My favorite Neil Young cover ever

I don't really wanna stray from this week's glorious Neil Young theme, so let me tell you all about my deep affection for the late and lovely Nicolette Larson's rendition of "Lotta Love" (mp3 available at Art Decade). I'd forgotten the cover existed till a few months ago, when I heard it playing on some lite-and-easy station during a rush-hour drive back from the beach. But I'm pretty sure it sounds sweeter to me now than when I first heard it as a little kid: There's something so ineffably charming about the way Nicolette twists Neiler's flannel-y old guitar ballad into this late-70s country-pop confection that's more than a little bit saccharin (OMG, the sax and keyboards and the flute solo!) - and yet somehow stays true-blue to the spirit of the original. I want badly to use it in a movie or something, most likely in some kind of scene involving a tinny little radio playing in a roadside diner where the waitresses have to wear Pepto-Bismol-pink uniforms like Trudy's in Gas Food Lodging.

So yeah, I don't know where this performance comes from, but the set's so making me long for those Saturday nights when I was five or six and my cousins and I used to eat Jiffy Pop with butter and black pepper and watch Solid Gold (followed by Silver Spoons and Facts of Life and, if we were lucky and got to stay up extra-late, The Love Boat). Those were the days, y'all.

P.S. If you're simply dying to know my second-favorite Neil Young cover ever, allow me to end the suspense right now: It's Juliana Hatfield's version of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart."

Posted by Liz in Music
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