07 Dave Marsh评《Tonight's the Night》

Dave Marsh（1950.03.01 - ），美国记者、乐评人，出版有各类著作二十余种，任摇滚名人堂（Rock and Roll Hall of Fame）评委会成员。

本文系Dave Marsh给Neil Young的专辑《Tonight's the Night》所写的评论，原刊于《滚石》（Rolling Stone，1975）。原文见：https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/tonights-the-night-2-98967/

“I’m sorry. You don’t know these people. This means nothing to you.” — Neil Young, in the liner notes.

“抱歉，你不了解这些人。这对你来说毫无意义。”——Neil Young，在唱片封套内页中写道

Tonight’s the Night finds Neil Young on his knees at the top of the heap, struggling to get back to his feet. The musical difficulties of last year’s On the Beach have been resolved as directly as possible by a return to recording with Crazy Horse and Nils Lofgren, with whom Young recorded his 1970 masterpiece, After the Gold Rush.

《Tonight’s the Night》表明Neil Young正跪在顶峰之上，竭力振作起来。与Crazy Horse和Nils Lofgren一道重返录音室后（Young曾与他们合作录制他那张1970年的杰作《After the Gold Rush》），在去年的《On the Beach》上出现过的音乐难题，已尽可能直接地得到了解决。

Yet even Crazy Horse isn’t what it once was: Lead guitarist Danny Whitten died last year of a drug overdose. The track on which he appears, “Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown,” recorded at Fillmore East four years ago, serves as a metaphor for the album’s haunted, frightened emotional themes. Musically, Whitten’s guitar and voice complement, challenge and inspire Young. The rest of the album strains to keep up.

然而，即便是Crazy Horse本身也已经物是人非：主音吉他手Danny Whitten，去年因药物滥用而离开人世。他有份参与的曲目《Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown》，四年前录制于Fillmore East，也是这张专辑忧心忡忡、担惊受怕的情感主题之隐喻。音乐上，Whitten的吉他与演唱，对Young而言既是补充、亦是挑战、又有启发。专辑中的其他曲目则尽力紧随其后。

It does so only occasionally but the effort is almost quixotically exhilarating. The successes — the ironic “Tired Eyes,” the deceptively sweet “Albuquerque,” the thunderous “Lookout Joe” and the two versions of the title song — are Young’s best music since Gold Rush. Lofgren’s guitar and piano are forceful and direct, Ralph Molina’s drumming apt on both the rockers and the weepers (the latter driven by Ben Keith’s steel guitar). Young’s playing, on piano, harp and guitar, is simple but constantly charged.

这种情况只是偶尔出现，但其努力几乎有种堂吉诃德式的令人欣喜之感。那些成功的部分——比如讽刺的《Tired Eyes》，带有迷惑性的甜腻味道的《Albuquerque》，如雷般轰鸣的《Lookout Joe》以及两个版本的专辑同名曲——是Young自《Gold Rush》以来的最佳手笔。Lofgren的吉他和钢琴演奏有力且直接，Ralph Molina打出的鼓声同时适配于摇滚者和哭泣者（后者由Ben Keith的钢棒吉他领航）。Young的钢琴、口琴和吉他演奏，简单却感情充沛。

Still, the album shares with On the Beach a fully developed sense of despair: The stargazer of “Helpless” finds no solace here. The music has a feeling of offhand, first-take crudity matched recently only by Blood on the Tracks, almost as though Young wanted us to miss its ultimate majesty in order to emphasize its ragged edge of desolation. “Borrowed Tune,” for example, is set against Young’s stark harp and piano. The tandem guitar and bass on the opening version of the title song sounds like the crack of doom itself and Young’s singing — especially on the concluding version — alternates between sheer panic and awful Old Testament threat. “Tonight’s the night,” he shouts, threats, begs, moans and curses, telling the story of roadie Bruce Berry, who ODed “out on the mainline.” Sometimes it feels as though Young is still absorbing the shock of his friend’s death, sometimes as though he is railing against mortality itself, sometimes as though he’s accepted it. But never as though he believes it.

