#83 After the Gold Rush by Neil Young

The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time

2025 Album Rank

83

2011 Album Rank

78

Total Points

778

Year Released

1970

Billboard 200 Chart Peak

8

Weeks at #1

N/A

RIAA Sales Certification

2,000,000 (Multi Platinum)

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After the Gold Rush Album Details

Released in September 1970, After the Gold Rush is Neil Young's third solo album and one of his most beloved and enduring works. A deeply personal and introspective collection, it blends folk, country, and rock with surreal, often cryptic lyrics that explore love, environmental decay, aging, and disillusionment. The album features a stripped-down, intimate sound built around acoustic guitar, piano, and Young's fragile, high-pitched vocals, giving it a haunting and timeless quality.

Standout tracks like "Southern Man", "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and the plaintive title track reflect both the social unrest of the era and Young's increasingly inward gaze. The album also marked the beginning of his long collaboration with Crazy Horse and featured contributions from a young Nils Lofgren. After the Gold Rush cemented Young's reputation as a singular voice in American songwriting, and it remains a touchstone of early '70s folk-rock raw, poetic, and uncompromisingly authentic.

Interesting Facts about After the Gold Rush

• The album was inspired by a never-produced screenplay of the same name by Dean Stockwell and Herb Bermann, which Neil Young had read and hoped to score.
• Young was just 24 years old when he recorded the album, yet it grapples with themes of aging, regret, and apocalypse.
• "Southern Man" is a blistering critique of racism in the American South, which later prompted a famous musical response from Lynyrd Skynyrd in "Sweet Home Alabama".
• The album was recorded in Young's basement studio at his home in Topanga Canyon, giving it a lo-fi, homespun charm.
• Pianist Nils Lofgren, only 18 at the time, played on several tracks despite not being a trained pianist. He later became a key member and guitarist of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
• The song "After the Gold Rush" features vivid, dreamlike imagery and ends with the line "flying mother nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun", often interpreted as a post-apocalyptic vision of humanity's escape from Earth.
• The album was initially met with mixed reviews, but has since been critically reevaluated.
• Despite its folk leanings, the album has a surprising amount of musical variety, from the honky-tonk of "When You Dance I Can Really Love" to the stark minimalism of "Birds".
• After the Gold Rush helped solidify Young's "loner poet" persona, setting the tone for his introspective work throughout the 1970s.
• The cover photo, featuring a solarized image of Young walking past an old woman in Greenwich Village, became an iconic visual representation of the album's themes of time and decay.
• The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014 for its cultural and historical significance.

After the Gold Rush Tracklist

1. Tell Me Why
2. After the Gold Rush
3. Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Reached #33 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart
4. Southern Man
5. Till the Morning Comes
6. Oh Lonesome Me
7. Don't Let it Bring You Down
8. Birds
9. When You Dance I Can Really Love
10. I Believe in You
11. Cripple Creek Ferry

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