980's or early 1990's but that's honestly impossible. I had the 8-track in high school and I know by the time I started college I bought his entire back catalog that I didn't already own after discovering Decade. Harvest surely was purchased used at Wuxtry's in Carbondale like half of Young's albums I still own. I know for certain I bought Tonight's The Night brand new in Carbondale, but that's another story for another anniversary pressing.

I've been interested in this anniversary edition since it came out last December as I've been interested in the bonus album included in this set which I will discuss momentarily. There is a lot more going on in this box than in this anniversary Neil Young box which is certainly welcome. This box was twice what that box was, but wait long enough and Neil's deluxe editions drop in price like Trump's chances of not landing in prison.

Above you see the front and the back of this big box set. The box that contains everything is textured just like the original album jacket was. Below you can see the hype sticker in close detail.

The first album in this set is of course Harvest. Released in 1972, it was Neil's fourth studio album (fifth album counting Journey Through The Past) and it contained his only Number One single, Heart of Gold. Below you can see all aspects of this album: the front, the gatefold and the back. Yes, this album is textured as well. Then you will see both sides of the label.

Like the original album back in the day, this came with a poster. You can find the new version of the poster below. This did not come in a textured inner sleeve like it did back in the day, but rather in an anti-static white inner sleeve.

I must admit, I like having a nice pristine copy of this because my copy, bought used, actually has tape all of it. I can't imagine for the life of me ever buying such a lousy copy (and maybe I'm not remembering it correctly) but it feels like it is a beater copy. I'm pleased to have this new pristine copy. And get this, I've already played it twice. Not a horrible album by any means, but still, not my favorite Neil Young album either.

The second album that comes with this set is titled BBC In Concert February 20, 1971 and that was my main attraction here. I have virtually all of these versions on bootlegs or again, maybe I'm recalling incorrectly, maybe Neil has released so many damn live albums with these songs that they all sound exactly like they do on this album; regardless, I like this album considerably and I've actually played it twice as well! Below are the album cover and the back of the album. This album, in keeping with the theme, is also textured like Harvest is. Following those two shots you will find both sides of the label.

This album also comes with a seven inch EP containing three tracks which Neil has titled Harvest Outtakes. It comes sealed in shrink wrap for whatever reasons. The picture sleeve is textured like everything else in this box. You will find photos of the front and back of the sleeve taken at an angle to reduce the iPhone iPose (but increasing the fauna around my back porch), then you will see a shot of the 45 itself, followed by both sides of the label. Like every record in this set, I have played this twice already!

From this point, you have all the things that get tossed into boxes. There is a big hardback book. Below you can see a series of photos of the book (the cover, a couple of random pages, the final page of the book and then the back of the actual book itself).

I love the note indicating there is "more coming." With Neil there is always more coming and long after Neil leaves this mortal coil there will be even more still coming!

I've not read the book, so I cannot explain why he is going on about After The Gold Rush in this book other than he felt obligated because that box didn't include a book.

There are two DVDs included in this set as you can see above. I like the way they handled these additions and I will go into detail about them later in this essay. The final book photo is the back of the book.

The first DVD is something called Harvest Time. I can't explain what it is and the likelihood of me ever watching it any time soon is slim. People on Hoffman and discogs have raved about it. It took me almost 40 years to bother watching Rust Never Sleeps and I adore that album. Don't expect me to be excited for Harvest Time when I have a stack of Zhang Yimou movies I'd rather be watching. But you can at least see the front of the wallet card and the front of the insert in the photo below. (The second photo will be the back of the wallet card and the back of the insert followed by the DVD itself.)

The second DVD is a film of Neil at the BBC, the show from which the aforementioned bonus album hails from. Below are the front of the wallet card and the DVD, followed by the back of the wallet card next to the same DVD.

The final piece in this big box is a numbered art print. These things.

[amethyst-noir]

If you want to create a bit of a mini story with the cuddling - 8, 9, 10 (like a progression from 'tolerating each other' to 'friends' to 'partners'). I'm not 100% sure if that beginning interests you but I thought I'd throw the idea out anyway :) (and no worries if it doesn't!)

Oh, I’m very interested! I have tons of ideas of the two of them starting on not quite friendly terms but still getting together in the end. I just haven’t written one of those yet. I hope you like this little thing. 💝

💫

8. Reluctantly

Tony didn’t want to, he really didn’t. Apart from a few harsh words there hadn’t been any contact between the asshole wizard and him since the day Thanos was finally dead and gone for good. A couple of accusations, a rather one-sided screaming match where Tony let out his frustrations of the last few decades of his life and a rather withdrawn Strange asshole who had taken the verbal abuse with a stoic face and barely any reaction. Apart from a cold “there was no other way”. The memory alone made Tony’s blood boil all over again.