虽然如此，这张专辑仍与《On the Beach》一样，弥漫着高度的绝望氛围：《Helpless》中的占星师，不会在此找到慰藉。这音乐有一种即兴感和一次完成的粗糙感，在近期作品中只有《Blood on the Tracks》与之相类似；几乎像是Young希望我们忽略音乐的至高权威，以便强调其中哀伤情绪的参差边缘。以《Borrowed Tune》为例，这首歌曲完全建构于Young那荒凉朴素的口琴和钢琴演奏之上。在开场版本的专辑同名曲中，吉他与贝斯的并肩而行，听上去像是厄运之声；Young的歌声——特别是在终场版本中——在绝对的恐慌情绪与可怕的《旧约》凶兆气息之间交替轮转。“今夜正是时候，”他如此叫喊、威胁、乞求、呻吟和诅咒，讲述着随团技工[1]Bruce Berry的故事；据他所唱，Berry死于“在静脉里漫游”[2]。我们偶尔感到，Young似乎仍在消化朋友的死讯引起的震惊；偶尔，他也似乎在抗拒生命的大限本身；偶尔，他又似乎已经接受了大限。但他从未似曾相信大限将至。

[1] 原文“roadie”，专指乐队巡演时随团旅行、负责乐器管理的技术人员。

[2] 原句“out on the mainline”，类似的说法常是毒品注射的代称。

More than any of Young’s earlier songs and albums — even the despondent On the Beach and the mordant, rancorous Time Fades Away — Tonight’s the Night is preoccupied with death and disaster. Dedicated to the dead Berry and Whitten, its cover, liner and label are starkly black and white. The characters of the songs are shell-shocked, losers, wasted, insane, homeless — except for the ones who are already corpses. The happiest man in any of them, the father in “New Mama,” acknowledges that he’s “living in a dreamland.” Ultimately, he too is tracked down by the ghosts from outside as he sits staring out at his frozen lake.

比Young此前的歌曲与专辑更甚——即便是比之悲观沮丧的《On the Beach》和尖酸刻薄、充满仇恨的《Time Fades Away》——《Tonight’s the Night》完全沉浸在死亡和不幸之中。这张献给死者Berry与Whitten的专辑，其封面、内页和标签都是毫无修饰的黑白色调。歌曲中的角色，都是因难关而焦虑者，以及失败者、成瘾者、疯癫者、流浪者——也有例外，那就是死者。其中最快乐的人，是《New Mama》中的父亲；他坦承，自己正“活在梦幻之乡”。最后，端坐凝视自己（内心）那片冰湖时，他也被外部的幽灵找上身来了。

Young is simultaneously terrified by this pernicious landscape and fascinated by the disgust and lust it evokes. The only resolution seems to be ennui and the ritual of the music, which pounds incessantly, until the sanity of everything, including (or maybe especially) the singer and the listener, is called into question. Tonight’s the night, all right, but for what? Just another kick?

Young被这种恶性景象吓倒了，同时也着迷于其引发的厌恶和欲望。唯一的出路似乎令人倦怠，音乐的仪式也是如此；它不间断地发出重击，直至所有人的理智，包括（或许尤其是）歌手与听众，都被拽进一个问题之中。今夜正是时候，好吧，但，是什么的时候？只是再受一次打击吗？

Searching for a way to make sense of it, a lost Raymond Chandler story, “Red Wind,” offers a clue: “It was one of those hot, dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.” This is desert music, for certain, and the roughest part of the desert at that.

