Bright, Not Brilliant: Neil Young's 'Tonight's The Night' at 50

With missed opportunities, wild nights, and one big, bad choice, the 50th anniversary release of 'Tonight’s The Night' is as uncanny as the original

“Some get stoned,

Some get strange,

Sooner or later, it all gets real.”

Keen listeners will recognize these lyrics from “Walk On,” a sunny number Neil Young rambles through on the middle installment of the famed “ditch” trilogy, On The Beach. But as revealed by Neil’s latest release, those words actually speak to the dark and drunk final installment: Tonight’s The Night.

How does a man revisit some of the worst years of his life?

This is the question Neil faces whenever the “ditch” (quadrilogy if you count Homegrown) re-enters the cultural consciousness. How does an artist follow up his commercial peak? That’s a much easier question. If he’s Neil, he releases three of his most confrontational albums in a row.

Upon witnessing the realities of his addiction, Neil had no choice but to fire Crazy Horse lodestar and close friend Danny Whitten. He passed away shortly after at the age of 29. The guilt tore Neil apart, and jerked the steering wheel into the “ditch.” Time Fades Away immortalized a tour so disastrous, Neil refused to issue the album on CD for nearly 35 years. Soon after being fired for allegedly scoring drugs for Stills, CSNY roadie Bruce Berry passed away. A three-month booze cruise with the “Santa Monica Flyers” was to follow. Honey-slide-soaked On The Beach was the result of Neil’s relationship with the mother of his child caving in under the weight of itself.

Grief became Neil’s new, dark muse. Losing Bruce Berry bore Tonight’s The Night. Mercurial and shifty, you never know its true intentions. Is it a party album? A portrait of grief? A voyeuristic look at a man desperate to be anyone but himself right now? (I’m still baffled at Neil’s choice to method-act as a smarmy cheap-o beachcomber.) Whatever the hell this album is doing, it can’t help but be honest.

Tonight’s The Night is my favorite “ditch” album. Neil perfected the themes he worked with since he emerged as a musical force on Buffalo Springfield Again: tension and paranoia. Haunted, frightened, and emotional, it’s like a mortally-wounded man showing up wasted to a wake. Isn’t easy to watch it go down, but you can’t look away. I was kind of shocked to hear the Neil Young Archives was releasing a 50th anniversary edition. How would Neil revisit a period so marked by tragedy and personal strife?

Tonight’s The Night’s stark ink-blot packaging is now tinted with lens-flare oranges and greens. It’s as if someone tied an Instamatic to a piece of string and lowered it into the cave that was SIR, hoping the flash will light whatever’s down there.

Of course Neil’s archive releases will sound good. Even something deliberately uncut like Tonight’s The Night feels like it’s got a beating heart. After the sound, things start to get shaky. A major revision is made to the core LP: “Lookout Joe” is replaced by the original Crazy Horse version. While this “original” is in-keeping with Tonight’s The Night’s sloppy feel, the album version was a shot of much-needed energy. This edit unnecessarily changed the context of the record. I am not a fan of this decision.

A welcome change in context is the third disc of session material. Full disclosure: if you own Archives, Vol. II, this won’t contain many revelations. The only truly new cuts are these takes of "Lookout Joe," "Walk On," and take three of "Tonight's The Night." (And don’t hold your breath for the other side of the bonus disc: the “etching” is disappointing.) I have to question: is this even truly a 2025 remaster? I hear negligible difference from the Vol. II mix. But for those who couldn’t afford the $175 or weren’t yet enlightened to Neil when it was in print, this release is a much more accessible path into Tonight’s The Night’s inner workings.

While its ramshackle quality is charming and Ben Keith’s steel guitar shimmers, I can tell exactly why the guys passed including "Walk On" on Tonight's The Night. Neil’s voice cracks like a sidewalk. “Wonderin’” and “Everybody’s Alone” feel like missing links between Harvest and the “ditch.” A post-After The Gold Rush, pre-Shocking Pinks “Wonderin’” lopes along down the Laurel Canyon-country road. “Everybody’s Alone” hits some sour notes – you can’t expect perfection from this much tequila and winter sports! Its lyrics are utterly revealing: “I love you so much that I can hardly stand it/But everybody’s alone/Everybody’s alone.”

When I heard a familiar bird-like voice chirp through the twilight, my jaw dropped. Joni Mitchell singing “Raised On Robbery” backed by the Santa Monica Flyers? You’re kidding! Jimmy McDonough wrote of these sessions in Shakey over 25 years ago, but from how he described Joni fumbling with an electric guitar, I didn’t think we’d ever actually hear them. Maybe the Archives held those cuts back, but “Raised On Robbery” isn’t nearly as bad as McDonough made Joni’s visit out to be. It’s refreshing to hear her sophisto-pop era in such a casual context. The guys hitting wrong chords, missing entrances, Joni even misses a note or two! We’d never get this from a Joni recording of this song.

In one of Shakey’s many great one-liners, McDonough writes, “Jose Cuervo became the sixth member of the Time Fades Away band...” You gather as much from how they bumble around SIR; heads buzzing with coke and fingers numb from drink. Changes are flubbed and Neil mashes his chin into the mic on “Albuquerque.” But when I heard a faraway Shakey slur,

“Iiiiiiiiiii’m speakin’ ouuut.”

I laughed out loud. Like this disc's “Walk On,” it's plain to see why this “Speakin’ Out” didn’t make the cut. This “jam” is little more than five minutes of lethargic feeling around. Translation: the guys are drunk as hell. Even the master tape was overserved! There are a couple nice big fat wobbles where the key gets knocked over; our booze cruise hit by waves on the starboard side. Neil can’t even be bothered to sing! If you have little patience for Nils Lofgren bungling that guitar line on the album version, stay home from this bar crawl.

In true Tonight’s The Night fashion, the second disc concludes with a third take (and false start) of the title track. Neil was known to play this number several times a night on the Santa Monica Flyers tour; even torturing a Chicago audience with a reported 34-minute version! Thankfully we’re spared of that criminal run time. What makes “Tonight’s The Night,” though, is the deranged energy to keep it going for half an hour. It either needs the rage of its first appearance on the LP or the sprawled-out dejection of the closer. Neil sounds a world away from his grief on this take. Reserved, even. If this is what an exorcised “Tonight’s The Night” sounds like, I’d like it returned to hell for another round.

Is it as earth-shattering as the fabled David Briggs version might be? No. Is it even as earth-shattering as this material could be? Frankly, no. This anniversary release of Tonight’s The Night can still color in a corner of the LP’s charcoal-smudge history. Good on you, Neil, for even acknowledging this period of your career. It couldn’t have felt comfortable to do. Then again, when has Neil Young ever done the “comfortable” thing?

How does a man revisit some of the worst years of his life? With maybe a little too much restraint, letting a sliver of light into the tank – and even more Jose Cuervo. Too agitated to be stoned, but definitely strange, and all real.