But… there was more to Strange than the asshole persona he projected almost as skillfully as Tony himself. Looking at him right now, exhausted after using his magic to save the Avenger’s collective asses, he was just a man. A man who looked rather more beat-down than he should, considering the had just saved the day and a ton of people. Instead of taking his well-deserved praises and thanks he was huddling as far away as possible from all the others, wrapped up in his mysterious Cloak and looking rather miserable.

And nobody but Tony even looked into his direction. It was unfair. Everything in Tony screamed to get his ass over there and ask the guy if he was okay. He once again checked if anyone else was available to do it but no. As always, the unpleasant task fell to him.

Let’s get this over with, he told himself. “Hey, Strange!” he wanted to call. “Hey, Stephen, you okay?” came out of his mouth instead. He could have kicked himself but the surprised and wary way the man looked up told Tony that he’d said the right thing for once.

“Tony?”

He sounded so small and almost broken that all misgivings fled in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?” Tony noticed how his voice got automatically lower and more soothing, just like it had done back on Titan, years ago. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

A shake of the head. “Just exhausted,” Stephen whispered. “This,” he vaguely gestured around, “took a lot out of me.” It had, he looked like hell, something Tony hadn’t really noticed before.

Tony had seen him do more with less aftereffects. Hell, the guy was even shivering, despite it being rather warm. Cold or shock? Tony asked himself, already moving. “Hey, don’t collapse here. It’s gonna be hell on your back.” Stephen just watched him lethargically as he sat down beside him. Fuck it, Tony decided after moment. Why not?

There wasn’t any protest as he put an arm around Stephen’s too thin waist and gently drew him closer. There wasn’t one when Tony shifted them around and put his other arm around him. There was barely any reaction when Tony finally embraced him fully. Finally, after some moments of tense waiting, Stephen took a deep breath and relaxed into the hold.

“Sorry.” Tony could barely hear him speak, despite their nearness.

“Shh. Don’t be. We all need this from time to time. That’s what friends are here for.” Funny, he’d never even thought about Stephen in a friendly way but now he couldn’t imagine to not want to comfort the man when he needed it.

There were no more words. Tony watched the sun set, while Stephen shivered in his arms and calmed himself down from whatever horrors haunted his mind.

💫

9. Totally platonic

“Yes!”

The loud shout was the first thing Stephen heard after FRIDAY had opened the door into Tony’s workshop for him. It still blew his mind that he was on the “let him in any time he wants, doesn’t matter if I’m around or not list”. A very carefully selected group of people like Colonel Rhodes and the one and only Pepper Potts. Plus one lonely sorcerer who shouldn’t be on it but had been more or less dragged there by Tony himself after the man had decided to adopt Stephen as a friend.

Sometimes, he still looked around in search of the wrong turn he’d taken to land in another dimension that was pretty much like his original one - only better. Because Tony Stark couldn’t accept a no (or ten) Stephen now had friends apart from Wong and a place to hang out apart from Kamar-Taj and the Sanctum. It was pretty great, actually.

“What have you done now?” he called in greeting. “Solved the mysteries of the universe for good?”

He got a laugh for that. “No, I’m leaving that one to you, oh mysterious Master of the Mysteries. Here, let me show you.” Tony was by his side and dragging him towards the big holographic screen that dominated the workshop. “Look,” he breathed.

Stephen did. The looked, he stared, he saw traces of his own work and he understood. The next thing he did was hugging the breath out of Tony. “You did it!”

Tony clung back just as hard, laughing along with Stephen. “We did it,” he corrected breathlessly. “This is going to change so many lives.”

Stephen took half a step back to once again look at the display and the promise it held. “Restructuring and re-growing damaged nerves,” he whispered in awe, not noticing that his right hand was still gripping Tony’s underarm or that Tony’s left arm was still around his waist.

💫

10. Totally romantic

“Who’s going to lead?” Tony was already breathless, hair mussed and beautiful eyes glassy with alcohol and happiness.

“Does it matter?” Stephen asked, feeling carefree and happy like he hadn’t in years. Possible decades.” In the middle of the dancing floor he could see May lead her brand-new husband into their first dance together. Happy lived up to his name like never before, Stephen decided.

In answer, Tony put his hands on Stephen’s hips while Stephen put his on Tony’s shoulders. The elevated position was better for his hands and besides, Tony loved to hold him like that. Like in so many other things it was a match made in heaven.

