‘Sleeps With Angels’: Behind Neil Young’s Poignant Tribute To Kurt Cobain

The songs: “Where I wanna go is sounds I’ve never done before”

“I keep hearing simplicity. Bare-bones simplicity,” Young told his biographer Jimmy McDonough around the time of the album’s recording. “I don’t want any more ‘two guitars, bass and drums’ for a while… Crazy Horse doesn’t necessarily have to come out and hit you over the head with a club. Where I wanna go is sounds I’ve never done before.”

Ultimately, Sleeps With Angels did eventually make concessions to Crazy Horse’s signature sound on the looming Blue Eden; the furious, overdriven Piece Of Crap; and the 14-minute, Down By The River-esque slow-burner Change Your Mind. Yet, for the most part, Young followed through on his desire to push the boundaries. Accordingly, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro swapped his guitar for piano on around half the album’s tracks, while numerous songs’ sonic palettes were broadened by everything from bass marimbas to vibes, synthesisers and even flute, as heard on the relatively poppy and upbeat Prime Of Life.

The Sleeps With Angels songs, too, remain among the most diverse Young and Crazy Horse have ever recorded together, and they echoed releases from all points on Young’s spectrum. For example, the Americana-flavoured Western Hero and Train Of Love recalled Young’s triumphant 1992 album, Harvest Moon, while the record’s two vulnerable ballads, My Heart and A Dream That Can Last, were characterised by tack piano and could easily have graced After The Gold Rush. Elsewhere – at least in spirit – Driveby’s heartfelt lyric concerning youth cut down in its prime (“Well, he’d borrowed his girlfriend’s car/Went out riding with the boys/Now she’s gone like a shooting star”) carried a poignancy comparable to Rust Never Sleeps’ resonant Powderfinger.

Young went even further on the excellent Safeway Cart, seemingly relishing the opportunity to take sonic risks on this atmospheric, genre-defying song which was later included in the soundtrack to Claire Denis’ 1999 film, Beau Travail. Praising it as “a minor key look at life in the 90s that ranks among Young’s most original creations”, Jimmy McDonough singled Safeway Cart out as “the most adventurous number on the album” and described its creation in his Young biography, Shakey: “Young played minimal guitar at a very low volume on the live track, then overdubbed ‘feedback harmonica’ – his harp played through the Deluxe amp and all his guitar effects.”

The release and legacy: “As bleakly compelling as his mid-70s work”

Making Sleeps With Angels proved to be an emotional process for Neil Young: a situation he confirmed in a 1995 interview with Mojo when he noted that the album “has a lot of overtones to it, from different situations that were described in it – a lot of sad scenes”. Acknowledging that he’d “never really spoken about why I made that album”, he added, “I’ve made a choice not to talk about it and I’m sticking to it.”

However, the fact that Young has largely remained tight-lipped about what inspired Sleeps With Angels has arguably only enhanced its allure. First released on 16 August 1994, the album rose to No.2 in the UK and also made the Billboard Top 10 in the US, going gold in both countries – all despite the absence of major interviews or a supporting tour. Brooding and mournful, Sleeps With Angels displayed all the hallmarks of a left-field classic when it first arrived – and it remains a mandatory listen to this day.

“Kurt Cobain’s suicide note quoted a Young lyric, much to its author’s horror; the title track of Sleeps With Angels was his distressed response,” The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis wrote in a 2020 retrospective of the album, ranking it eighth among the best Neil Young albums of all time. “Elsewhere, this is as bleakly compelling and creepy as his mid-70s work, with Crazy Horse on surprisingly muted form.”

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