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List Price: $11.98 | | Label: Reprise Records
Salesrank: 15593
Released: August 16, 1994 |
| Our Price: $2.99 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Sleeps With Angels Track Listing:
1. My Heart
2. Prime of Life
3. Driveby
4. Sleeps With Angels
5. Western Hero
6. Change Your Mind
7. Blue Eden
8. Safeway Cart
9. Train of Love
10. Trans Am
11. Piece of Crap
12. Dream That Can Last
Editorial Review:
Crazy Horse backs Neil Young on his first studio album since .
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 16-AUG-1994
Description of Sleeps With Angels:
If Neil Young has a pronounced weakness, it's a lack of focus. Restless to a fault, he's apt to rush into the recording studio without fully forming his ideas. Sleeps with Angels is that kind of album--and yet it's one of his best. Jarred by the death of Kurt Cobain (the rock & roll martyr quoted Young in his suicide note), he dashed off this collection of songs in 1994 with backing from his steadfast electric warriors, Crazy Horse. At least two songs--the title track and "Change Your Mind"--seem to directly refer to Cobain. Others--"Driveby" and "Safeway Cart" among the most striking--are mesmerizing and gloomy. Still others--"Piece of Crap," "Blue Eden"--are raw and cutting. Goes to show an elegy, no matter how somber, needn't be a hushed affair. --Steven Stolder
Sleeps With Angels Reviews:
Neil Young's heart of gold 
2009-12-09 - Sleeps With Angels is my favorite album by Neil Young and I do understand it may be very surprising to many lovers of this prolific artist. The album was released in 1994 and I grabbed on to it and started listening for a few days and with every next listen I liked it more and more. It is much more of a rock album than many of his other work but to me it still retains and transcends a perfect amount of Neil's superb folk ballad tone. Sleeps With Angels is a lot about love and it contains more songs, spectacular to me, than any other album of Neil Young.
My Heart makes a perfect beginning of this album. It is about human will and optimism and the power of love or something for us to rely on. Love is the best chance we have, that is for sure, and Neil Young one of the greatest examples for us to follow. Prime Of Life is a song about graceful aging. You can find your comfort in older age and on your death bed, but yes, it does depend on the relationship you have established with your own conscience, which by now can be your best friend or worst enemy, I guess. Musically the following song Drive By might be exceeding the preceding one. The title song Sleeps With Angels was written after the death of Kurt Cobain, and it addresses him. Western Hero is a beautiful song mourning the death of the cowboy. And that was before the arrival of George Bush junior that big spender boy. I guess Neil feels even worse now about our good old straight shooting values... Since the structure and sound of this song is so similar to the music of Train Of Love, I choose that later one. Change Your Mind is another gorgeous song with beautifully flowing music and lyrics as always coming straight from the heart. Once again, the topic of love comes back to us, throughout this album. Perhaps that is my attraction to it, because this world could be a better place if we all loved ourselves a tiny bit less and directed that energy towards the ones around us. Blue Eden is musically harder and it really feels like it is directed towards someone real, but I have no details. Try listening to Safeway Cart on repeat a few times. Even this song brings on a special mood. And the repeating line `baby looks so bad with her tv eyes' I can relate to completely and I am glad someone is talking about it, because from the outside, to me, the situation seems fairly obvious but hardly anybody seems to notice the damage. Train Of Love is simply spectacular, on the spiritual level and I love it musically as well. All of the misfortunes in Neil Young's life were turned by him to his advantage. His heart of gold is out in the open for the world to see. Trans Am is another excellent song putting me in almost a trance like mood when I am inside of it for a while. What a trip this song is, lyrically. Neil Young could turn reading vacuum cleaner manufacturer's operating instructions into a beautiful song. Well Neil, I guess they don't call you the grandfather of grunge for nothing, but I don't care that much for your Piece Of Crap. I do agree the commercialism is killing us; traveling abroad is becoming such a bore and the whole commercial world starts looking more and more like a huge wal-mart. Nothing we can do about it, Neil. A Dream That Can Last is a perfect ending song of an intriguing beginning and lyrics full of charm and mystery.