“I love you,” Tony murmured, letting go of even the pretense of dancing, snuggled closer to Stephen and put his head on Stephen’s shoulder. “So damn much.”

Stephen drew him closer into an almost protective embrace, determined to keep him safe forever. “I love you, too,” he whispered back, resting his cheek against Tony’s head.

It wasn’t a dance, just some swaying while being entwined as tightly as two separate bodies could get.

The picture of his two friends and almost-father figures being happy and in love was still one of Peter’s favorites. The print he gifted them with became a fixture in the Sanctum, protected by layers of magic to keep it pristine for centuries to come.

🦋

Oh, this was a fun one! Thank you for the challenge. There’s an outtake (that shows the transition from friends to partners/lovers) concerning Tony’s discovery and Stephen’s hands that will be posted soon. I have to figure out the ending first.

I’ll get to all the cuddling asks you have sent my way, never fear. I’ll try to do one per day until I run out of asks and depending on how many of the list are still left by that point I might do the rest. Thank you for indulging me and my extreme love for Tony and Stephen cuddling with each other. 💗

[janiedean]

*Roose Bolton voice* I'm dissapointed in you

HEY ANON SORRY FOR THE LATENESS BUT I’M SURE YOU SENT THIS FOR SPRINGSTEEN ANALYSIS, RIGHT? ;) then sure let’s have something! what can I get for you with the roose bolton voice, hm…

OH OKAY LET’S GO BLEAK POLITICAL.

so: SEEDS!

Seeds is an outtake from born in the USA and was only properly published in 1998 when it ended up on tracks (a four-cds compilation of outtakes that still doesn’t even fucking scratch the surface of what he has in the vaults bruce come on take the rest out), but as a lot of other bruce songs that were never technically published on official records it has enjoyed a very lively life on stage/live especially when our man gets political. we should probably put as a premise, other than that, that this was one of bruce’s first political pieces following the vein that would then end up in bitusa, tom joad, youngstown and so on, and as a lot of those songs it focuses on poverty/unemployment in the us of a. it’s not a coincidence that it was out of the bitusa sessions post-nebraska, but then again nebraska was his first record with Serious Political Themes and half of the original songs ended up on bitusa anyway so those records are pretty much tied together.

also, seeds has been a favorite throughout the bitusa tour (the one where bruce dissed reagan) where it was played along the title track, a cover of war that you can find on the live 75-85 box set, johnny 99 and atlantic city. as in, basically it gave you a pretty straight bleak picture of the current times, and it came back with a vengeance post bush-jr and I’m 100% sure it’ll show up again when he tours post-trump.

anyhow, as I think I’ve bored you enough with the technicalities, let’s move on to the actual thing. so, what do we have?

Well a great black river a man had foundSo he put all his money in a hole in the groundAnd sent a big steel arm driving down down downMan now I live on the streets of Houston town

so, we’re starting with a bang. first thing, the song’s title is seeds, which should suggest us that it’s about either agriculture or farmers.

except that it opens saying that ‘a man found a great black river’, and at the end of the stanza we find out that we’re in houston, so presumably around texas, so the black river that then turns into a hole in the ground with a big steel arm driving down down down (which considering the fast rhythm of the song gives you anxiety just hearing it) means that someone found oil and started drilling it in texas and as a consequence the narrator lives in the streets of one of texas’s biggest cities, so we can suppose that this guy was a farmer, he lost his land because of the oil drill and now he’s homeless. NICE START GUYS! but let’s go on.

Packed up my wife and kids when winter came alongAnd we headed down south with just spit and a songBut they said “Sorry son it’s gone gone gone”

next stanza, we find out that our guy has a family that he had to pack up when winter came along, so either his land was dead because of the oil drill or he couldn’t support them anymore out of farming. now, this could either be set in texas or not, but since in the eighties a lot of people from the north who lost their houses or land and used to be farmers or steel workers or so on went to texas because it was said to be someplace they could get jobs (again I know I say it every damned time but if you read dale maharidge’s somewhere like america or journey to nowhere you’ll see exactly what I meant), so either he went to texas from a nearby state or he was in northern texas and went down south, but the point is: he lost his job, he was a farmer (so not in a good position to start from since farming hasn’t made much money for small owners for a while) and now he’s gone to texas with a spit and a song (ie: hope), but as the song’s music keeps on being fairly bleak, the only answer he’s given is ‘sorry but it’s gone, gone, gone’, as in: if he wanted work, there isn’t any.

