Journey Through the Past’ is the second track of ‘Time Fades Away’, the 1973 Neil Young album consisting of previously unreleased songs, recorded live. At the time it was unprecedented for an artist to release a live concert album of previously unreleased material. According to many critics, the album is the ‘Holy Grail’ of all Neil Young albums for the fans and is still out of print on vinyl and unavailable on CD.
‘Journey Through the Past’, ‘a song without a home’, as Neil Young explains on the recording, is a piano solo and a sister song to ‘After The Goldrush’, because of their melodic similarity. It is a nostalgic wish to go back in time, a sad prayer to recover a good or a loving thing now gone, drawn with a lot of winter imagery and sang with agonizing sincerity and raw emotion. The lyrics are dark and borderline depressive :
‘When the winter rains come pouring down/On that new home of mine/Will I still be in your eyes and on your mind?’
James Mercer, among others (Ugly Casanova, Mason Jennings, Jack Johnson, Love as Laughter) has contributed to the soundtrack of ‘180º South’, a documentary about adventurers in Patagonia directed by Chris Malloy. James has two songs on the soundtrack and one is the cover of ‘Journey through the past’.
It’s not the first time that James Mercer covers a Neil Young song. Some live recordings of him singing ‘Harvest’ and ‘Don’t let it bring you down’ are floating on youtube, and he is excellent each time.
He certainly does not change a lot in the musical arrangements of the song, but his voice gives a new identity to this classic Neil Young ballad.
Whereas the slow and lamenting delivery of Neil Young’s iconic voice brings sadness and heartbreak, James Mercer’s voice is clear, more alive, going up at times, bringing brightness to the point the song becomes a hymn for hope. Mercer also adds a few harmonious and uplifting ooooh just before the last verse of the song where there were only sorrowful and drunken cords.
And, to own completely the song, Neil Young’s line ‘Now I’m goin’ back to Canada’ becomes ‘Now I’m goin’ back to my home town’, the non-Canadian Mercer appropriately changing it to fit to the feeling of the song. Hey, he had already done this for his cover of the Squeeze song!