After the Gold Rush (song)

Infobox Song
Name = After the Gold Rush


Type = Song
Artist = Neil Young
alt Artist =
Album = After the Gold Rush
Published =
Released = September 19, 1970
track_no = 2
Recorded = March-April, 1970
Genre = Rock
Length = 3:45
Writer = Neil Young
Composer =
Label = Reprise
Producer = Neil Young
David Briggs
Background = #E6E8FA
Tracks =
prev = "Tell Me Why"
prev_no = 1
next = "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
next_no = 3

"After the Gold Rush" is a song written by Neil Young from the 1970 album of the same name. In addition to "After the Gold Rush", it also appears on "Decade", "Greatest Hits" and "Live Rust".

The song contains lyrics often associated with the environment. The three verses are often categorized 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 line "Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s" has been amended by Young in concert over the decades, and currently is sung as "Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 21st century."

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 United Kingdom where it re-charted in the Top 40 in 1982. Other versions have been performed by artists such as Thom Yorke, k. d. lang, The Flaming Lips, Michael Hedges and Natalie Merchant; Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt included it on their "Trio II" album in 1999 .( Dolly Parton's version had the song lyric " I felt like getting high" changed to "I felt like I could cry" with the permission of Neil Young) and during Radiohead's 2003 World Tour, Thom Yorke occasionally played this song solo, usually segueing it into "Everything in Its Right Place". The song has also been covered in live shows by Tori Amos, and by Nana Mouskouri during her 1970s BBC show.

Ms. Parton once commented about the making of her version of the song; "when we were doing the Trio album, I asked Linda and Emmy what it meant, and they didn't know. So we called Neil Young, and he didn't know. We asked him, flat out, what it meant, and he said, 'Hell, I don't know. I just wrote it. It just depends on what I was taking at the time. I guess every verse has something different I'd taken.'

External links

* [http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/lyrics/goldrush.shtml After The Goldrush lyrics at Dolly Parton On-Line]

* [http://www.thrasherswheat.org/fot/atgr.htm Discussion thread on the meaning of the lyrics to "After The Gold Rush" at Thrasher's Wheat] Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Jimmy McDonough, published by Random House in 2002, ISBN 0-679-42772-4