Neil Young famously quit and returned to the folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield several times. The last one stuck in 1968, when the “Godfather of Grunge” embarked on a prolific solo career. Still going strong six decades later, Young has released multiple critically acclaimed albums, like 1970’s After the Gold Rush and Rust Never Sleeps in 1979. And for Christmas, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, 79, gave his social media following a priceless gift with this rarely-performed gem.
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Watch Neil Young Perform “Silver and Gold”
The setup is simple: a flannel-clad Neil Young perched on a velvet sofa in a dimly lit room, strumming his guitar and softly singing, ‘Cause our kind of love never seems to get old / It’s better than silver and gold.
“Sending love to you,” Young captioned the Instagram post Wednesday (Dec. 25.)
Casual Neil Young listeners may not recognize “Silver and Gold,” off his 2000 studio album of the same name. The Canadian-American singer-songwriter seldom performs the track live, with the last time coming in 2007.
“Silver and Gold” Was Written in 1981
By the time Neil Young released his 25th studio album, Silver & Gold, in April 2000, the album’s title track had been collecting dust for nearly two decades. First writing the song in “1981 or 1982,” he struggled to record a version of the song that met his standards.
[RELATED: 4 Poignant Neil Young Songs About Growing Older in Honor of His 79th Birthday]
“I would get it right the first time and then by the time the band knew it, it sounded so contrived to me that I could never get it,” Young said in a March 2000 interview with KGSR Radio. “So I really recorded, I think, a total of 11 times with different people in all kinds of different configurations. And we got ’em all, none of them are worth listening to.”
That is, until he recorded the version that we hear today. “But this one here finally just got back to the roots of it and just sat down with my guitar and played it and said, ‘That’s it,’” the legendary folk-rocker said. “Because I love the song and I feel the song now and it means something to me now. And so I just did it.”
Featured image by Joeff Davis/Shutterstock
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