寻觅足以理清这个问题的方法之时，一篇遗落的Raymond Chandler小说《Red Wind》可提供一条线索：“就是那些灼热、干燥的圣塔安娜风[3]，滚落山间隘口，卷曲你的头发，使你神经跳动、皮肤发痒。在那样的晚上，每个豪饮派对都以一场打斗告终。温顺的小媳妇一边试探着餐刀的刃口，一边研究着他们丈夫的脖颈。万事皆有可能。”这是属于沙漠的音乐，当然，更是属于沙漠之中环境最恶劣的地带的音乐。

[3] 圣塔安娜风（Santa Anas）是一种典型的南加州季节性强风。其为强烈、干燥的下坡风，有“魔鬼风”之称，因煽动地区野火而臭名昭著。

What finally happens, in “Tired Eyes,” is material for a novel; in fact, as Bud Scoppa has pointed out elsewhere, the similarity to the plot of Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers — a novel which shares Young’s obsession with heroin and the refuse of the war — is startling. “Well, he shot four men in a cocaine deal,” Young sings matter-of-factly. “He left ’em lyin’ in an open field/ Full of old cars with bullet holes in the mirrors.”

《Tired Eyes》里最终上演的，是一本小说里的素材；事实上，如Bud Scoppa在别处指出，它令人吃惊地近似于Robert Stone的《Dog Soldiers》之情节。这本小说与Young对海洛因和反战情绪的着迷相一致。“嗯，他在一个可卡因交易现场射杀了四人，”Young实事求是地唱道。“他将这几人留在一片旷野上/ 那儿摆满了旧车，后视镜上布满了弹孔。”

The whole album has pointed to this, song after song building the tightness with the endless repetition of phrases — musical and lyric — until the rasp of the guitars on the rockers and the sweetness of the singing on the weepers begins to grate, aching for release. Young’s whole career may have been spent in pursuit of this story — remember the sinister black limousines lurking in the shadows of “Mr. Soul” and “Broken Arrow”? — but it is only now that he has found a way to tell the tale so directly.

整张专辑就是指向于此，一首首歌曲以无尽反复的词汇——音乐词汇与文字词汇——建构起那种紧密质感，直至摇滚者手中吉他的刮擦声以及哭泣者歌声中的甜腻感开始使人烦躁，也使人渴望解脱。Young的整个生涯也许都在追随这个故事——还记得《Mr. Soul》和《Broken Arrow》中，那辆潜伏于阴影之下、予人不祥预感的黑色豪华轿车吗？只不过如今他找到了方法，将这个故事如此直接地诉诸听众而已。

Much has been made of Young’s turn from pretty melodies on the last three albums. On this album, there are hints of the same kind of beauty that, overused, finally bloated Harvest with its own saccharine excesses. “World on a String” and “Roll Another Number” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on that album, except that they would have exploded its pretensions.

很多东西构成了Young从漂亮旋律到过去三张专辑的转变。在这张专辑中，仍有少量同类的美妙；对那种美妙的滥用，最终导致《Harvest》因其煽情之过度而显得浮肿。将《World on a String》和《Roll Another Number》放在那张专辑中也不显突兀，除了它们定会引爆那张专辑的做作氛围。

If the songs here aren’t pretty, they are tough and powerful, with a metallic guitar sound more akin to the abrasiveness of the Rolling Stones than the placid harmonies of CSNY. The melodies haven’t disappeared (as they seemed to on On the Beach), but they are only sketched in, hints of what could be.

即便认为专辑中的歌曲并不漂亮，它们也是强硬、有力的；金属质感的吉他声响，比之CSNY[4]的安宁和声，更接近于the Rolling Stones的粗粝。那些旋律并没有消失（而在《On the Beach》中，似乎是的），但它们只是以素描之姿呈现，暗示各种可能性。

[4] CSNY，由David Crosby、Stephen Stills、Graham Nash和Neil Young组成的民谣组合。

There is no sense of retreat, no apology, no excuses offered and no quarter given. If anything, these are the old ideas with a new sense of aggressiveness. The jitteriness of the music, its sloppy, unarranged (but decidedly structured) feeling is clearly calculated. The music draws us in, with the wonderful guitar line crashing through the ominous “Lookout Joe,” with the steel guitar on “Albuquerque,” the almost folkish suggestion of melody that drives “Tired Eyes” but — and here is where it is new — it also spits us back out again, makes us look at the ugliness on the surface and beneath it.