Back in 2003 I have compiled my favorite songs of this beautiful artist and called it:
Neil Young's Heart Of Gold
1. Train Of Love
2. Razor Love
3. Pardon My Heart
4. My Heart
5. Sugar Mountain
6. Comes A Time
7. I Am A Child
8. Sugar Mountain
9. Comes A Time
10. After The Gold Rush
11. Natural Beauty
12. Old Man
13. Change Your Mind
14. Such A Woman
15. Cortez The Killer
16. Without Rings
17. Harvest
18. Trans Am
19. It's A Dream
When Dreams Come Crashing Down Like Trees
2009-07-24 - Sleeps with Angels is one of Neil Young's deepest and best albums. In fairness, it's also one of his weirdest and takes a bit of getting-used-to. If you like the Ditch Trilogy, this one's twice as dark as that (if it seems possible), so it should appeal on that level. Also, since it's completely different than the albums surrounding it, those always hounding artists to do something different rather than ever go back to what they originally excelled at and have the most fun doing should be pleased (in fact, they should be pleased on a stylistic level by most of Neil's records: it's rare that he fully retreads previously covered ground.)
Also like the Ditch-era records, this one was begotten of great pain and sorrow: most famously the death of Kurt Kobain, but also some other dark goings-on in Neil's life at the time of which no one seems to know very much. But what this album does that, say, Tonight's the Night, doesn't do, is to end where it began. Tonight's the Night did this literally--with a repeat of the title track, affectively leaving the album one long wallow in misery and despair, with the griever making no progress to be speak of. Which is all well and good, and can make for compelling listening on occasion, but this album goes somewhere completely different: in spite of the overwhelming darkness that pervades most of the songs, remarkably, the strongest emotion ultimately present in the work is Hope. There is a very definite progression in the album from disheartenment and desperation ("I'm not sure what love can do") to confidence and faith ("there is a better life for me someday"). Nowhere is this more evident than on the album's cover: it shows a figure in silhouette, surrounded by desperate, hellish blacks and reds, but apparently focused on a single tiny fleck of sunshine yellow visible through the smallest of cracks in the abyss surrounding it. This is a precursor and visual accompaniment to the songs on the album.
From the outset the Sleeps with Angels feels like an unannounced concept album, exploring loss, hope, fate, and the twisting pathway life can take:
My Heart, featuring an unusual arrangement dominated by lullingly gentle marimba and tack piano, begins the album and is the first of two songs that bookend it. It offers a kaleidoscopic view into the life of one who has lost all he has ever had and is trying to regain his footing in the tightrope act life has become. With it's beautiful instrumentation and cryptic lyric, this is one of Young's most underrated songs and a strong opener.
It segues into Prime of Life, seemingly a flashback from the previous song to just what the title indicates, yet with some as yet undefined specter of darkness looming distantly. Musically, it's a strong rock song much more in classic Crazy Horse vain than the previous track, but again, Neil forges into new territory with a haunting intermittent flute part, blended strikingly with his edgy guitar licks. The flute, along with some of Neil's most poetic lyrics, is the greatest feature of the song.
The next three songs plunge the listener back into the darkness, examining personal loss in greater depth: Driveby and the titular track in physical terms: the sudden and tragic end of a person's life. Driveby is one of the best songs on the album, with its droning one-word refrain and gentle but ominous piano as well as the intricate drumming back Ralph Molina. It's also the most tragic thing on here, especially when one takes into consideration that it was supposedly inspired by real events in Young's area. Yet even in such unthinkablly awful circumstances, some poetic beauty is found, as Neil points out: "I can't believe a machine gun sings"-- one of his most compelling, chilling, profoundly sad, and beautiful lyrics. "Sleeps with Angles" is said to be the track most influenced by Kobain's death. Much like its immediate predecessor, it is a song of tragic death. Again, however, it is the instrumentation which causes it to stand-out: it's a sudden burst of sound apparently out of nowhere-- a muddle of agitated, searing electric guitars and thumping drums, along with quiet but desperate vocals. It's chaotic and experimental to the maximum but it works, and that it was woven so skillfully into the rest of the album is the most remarkable thing about it.
"Western Hero" takes a look at the less obvious side of loss: what can possibly happen when one loses one's soul, as the Frontier Town hero who betrays his culture, his people, and their cause for a big wad of quick cash. In simplest terms, it's what happens when one sells out. Again, there are lumbering, shattering guitar overtones to remind us what album we're listening to. Present in almost all of the tracks, these serve to hold the album together thematically and sonically, especially here, since the themes and setting (old west) aren't normally associated with electric guitars. They are used expertly here to give the album a sonic unity it might otherwise lack. This is particularly apparent in the last resounding, apocalyptic note as the once-icon of vigilante justice presumably meets his end at the hands of his onetime admirers and supporters.
