Neil Young Debuts 53 Years Ago

Debut Album Writing Prompt

Photo by Batu Özmen on Unsplash

So Pierce McIntyre issued another challenge a couple of days ago. He’s getting quite good at this, fueling our minds with all the “where were we when” instigations to check out our memories and minds. Here’s what he wrote:

Plethora Of Pop Writing Challenge: Favorite Debut Albums

So Pierce and the rest of you — challenge accepted, now “step aside and open wide.”

Which is a line from my favorite song (“The Loner”) on Neil Young’s ’68 debut, an album simply titled Neil Young, as if we all knew what this would be about. In 1968, I, for one, knew nothing about him, and I certainly wasn’t aware that this record existed, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known that this Canadian artist had just abandoned his primary band, Buffalo Springfield. I thought, actually, about featuring the Springfield’s 1966 debut album, Buffalo Springfield, but while I did know its signature song and anthemic 60’s hit, “For What It’s Worth,” (though my favorite song on that record is “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” a Neil tune) and had likely seen the band somewhere (though likely not its appearance on “The…