没有撤退之意，没有道歉、没有借口，也没有让步半分。非要说有，这些也是带有新的攻击性的旧想法。音乐中的神经质，及其草率、未经安排（但明显有所组织）的感觉，无疑是蓄意为之。音乐将我们拉进其世界，依靠的是纵贯了不祥的《Lookout Joe》的精彩吉他线条，是《Albuquerque》中的钢棒吉他，是主导了《Tired Eyes》、近乎民乐口吻而并不显眼的旋律，同时——这也是新意之处——音乐又将我们吐出其世界，让我们得以看到它表里的丑陋。

Yet the musical change doesn’t reflect a similar toughening of subject matter, though that is what the casual listener might think. The tensions have always been there. only they are now unrelieved. To suggest, as some have, that Young’s current music is an apology for the sweetness of his success — much less to suggest that he has only recently discovered a world in opposition to the rock scene — is to ignore the bulk of his work. The titles alone tell the story: “Broken Arrow,” “Out of My Mind,” “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (with no hint that anything can mend it again), even “Helpless.” “Ohio,” Young’s other great CSNY contribution, speaks explicitly of the same horrors: “What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground/ How can you run when you know?” Finally, those four dead in “Ohio” equate directly with the four dead coke dealers in “Tired Eyes”: casualties in different battles of the same war.

但音乐上的转变并未反映出专辑主题也得到了同样的强化，虽然普通听众可能会如此认为。张力始终在此，只是它们如今未有减轻。若要说（确实有人这样说过）Young如今的音乐是对其成功之甜蜜的道歉——更不用提，若要说他最近才发现了一个与摇滚圈子相对立的世界——那就是对他大多数作品的忽视。那些歌曲标题本身就说明了问题：《破碎的箭》（Broken Arrow）、《我疯了》（Out of My Mind）、《人尽皆知这是个穷乡僻壤》（Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere）、《只有爱能令你心碎》（Only Love Can Break Your Heart），这标题也在暗示，没有东西能再次将心补全；还有《无助》（Helpless）。《Ohio》，Young为CSNY奉献的另一杰作，明确道出同样的恐惧：“若你了解她，看见她尸首横陈于地，你会如何/ 你知道后，怎可能逃避？”《Ohio》中的四位死者终于与《Tired Eyes》中的四个毒贩直接等同起来：是不同战场上的死伤者，但都是为了同一场战争。

All of this is half incoherent because all of the names Young could put to it are clichés. It is the measure of Young’s achievement that when he sings, so calmly it’s spooky, “Please take my advice/ Open up the tired eyes,” it brings this message home to us in a new way. Suddenly the evil is no longer banal but awful and ironic, in simultaneous recognition that the advice is silly, or that if taken, it might not help or it might only aid in enlarging the wounds.

这一切都半是互不相干的，因为Young能够放置其上的名堂皆是老生常谈。Young的成就得以如此估量：当他如此冷静地歌唱以至令人毛骨悚然，“请听取我的建议/ 睁开那双疲惫的眼睛”[5]，此即以一种新的方式将这个信息传递给我们。这个魔鬼突然不再陈腐了，而是可怕、讽刺的，同时意识到那个建议是愚蠢的，或者说若它为人听取也无补于事，或是只能补于扩大创伤。

[5] 出自专辑第11首曲目《Tired Eyes》。

Crying over the death of his real and imagined friends, Neil Young seems at once heroic and mock heroic, brave and absurd. Like the best of both, he leaves us as he found us, ravaged but rocking.

在因自己现实和想象中的朋友离世而哭喊时，Neil Young似乎既是个英雄、又嘲笑英雄气概，既勇敢、又可笑。就如两者都做到最好一样，他找到了我们、又离开了我们；他身受重创，却仍在摇滚。