Next come Change Your Mind and Blue Eden, which I like to think of as collectively the centerpiece of the album: one twenty-minute block of music, near seamless. Change Your Mind, a brilliant 15-minute opus, seems to be the heart of the album: it acknowledges the hopelessness and desperation all-too-often present throughout our lives, and which also dominates the album, but also offers the means to the definitive solution: love. It's a strong lyric but it's key strengths are musical: an addicting, almost pop-like melody with beautiful harmonies with Crazy Horse on the chorus and lengthy bouts of some of the most anguished guitar soloing you are likely to ever here between the four verses. The instrumental sections are masterworks within a masterwork.
This general style carries over to the next song, a jam with a great bluesy groove and the majestic title of Blue Eden. This seems to be a bridge between the previous tracks and the ones to come, as it mixes and matches lyrics from three of the songs into a loose fabric apparently about death, loss, and dealing with both. At times it seems to be a representation of the album as perceived by someone in an altered state of consciousness. Perhaps delirious and dying, leaving this world for a supposed next, as suggested by the lines lifted from the upcoming Train of Love: "We come and go that way, my friend"? At times, Young's voice is overcome and smothered by a mess of buzzing, squealing electric guitars, as if whoever he is speaking to can no longer hear him. It's a great arrangement, pained and almost painful at times with vivid guitar solos.
The next track almost seems like the start of a new album, less heavy-handed, obscure, and eccentric, and more general in theme and content. Safeway Cart, however, continues the study of loss, this time on a cultural and societal scale: of those unfortunate enough to live in the world's many impoverished communities, and the opportunities they are often sadly robbed off simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong. The song is a musical portrait of a "ghetto dawn" and one of the best. There are strains of distorted guitar; anguished distant background vocals; and a hypnotically repetitive chord sequence. It's a fascinating song and one of the most experimental things on an experimental album and a minor classic. And with a dim allusion to a happy ending in sight ("just keep rolling on till the ghetto dawn") it ushers in this new portion of the album tentatively but hopefully.
The next two tracks, Train of Love and Trans Am are musically contrasting but lyrically of the same fabric: explorations of the long, twisting, and unpredictable pathways life and, eventually, death take. Train of Love (which, for unknown reasons, reprises the melody of Western Hero) is an acknowledgment of and resignation to this truth and the fact that we as human beings cannot control it. Beneath the beautiful poetry, there is a lulling piano, and, again, unsettling guitar licks over the countermelody, reminding everyone just where we are. As far as why the melody is repeated, I don't know, though I think this song makes better use of it and is generally the superior lyric. Sometimes it does seem as though there are intentional similarities to the words, especially during the countermelody verse (..."never going back.")
In "Trans Am" Most immediately, I was taken with the melody and arrangement, especially the driving guitars. But the lyrics are again excellent, though cryptic, especially through the second verse, examining how changes of fate can occur in the blink of an eye and just how twisted the path of life, as represented by the titular object, can be. Like the old car it references, the song "crawls along the boulevard" ominously, the gear box grinding, tires screeching, with the rider having no way of knowing which way it will turn next.
Then comes Piece of Crap, a grungy intermission with a garage band-feel. It's often been called--not innacurately--an "ecological Welfare Mothers"--and is indeed a rail against the environmental degradation often allowed to go on around us, as well as the sad fact that " they cut the forest down to build a piece of crap" with increasing frequency these days. The theme of frustration and depression continues, but at much more of a surface level, rather than the depth of the previous songs. It's also a momentary sort of thing, rather than the deeper, more drawn-out suffering suggested by other numbers.
Then--out of the blue--with one swipe of the hand across the guitar strings--the album is back where it started, with tack piano and marimba, with the concluding bookend. A Dream that Can Last is the very best song on the album--narrowly beating out Driveby, Change Your Mind, and Safeway Cart, not necessarily in that order. Not only is the arrangement shimmeringly beautiful and absolutely exquisite, but the lyric is sheer and complete poetry: a wonderful, marvelous image of an afterlife that makes all the pain and suffering throughout this one worth while and offers hope to even the most destitute among us, those who cannot find any on earth. And yet the song is ambiguous enough to suggest that the "better life for me someday" may well be set to take place on this planet. Either way, the song is one of immense hope and renewal, which, against, all expectations, defines the album.
