Neil Young has a lot of ghosts. Some of them died, like Danny Whitten or Bruce Berry, but others were just ghosts of a life he couldn't handle anymore. In 1975, he had an album ready to go. It was called Homegrown. The cover art was finished. The tapes were mastered. It was the "big" follow-up everyone wanted after the massive success of Harvest.
Then, at the very last second, he killed it.
He played the tapes at a party, supposedly at the Chateau Marmont. On the same reel, there was another unreleased album called Tonight’s the Night. Rick Danko of The Band was there, leaning against a wall, listening. According to the legend, Danko told Neil that Tonight’s the Night was the one. It was raw, it was drunken, and it was real. Neil looked at neil young homegrown album, a record that laid bare his agonizing breakup with actress Carrie Snodgress, and he just couldn't do it.
"It was a little too personal," Neil said later. "It scared me."
The missing link between Harvest and the Ditch
For decades, fans talked about this record like it was some kind of Holy Grail. We had bits and pieces. "Love is a Rose" showed up on the Decade compilation. "Star of Bethlehem" ended up on American Stars 'n Bars. But the full picture remained a total mystery until 2020.
Honestly, hearing it now, you realize how much it changes the narrative of his mid-70s "Ditch Trilogy." Most people think of that era as purely dark and muddy. But neil young homegrown album is surprisingly warm. It’s mostly acoustic. It’s got that Nashville professional sheen in spots, thanks to Elliot Mazer, but the lyrics are like an open wound.
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Why it stayed in the vault
The real reason it stayed hidden wasn't just that it was "down." Neil’s music is always down. It was the specific type of sadness. This wasn't the "I'm a rockstar and I'm lonely" vibe of On the Beach. This was the "my family is falling apart and I can't look at these songs without seeing her face" vibe.
He didn't want to live in that headspace. He chose the chaos of Tonight’s the Night over the intimacy of neil young homegrown album. It was a survival tactic. He put the tapes on a shelf and didn't touch them for forty-five years. Think about that. Most artists would kill for these songs, and he just... forgot about them. Sorta.
A track-by-track look at the wreckage
The album opens with "Separate Ways." It hits you immediately. The drums are played by Levon Helm, and they have that signature thud-heavy Band sound.
- Separate Ways: A devastating opener about the end of a relationship.
- Try: Features backing vocals by Emmylou Harris. It’s hopeful, which makes it even sadder.
- Mexico: Just Neil and a piano. It’s barely two minutes long.
- Florida: This is the weirdest thing on the record. It’s a spoken-word hallucination about a glider crash, accompanied by the sound of people rubbing the rims of wine glasses. It’s disquieting.
- White Line: A version appeared later on Ragged Glory, but this acoustic duet with Robbie Robertson is the definitive one.
The title track, "Homegrown," is actually the outlier. It's a goofy, funky tribute to weed. It feels like a breather in the middle of a funeral. You've got Karl T. Himmel on drums and Tim Drummond on bass—the "Stray Gators" crew that made Harvest so iconic.
The E-E-A-T of Homegrown: Is it actually a masterpiece?
Music critics like Cameron Crowe and biographers like Jimmy McDonough (Shakey) have spent years trying to figure out where this fits. Is it a masterpiece? Well, it’s not as "complete" as After the Gold Rush. It feels fragmentary. Some songs are under two minutes.
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But that’s the point.
When your life is shattering, it doesn't happen in neat, five-minute radio hits. It happens in bursts of "Kansas" and "Mexico." It happens in messy blues jams like "We Don’t Smoke It No More."
The 2020 release was mastered from the original analog tapes by John Hanlon. They didn't polish it. They didn't add digital fixes. It sounds like 1975. You can hear the hiss. You can hear the room. That's what makes it feel so human.
What most people get wrong about the delay
People think Neil held it back because he was being "difficult" or "contrarian." That’s the easy answer. But if you look at his letters on the Neil Young Archives, he genuinely feels bad about it now. He wrote, "I should have shared it. It's actually beautiful."
He wasn't trying to be a genius. He was just a guy who was hurting and wanted to move on to the next thing, which happened to be the Zuma sessions with Crazy Horse. He traded the introspection of neil young homegrown album for the volume of a Les Paul through a Whizzer-controlled amp.
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How to listen to Homegrown today
If you’re coming to this for the first time, don't expect Harvest 2. Expect something more fragile.
- Listen to it on vinyl or high-res audio if you can. The analog warmth is the whole point.
- Pair it with On the Beach. They are two sides of the same coin.
- Read the lyrics to "Star of Bethlehem" while you listen. It’s the perfect closer. "All your dreams and your lovers won't protect you."
Basically, the neil young homegrown album is a time capsule. It’s a glimpse of a Neil Young that almost existed—the sensitive folkie who stayed in Nashville. Instead, he took the turn into the ditch, and we got fifty years of "Rust Never Sleeps" instead. It was a fair trade, but man, these songs are haunting.
If you want to understand the "missing link" in 70s rock history, this is it. No more rumors. No more bootlegs. Just the music.
Next Steps for the Listener:
Head over to the Neil Young Archives (NYA) website. It is the only place where you can see the original handwritten tracklists and the "Homegrown" film canisters. Compare the version of "White Line" on this album to the version on Ragged Glory to see how 15 years changed Neil's perspective on the same set of lyrics.