Well there’s men hunkered down by the railroad tracksThe Elkhorn Special blowing my hair backTents pitched on the highway in the dirty moonlightAnd I don’t know where I’m gonna sleep tonight

If we thought that was bad news, though, we’re just getting started, because not only our dude isn’t the only one in that same situation (men hunkered down by the railroad tracks, referring to the fact that in the eighties a lot of people had started riding trains again like in the great depression so they slept near the railroad - the elkohorn special is the name of a train), in tents along the highway in the *dirty* moonlight which suggests you a fairly bleak, sad picture. also, he doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep tonight, which means he doesn’t even have the tent.

Parked in the lumberyard freezing our asses offMy kids in the back seat got a graveyard coughWell I’m sleeping up in front with my wifeBilly club tapping on the windshield in the middle of the nightSays “Move along man move along”

solution: sleeping in the car, since they don’t have anything else. so, the guy and his family try to sleep in the car in a lumberyard with his children being sick (graveyard cough, suggesting that it’s pretty damned bad), except that they can’t even do that because the police shows up and tells them to leave, which was apparently common practice in texas at the time (again: same thing happened to the reporters in the aforementioned book because they had a car with ohio plates…), so they can’t stay and have to *move along*, but to where? we just don’t know.

so: the guy used to be a farmer, lost his job, went down to texas to look for work with his wife and kids, didn’t find any, was treated like crap and can’t even sleep in his car with his family, the alternative is tents along the highway or a railroad in winter, his kids are sick and there’s no hint of salvation anywhere nor of government help nor… really much of anything.

Well big limousine long shiny and blackYou don’t look ahead you don’t look backHow many times can you get up after you’ve been hit?

now, that’s it for the backstory - we don’t know where the narrator ends up or if he finds work. but we learn his opinion. first of all, he talks to a generic ‘big long shiny black limousine’, which we can automatically assume means that he’s talking to someone rich (or the idea of someone rich) who could afford such a car (he certainly can) accusing them of not looking ahead ( = not seeing the consequences of their greed, which we can tie back to the oil drill in the first part that started our guy’s problems) and of not looking back ( = can mean that they don’t care for who comes behind them in wealth or that they don’t remember not being wealthy or both), and then asks them, how many times can you get up after being hit, as in, how many times could you fall on your feet before you end up like me?

we just don’t know, but probably more than the narrator… though one supposes the narrator is hoping the time comes for them, too. that becomes veery clear in the next part:

Well I swear if I could spare the spitI’d lay one on your shiny chromeAnd send you on your way back home

if he could spare the spit (which suggests he can’t, so maybe they barely even have means to drink and eat) he’d use it to spit on the limousine ie what stands for enormous undeserved wealth that a) the narrator will never obtain, b) caused the (economical) situation that brought the narrator to misery, so we also can see that the narrator is absolutely aware that his poverty is tied with the fact that rich people don’t care for the likes of him and would throw him under the dirt in a second, nor care if he can’t support himself anymore. and then he’d send the rich person back home, if he could. but he can’t.

and that’s bleak enough, but then we get to the last part and it gets possibly worse:

So if you’re gonna leave your town where the north wind blowTo go on down where that sweet soda river flowWell you better think twice on it JackYou’re better off buying a shotgun dead off the rackYou ain’t gonna find nothing down here friendExcept seeds blowing up the highway in the south windMoving on moving on it’s gone gone it’s all gone

at this point, the narrator is addressing someone else - someone named jack who could be anyone as it’s an extremely common name - who might want to go south and tells him not to. going south means leaving a town where the north wind blows (so where it’s cold and there’s nothing for them) to go where that sweet soda river flow which paints an imagery of a river overflowing with sugary refined drink… from which poor people can’t serve themselves anyway, and according to the narrator if that is the plan, then you’re better off buying a shotgun ie killing yourself before you go south because there is nothing down there except seeds blowing up the highway in another type of wind, so the seeds they might have planted back home are getting wasted along the highway people sleep on… and everything is gone and they have nothing left.

and the fact that it’s this bleak is probably why it didn’t end up on the record proper (admittedly bitusa has a slightly different feeling so it probably wouldn’t have fit given that it’s a lot more raw and musically angry than any other song on that record except maybe bitusa but the electric version lures you in with the beat and you don’t realize how angry it is until you hear the original imvho), but it’s sadly a fairly accurate portrayal of how things were going bad economically for all the people laid off without a second chance to find something better in the late 70s-early 80s. too bad that things haven’t changed and this piece has stayed pretty much relevant even these days.

thank you anon with the roose bolton voice, I hope you enjoyed the fruits of your disappointment ;)