What was once a collection of the dark and depressing suddenly becomes an ode to hope, but for love the most valuable of all things to be found in life. And that, in spite of the darkness that utterly pervades 11 of the 12 songs, becomes the strongest, most lingering emotion present on the album and the one to which the listener responds with the greatest intensity. Ultimately, despite it's overwhelming darkness, Sleeps with Angels ends up as a grand monument to hope, which easily bears repeated listening.
This is one of Neil Young's most unique albums--a mix of grunge, rock, poetry, and even new age elements at times--and also in my opinion one of his most underrated and best-ever. Every thing from the lyrics to the completely unique arrangements and sequencing of the tracks works to form one wonderfully cohesive work of art. I would certainly recommend that any fan who hasn't had the pleasure of hearing it should do so as soon as he or she can. It is one of the greatest testaments to his unique art since we were given the likes of After the Goldrush and Harvest. This is an acquired taste--like all of Neil's work--but once acquired, rest assured you'll return to it not infrequently to say the least.
Much like Young's vision of paradise, "the cupboards are bear but the streets are paved with gold."
It was a piece of crap. PIECE OF CRAP! 
2009-07-03 - I'm a huge Neil Young fan and when I read some of the bad reviews I didn't believe them. I thought Neil Young could never make such a bad album, but he did. Two good or decent songs on the album. Would I recommend this cd? No. Should you buy it if your a huge Neil Young fan? Yes. Don't let people tell you if somethings bad, find out yourself. The whole album is muffled and your forced to blast it. If you want a good Neil Young album buy Mirror Ball.
A.BOMBER PERTH,WESTERN AUSTRALIA
2008-08-20 - Sleeps With Angels
THIS ALBUM WAS NOT GIVEN A LOT OF GOOD REVIEWS BY THE CRITICS(?).MAYBE THEY ONLY LOOK AT SONGS OF SO-CALLED COMMERCIAL VALUE....
MY TAKE ON THIS (AND THIS CD ) IS MOST "MIDDLE OF THE ROAD" POP MUSIC IS CRAP,SO LISTEN TO A SINGER-SONGWRITER WHOSE LYRICS AND MUSIC MEAN SOMETHING.THAT MY FRIENDS IS NEIL YOUNG...AND ALTHOUGH THIS ALBUM WAS NOT ONE I HAD 'TIL RECENTLY...IT'S GREAT!!AFTER NEIL RE-INVENTED HIMSELF WITH FREEDOM,AND RAGGED GLORY,IN THE LATE 80'S AND EARLY 90'S,SLEEPS WITH ANGELS MAY NOT HAVE CONTINUED THE SAME VEIN,WITH THE DIVERSION OF GRUNGE IDOL,KURT COBAIN'S UNTIMELY DEATH NO DOUBT A REASON FOR THIS CD.
MY HEART AND PRIME OF LIFE ARE TERRIFIC BALLADS,DRIVEBY,A BIT OF A COMMENTARY OF LIFE,AND OF COURSE HE DOES HAVE AT LEAST TWO TRACKS TO COMMEMORATE THE SAD PASSING OF A TROUBLED MUSICIAN,STARTING WITH "SLEEPS WITH ANGELS"
AS HE DOES,NEIL THROWS IN AN UP-TEMPO PIECE ABOUT SOCIAL INJUSTICE (PIECE OF CRAP),AND THIS DOES SHOW HIS MANY MOODS ,BUT MOSTLY HOW HE HAS LIVED AND LOVED LIFE,AND STAYED RELATABLE FOR 30 ODD YEARS.
LONG MAY HE RUN!!
Grungy And Not Exactly What I expect from Neil 
2007-03-21 - I don't want to totally put down "Sleeps With Angels", but I'm not overly impressed. Unless you are a really big Neil Young buff, you probably won't like this.
I found tracks 1 and 12 quite cheesy. Tracks 2-3, 5-6 and 9 are pretty good. I found tracks 4 and 10 to have some good qualities, but majorly lacking. And I really didn't "get" tracks 7-8 and 11 at all. The tracks seem to rotate between dark/grungy and corny!
This album is quite different than what you might be used to from Neil Young. Unless you are part of a small segment of hardcore fans, you are better off getting something else. Neil Young has a lot of good stuff. If this is the first Neil Young CD you hear, you may be lead to discount him to easily. In that case, do your self a favour and get something else.
